Today, with its extensive rail (including TGV) and autoroute links to the rest of the country, Tours is a jumping off point for tourist visits to the Loire Valley and the royal chateaux.
Tours is on one of the main lines of the TGV. It is possible to travel to the west coast at Bordeaux in two and a half hours, to the Mediterranean coast via Avignon and from there to Spain and Barcelona, or to Lyon, Strasbourg and Lille. It takes less than one hour by train from Tours to Paris by TGV and one hour and a half to Charles de Gaulle airport. Tours has two main stations: the central station Gare de Tours and Gare de Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, which is just outside the center, and is the station which is used by trains that do not terminate in Tours.
