The grand tour of France was a royal progress around France by Charles IX of France, set up by his mother Catherine de' Medici to show him his kingdom, which had just been ravaged by the first of the French Wars of Religion. It set off from Paris on 24 January 1564 and returned there on 1 May 1566. Accompanied by his family and Catherine as queen-mother, the king covered nearly 4000 kilometres around the remotest border areas of the kingdom, starting in the east, running along the eastern frontier as far as Provence before turning west, reaching the Atlantic Ocean in Gascony, then moving back up the Loire Valley and finishing in the Bourbonnais.