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In early modern Europe , the Grand Tour was an educational journey undertaken by an elite of young men, and in some cases women, who could be sponsored by wealthy parents, or other benefactors.
The Grand Tour became customary among British noblemen in the 17th century, following the end of the Thirty Years War , the English Civil War , and associated wars. With the Westphalian Treaty, peace became the rule, rather than the exception, in Europe. While the tourists were guided by a cicerone , the wealthiest could travel with a staff of servants. Tourists had opportunities to learn languages such as French and Italian , see works of European art (and have themselves portrayed by a painter), listen to European classical music , and see classical architecture . They could also practice gentlemen's sports , such as horse riding and fencing.
While the Tour was not a religious voyage in itself, tourists from Catholic families visited the Vatican , while the Protestants often saw locations of the Protestant Reformation , such as Geneva and Lausanne .
The Grand Tour coined the word tourist . As roads improved during the 18th century, the Grand Tour became more common (including young women), and the trips became longer. The tradition declined in the 19th century, as steam powered ships and railways made travelling more mundane, and other destinations became more popular; modern nationalism and imperialism encouraged Europeans to seek out nature and culture within their own countries, or to explore overseas colonies and dominions.
A similar tradition for artisans without wealth or noble birth was the journeyman years , when they travelled around Europe, usually on foot, to practice their craft, typically for three years or x years and x days. This custom, with the surrounding ceremonies, is still alive in Germany .
A much less elitist but somewhat related concept is "doing Europe" as many young North Americans put it - a short trip of Europe making pit stops at the most postcard-worthy highlights, but few things in between. Young Europeans themselves might spend a summer seeing much of the continent on European rail passes , while the rise of no-frills aviation has made trips around Europe accessible to ever more people.
The typical tourists rode a horse cart around Europe. While roads improved during the centuries, travel remained slow, expensive and risky, until the advent of railroads in the 19th century. Today of course the situation has vastly changed with Europe home to some of the best railroads, cheapest airlines and best maintained roads in the world. There is no reason besides masochism to take a horse cart these days, and on many roads it would not actually be street-legal. High speed rail has replaced many of the sleeper trains that used to be a mainstay of Interrailers of days past in the area this article covers, enabling you to breakfast in Paris, take a coffee in Frankfurt and be in Berlin by dinnertime or the equivalent on other itineraries – at rates that people in the 18th century would have had a duel over. Road tolls range from the substantial in places like France to the nominal to zero in places like Germany , and while their purpose is no longer to pay the patrols against highwaymen, streets are safer than they have been in decades if not centuries.
Crossing the Alps was a daunting task, and it often influenced the itineraries taken. Some even disassembled or sold their carriage ahead of the crossing. Today the crossing can be done in a few hours on a train or plane, but going by car in the summer, the passes and tunnels are still rather prone to congestion. There are well maintained paths with centuries of history crossing the Alps, offering breathtaking views in exchange for strenuous hikes. Legendary mountain-passes like the St. Gotthard or the Brenner have been tunnelled under or are in the process of being tunnelled under. Sometimes there is a tunnel dating to the 19th or early 20th century, which is now being replaced or supplemented by a "base tunnel" at a lower level. Even the UNESCO World Heritage listed Semmering Railway is in the process of having a base tunnel built underneath, with the once important alpine crossing relegated to a touristic and local line.
Some tourists arrived in 51.233 2.916667 5 Ostend .
There are ferries from the British Mainland to points in the Netherlands and Belgium, but you can also take Eurostar directly to 50.84643 4.3517 6 Brussels .
British tourists arrived to the Kingdom of France in 50.95 1.85 7 Calais or 49.49 0.1 8 Le Havre .
While 48.856 2.351 9 Paris was a world-renowned centre for the arts, the city was notoriously filthy (both literally and figuratively) before the Haussmann renovation in the 19th century.
Before the first rail tunnels, most travellers avoided crossing the Alps . 46.2 6.15 10 Geneva and 46.51 6.63 11 Lausanne were important for the origin of the Protestant Reformation , and a traditional stop for tourists of that faith. Apart from that, Switzerland was seen as something of an uncultured backwater until well into the 19th century, and its well known political stability was still some ways off. The German word for coup d'etat "Putsch" originated in early modern Switzerland, after all.
The Italian peninsula was the core of the lost Roman Empire , with heritage back to the Ancient Greek colonies as well. In the Italian Renaissance , some Italian city-states amassed wealth and power, and became a powerhouse for art, music, and fashion, in which the Italian language became the lingua franca . While the Italian "Golden Age" had ended in the 16th century, and foreign empires came to dominate Italy until it was unified in the 19th century, Italy remained as a centre for ancient history and the fine arts (especially European classical music ), and an important destination for tourists.
