At the head of rue Nationale , Tours' main street, statues of Descartes and Rabelais overlook the Loire. A short walk back from the river and you come to the church of St Julien , whose old monastic buildings are home to two of the town's most compelling museums.

 

The Musée de Compagnonnage is housed in the eleventh-century guesthouse and sixteenth-century monks' dormitory at 8 rue Nationale (mid-June to mid-Sept daily 9am-6.30pm; rest of year daily except Tues 9am-noon & 2-5/6pm; 25F/¬3.81). Here, for once, the people who built - rather than ordered - the châteaux and cathedrals are celebrated. In addition to documents of the origins and militant activity of the compagnonnage (the guilds), you can see masterpieces (in the original sense of the term) of various crafts, from cake-making and carpentry to locksmithery and bricklaying, with their relevant tools exhibited alongside.

The Musée des Vins in the twelfth-century cellars of the abbey at 16 rue Nationale (daily except Tues 9am-noon & 2-6pm; 15F/¬2.29) takes you through a comprehensive treatment of the history, mythology and production of wine, though there's nothing on recent technical innovations and no quaffing to look forward to. Behind the museum, a Gallo-Roman winepress from Cheillé sits in the former cloisters of the church.

If you take a left into rue Colbert and right into rue Jules-Favre, you can wander into the Jardin de Beaune-Semblançay , whose sixteenth-century fountain stands in front of the sad facade of the mansion that belonged to François I's finance minister. Back on rue Colbert, at no. 39, is the house where Joan of Arc is said to have had her suit of armour made.