TOURS, TOURAINE,
AND
CENTRAL FRANCE.
CHARACTER OF THE SCENERY OF TOURAINE.
Although there is little that can be denominated bold, or strikingly romantic, in the general aspect of the country around Tours, it nevertheless, possesses charms of a peculiar and novel nature, alike calculated to gratify a lover of the picturesque, tranquillize the mind, and renovate the enfeebled energies of the valetudinarian.
Hence it has long been famed as a favourite resort, more especially, of these classes of British Tourists, etc.; many adopting it as a temporary place of residence, whilst others have permanently established themselves in some of the beautiful sylvan retreats which characterize the more immediate vicinity of the city.
Throughout a vast area, the surface of the surrounding country is pleasingly diversified by gentle undulations, considerable tracts of which are adorned by dense masses of foliage, occasionally presenting deeply indented vistas, embosoming some modern country house or ancient Château, with its spacious, but somewhat formal pleasure grounds. Many picturesque vales with their meandering streams, verdant meadows, and towering poplars, also present themselves to the eye of the traveller, but the characteristic rural features of this portion of France are its wide spread vineyards, which may almost be said to occupy every slope, and crown every upland.
As throughout nearly the whole of these extensive tracts of fluttering verdure, the walnut, the apple, and in many instances the peach, apricot, cherry and almond, with innumerable elms, oaks, and gigantic specimens of the Lombardy poplar are thickly and pretty uniformly interspersed, the whole country assumes a remarkably foreign and sylvan character; the peaceful beauty of which is much heightened by the sequestered and vine clad abodes of the rural population, of the majority of which, it may almost literally be said, that they are surrounded by a terrestrial paradise, teeming with the most luscious and grateful productions of all bounteous nature.
Although such is the agreeable aspect of much of what may be termed the table lands of Touraine, the picturesque character of the landscape is much enhanced as we gradually descend into the capacious valley of the Loire.