The belated wandering of Tours

Was still not feeling that enthusiastic about going outside, given that the weather was still pretty crappy, but I didn't have any food in the apartment - so, went and got some bread and other things and made myself something to eat. I felt better pretty much straight away, and decided to go wandering.

Found this church, the Basilica of Saint Martin. It was undergoing restoration, so I couldn't see too much of it.

This is another building nearby; I believe they used to be part of a bigger complex.

There wasn't anyone inside, so I wasn't entirely sure if I was even supposed to be in there, so I didn't do much looking around. A pity; it looks impressive.

I walked back along the riverbank and took some pictures to show how high the water was.

Came across this fountain.

This is Tours Cathedral.

This thing is a Baba...something. I thought it looked interesting. It's soaked in rum and was quite strong-flavoured, even thought I suspect it was non-alcholic.

Now for the Tours Musée des Beaux-Arts

This is a very bad picture of Rembrandt's The Flight into Egypt, thanks to the terrible lighting and layout they have here. It's easily the worst museum I've been in for that. And it's not just bad for photos (which I don't consider that unreasonable); it's hard to even seen some paintings because of the amount of light they let onto the surface. AnywaSee a better version of it here.

Flaming Jesus - The Resurrection by Andrea Mantegna. It has an oddly modern feel to it, even though it was painted in the mid-15th century. More here.

"Try the foie gras. Freshest you'll get!"
"Uh, no. I'm good."

I've become fascinated by marble and the different colours it comes in.

The hat is at a rakish angle; the rake at a hattish angle.

I'm not entirely sure why I took this one. Maybe the shade of the paint?

They had quite a pretty garden, too.

Picasso's The Couple. Again, not easy to photograph. Also, the staff at this particular museum wore the worst of anywhere I've been – not just in France, in the world. I mean, they generally disapprove of you; that's a given. But here they were almost nasty, which is just awful. In a world where people are less and less interested in fine art we don't need snide creeps dissuading them from visiting galleries with their behaviour.

Gare Tours, a quite nice-looking train station.

For dinner I went to a place just around the corner from my apartment; it had a very rustic feel about it, which I hadn't come across anywhere in France so far – I ended up having a kind of baked ham with an onion concoction that was one of the tastiest thing I'd had. And then, given it was my last night in France, I had to have bread and cheese. And this time it was good cheese – a camembert and a chèvre that actually had some zing to it.

And then it was home to pack. Well, pack and stress about trains. Though hopefully for the last damn time, at least in France.