Descartes

Descartes  15 minutes from Barrou is set on the river Creuse, the town was home to the famous philosopher René ("I think therefore I am") Descartes and there is museum dedicated to him in the house where he was born.

The village has a busy Sunday morning market, where you can buy the locally made, famous goats cheese, Sainte Maure de Touraine, fresh home-grown produce and wines of the region or simply enjoy the atmosphere. There is a choice of well-stocked supermarkets in the town that make an ideal stop-off, if travelling down from Tours, to pick up some fresh fruit and veg, local wines and cheeses to get your holiday off to a pleasant start.

For leisure Descartes offers a heated outdoor swimming pool complex with slides (open July and August, no outdoor shorts allowed); baby pool, 25 metre pool and large sunbathing area, cafeteria, children's play park, crazy golf, fishing, canoeing on the river Cruise, tennis and a beautiful walk through the shaded riverside gardens.

The town also has a lovely little cinema that shows 'art films' - with films in English shown once/month.

You can hire canoes which can be taken up-river to Le Guerche  or Barrou to allow you to return downstream at your leisure.

The town has a link with the World War II in that the line separating  occupied and free France is on the road heading out of the town in the direction of Barrou / Le Blanc.

Another sad connection with WWII  can be found nearby in the village of Maillé, in the direction of St.Maur-de-Touraine where on June 10, 1944 as Paris was being liberated, the village residents (124), mainly women and children, were the victims of an organized massacre from the occupying German army in retaliation for actions of the resistance.
 The massacre lasted all morning.  In the afternoon and late into the night,  the village was bombarded with artillery shelling, completing its destruction. There is a small museum dedicated to the victims.(Closed on Tuesdays)

You can also explore the troglodyte dwellings at nearby St Rémy-sur-Creuse.  Ethni'Cité, as it is referred to gives you a glimpse - just a glimpse- of what cave dwelling living and working was like.The exhibits are presented in this unique setting carved into the rockface. In the Middle Ages these caves were the refuge of lepers. Weavers later used the caves as workshops, benefiting from the presence of underground streams. There was also, allegedly, a fortress on the top of the outcrop built by Richard the Lionheart. A small tower buried under heavy vegetation is all that now remains.