Basilique St-Martin

Basilique St-Martin Review

Only two sturdy towers—the Tour Charlemagne and the Tour de l'Horloge (Clock Tower)—remain of the great medieval abbey built over the tomb of St. Martin, the city's fourth-century bishop and patron saint. Most of the abbey, which once dominated the heart of Tours, was razed during the French Revolution. Today the site is occupied by the bombastic neo-Byzantine Basilique St-Martin, which was completed in 1924. There's a shrine to the former bishop St. Martin in the crypt.