The Rue Nationale is one of the oldest street and the busiest shopping street in the city of Tours

Tours

Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...

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Description

The Rue Nationale is located in the center of Tours. It is 700 meters long and extends over a flat land from north to south. It connects the place Anatole France, where leads to the Pont Wilson, and the Avenue de Grammont.

The street belongs to a seven-kilometer straight road which includes, from north to south, the Avenue de la Tranchée, the Pont Wilson, the Rue Nationale et the Avenue de Grammont.

The northern part of the street is wider than the south which is pedestrian and only used by public transport.

History

The Rue Royale, currently name Rue Nationale, was drawn in 1777 after the plans by Jean Cabet de Limeray, although there was another street before, the rue Taversaine. This project was switches the axis of the city: it was formerly an East-West axis with the streets du Commerce and Colbert, then became a north-south axis from the church of Saint-Julien.

In 1840, under the mandate of the mayor Walvein, the street was not yet compelled. All the amenities and the constructions made therein, however, maintain harmony, unity. The facades should be absolutely symmetrical, therefore, the notable buildings were built in mirror on both sides of the street (place Anatole France), before the Loire.

Under the mandate of the mayor of Tours Jules Charpentier (1882-1884) the Rue Royale became the Rue Nationale.

In 1940, the bombing destroyed part of the Rue Nationale. After the war, Camille Lefèvre proposed a project to reorganize the street, but it was the architect Pierre Patout who was granted to rebuild. The northern part was completely destroyed, and then extended about ten meters.

Until the end of construction of the A10

A10 autoroute (France)

The A10, also called L'Aquitaine, is an Autoroute in France, running for 549 km from the A6 south of Paris to the A630 at Bordeaux. It generally parallels the N10 Route Nationale, but deviates significantly from the older N10 between Paris and Tours and between Poitiers and Bordeaux...

 in 1981, the Rue Nationale was heavily trafficked, as it is on the major axis connecting Paris to Spain (Route nationale 10

Route nationale 10

Route nationale 10, or RN 10, is a trunk road in France between Paris and frontier with Spain.-Reclassification:Unlike many other Route nationales the road retains its status along the majority of its route...

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The street starts with the central library of Tours and the Saint-Julien church, an old abbey. At No. 17, there was the famous Hôtel du Faisan, and No. 39 the house of birth of Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....

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Description

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the street has been crossed in its first half part, by two car lanes and two bus lanes, and in its second half part, by pedestrians and public transport only. The street is completely lined with shops.

The total restructuring of the wide part of the street is planned for 2013, including new construction (a Musée d'art contemporain, etc) and conversion of a part between Rue des Halles and Rue Émile Zola, in an area exclusively reserved for pedestrians, cyclists and trams. Buildings, including two hotels, will be designed by the agency Arte Charpentier and the architect Andrew Hobson.

There are two statues of René Descartes

René Descartes

René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...

 and François Rabelais

François Rabelais

François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...

in the street. The Musée des Vins and the Musée du Compagnonnage are respectively located at No. 16 and No. 8.