Photo : Benjamin Smith / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours
The Tours Fine Arts Museum is housed in the town's former episcopal palace, near the cathedral. It offers rich and varied collections, notably its painting collection, which is one of the first in France both for its quality and for the diversity of the works shown. A French-style garden extends in front of the eighteenth-century episcopal palace, which has kept part of its original décor. A magnificent Lebanon cedar adorns the museum courtyard and in this same courtyard, in a building opposite the palace, you can see a stuffed elephant, killed after going mad during a parade of the "Barnum & Bailey" circus in the streets of Tours on 10 June 1902. Access to the elephant and the great cedar is free since they are inside the park. The former archbishop's palace has been listed as a historic monument since 27 June 1983.