A few adventurous tourists extended the tour to Sicily , Malta , or Greece , which was then under Ottoman rule. For this and other reasons, some of the tourists that made it beyond Naples skipped the voyage across to Greece and substituted it by taking their time among the ancient Greek ruins in Southern Italy , " Magna Graecia ", instead.
The Austrian Empire was the dominant power of Central Europe . From the 18th century, it became a forerunner in arts and sciences.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Germany was a patchwork of small states. While none of them had the prestige of an Imperial capital, some were patrons of art, philosophy and science.
More distant destinations such as Madrid , Seville , Saint Petersburg and Jerusalem became more accessible in later years.
Frugal traveler | what is the grand tour, what is the grand tour.
To some people, it implies an extended jaunt around Western Europe. To others, it’s simply a long trip taken after college, whether to Southeast Asia, Central America or Southern France. In fact, the Grand Tour is all of these and more. Even though the basic contours of the Grand Tour were established in the 17th century — as a kind of cultural finishing school for affluent young gents — it has mutated to meet the shifting demands of generations of travelers.
“The classic Grand Tour was the wealthy, young man who spent several months — at least —traveling in Europe after finishing his formal schooling,” said Lynne Withey, author of “Grand Tours and Cooks’ Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1750-1915” (William Morrow, 1997). The young man typically hailed from England, and the tour, she said, served as “hiatus between adolescence and adulthood, between formal schooling and working — not that most of these people worked in the sense that we think of as work.”
The Grand Tourist “took in Paris and Italy and sometimes Greece ,” Ms. Withey said. “Italy especially was the high point, because these were people who were classically trained, and Rome and Greece were the cradle of Western civilization for them.”
Along the way, the young man would look at, and frequently buy, Renaissance paintings. Going to the opera was de rigueur. As was, in certain circles, sneering at the manners and customs of the French. To some extent, the Grand Tourist would also sow his wild oats, despite the presence of a “bear leader,” the tutor or clergyman who would accompany him to guide his studies and mind his behavior.
He would do this without any of the modern comforts of traveling: roads, railroads, hotels, restaurants, telephones and international banking networks. For transportation, he hired carriages. For lodging, he bunked at country inns or carried letters of introduction to family friends and business contacts in major cities. For money, he would rely on gold coins and letters of credit — “a pretty complicated system which I don’t even fully understand myself,” Ms. Withey said. Despite the young man’s wealth, the Grand Tour was never an easy journey.
By the middle of the 19th century, however, railroads were changing the Grand Tour. The Englishman Thomas Cook offered the first packaged tours and opened travel up to the middle class. This not only led to more standardized lodgings and meals, but it also spurred wealthier travelers to seek out their own enclaves, like the French Riviera , away from the masses.
The introduction of commercial aviation in the early 20th century — not to mention World War I — completely upended the classic Grand Tour, and by the 1960s it had become a low-budget European expedition for college grads, often in a Volkswagen bug. (This was my mother’s Grand Tour.) In the 1970s, the Grand Tour stretched as far as Kabul, and today it’s as likely to include Bangkok and Buenos Aires as Berlin and Brussels .
But the one thing that these disparate Grand Tours had in common was literature. From the beginning, the trip was as much a literary endeavor as a touristic one.
As early as 1611, Thomas Coryat wrote “Coryate’s Crudities,” an account of his “travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia commonly called the Grisons country, Helvetia alias Switzerland, some parts of high Germany and the Netherlands.” (Click here to read it on Google Books .)
In the 18th century, it seemed as if every Englishman who crossed the Channel felt compelled to pen a volume or two about his experience. Rather than reading all of them individually, I’m leafing through “The Grand Tour: 1592-1796,” edited by Roger Hudson, a well-illustrated compendium that traces the Grand Tour through the writings of Laurence Sterne, Horace Walpole, James Boswell and Edward Gibbon.
Ms. Withey in particular recommends “ Boswell on the Grand Tour ,” two volumes that follow Boswell, the Samuel Johnson biographer, through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica and France . “Boswell was a pretty tolerant and adventuresome young man,” she said. “He did the kind of classic thing — and he also sowed his wild oats. But he didn’t have the haughtiness or intolerance of a lot of people, and of course he’s a wonderful writer.”
By the late 19th century, American writers were following in Boswell’s literary footsteps. Henry James mined the Grand Tour for fiction (“ Daisy Miller ”), while Mark Twain mined it for comedy in “ The Innocents Abroad ,” his account of a five-month American steamboat journey to Europe and the Holy Land.
“Off he went on June 8, 1867, a young journalist with his disarming wit and insight,” said Darrel Schoeling, co-owner of Longitude Books , a travel bookstore in Manhattan. “It just seems so clever; he went off to report on basically the horrors of group travel. And it’s all the places, and it’s lots of fun, and it’s also inspiring, because he managed to keep such a great attitude about the hell that he went through.”
Early in the 20th century, you get Hemingway and Fitzgerald writing of Americans’ extended stays in France, and in more recent years, the Grand Tour becomes fodder for the movies, from the 1969 adventure comedy “ If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium ” to the 2004 teen flick “Eurotrip” (tag line: “No actual Europeans were harmed in the making of this film”). And, of course, one can’t forget National Lampoon’s 1985 cinéma vérité classic “European Vacation .”
For my part, I’m a big fan of Laurence Sterne and his parodies of travel writing (click here to read my Times essay about his literary lineage ), but I’m leaving him at home on this trip. Instead, I’m taking “The Grand Tour: 1592-1796,” “The Innocents Abroad” and “The Human Animal,” by Émile Zola (which I’m trying to read in French).
These, however, shouldn’t last me more than a few weeks, so I need your advice: What books should this Grand Tourist pick up next? And where can I find great bookstores (preferably used-book stores) along my route?
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A great book to get in the mood for travel, and with plenty of Grand Tour flavor – “My Uncle Oswald” by Roald Dahl.
A good african restaurant in Paris:
Le Malibu. 44, Rue Tiquetonne. 75002. Tel : 01 42 36 62 70
I recommend reading Maxine Feifer’s “Tourism in History. From Impersial Rome to the Present” (New York: Stein and Day, 1985), which I just took up after spending the last 12-weeks traveling and with the hope of learning more about the history of travel as it pertains to culture as work and not wholly to leisure. Maybe this distinction between the Traveler and the Tourist that I draw is already flawed? Anyway, these are two other book recommendations: Oliver Sack’s “Oaxaca Journal,” one of my favorites in how it combines science, hobby writing and travel literature; and Edith Wharton’s “French Ways and Their Meaning” (Vermont: Countryman Press, 1997), originally published in 1919, which I read some years ago just before my first trip to Paris at the recommendation of a friend—who is always falling in love, and is the primary motivation of her travels.
henry james’s travel writing is a superb companion to european travel. ‘italian hours’ in particular (just released in an edition by penguin) is the most thoughtful, perceptive, and eloquent evocation of italy i’ve come across.
Are you going to Oxford? There is a small town in Wales completely dedicated to used book stores about an hour’s bus ride from Oxford. It’s called Hay-on-Wye. The bus careens through winding roads with impossible names, past rich brown earth and saturated green grass and plants you at the crossroads in the heart of town. The best way to navigate is to have a type of book in mind – I was on a quest for rare children’s books – and ask locals to point you in the right direction. I remember walking all alone nearly two miles out of town – suddenly realizing it was just me and the sheep on the hillside at this moment! – to a thatch-roofed building next to a thatch-roofed house where I happily sat on the stone floor and sifted through the greatest treasure of children’s books, all in a jumble. Lunch was a baked potato with cheese in a local pub, and rarely have I felt happier or more self-indulgent.
Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street should be your first stop in London. Its long oak galleries and well chosen selection of travel books and related literature undoubtedly inspired many an Edwardian to embark upon the Grand Tour. Marylebone too is not to be missed. In this resident’s view, it’s London’s best urban village. We have the Wallace Collection (a private mansion — open to the public gratis — full of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and much more), a Sir John Soane church, the secret offices of the OSS, The Royal Academy of Music, the Wigmore Hall, Georgian terraced houses, lovely red brick mansion blocks, and cafes. Byron was baptised here, Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Henry Hallam, Florence Nightingale and a variety of Pre-Raphaelite poets lived here too.
the real, original Shakespeare and Co bookstore in Paris. My mom worked there in the 60’s on her own extended “Grand Tour,” and maybe you can meet the ancient, grumpy and brilliant guy who runs the place, if he’s still around…
Dear Matt, To my opninion the next book should be In Europe: Travels Through The Twentieth Century by the Dutch author Geert Mak. In this book he travels through Europe following the continent’s history. It starts with the World Expo in Paris 1900 and ends in the ruined city of Sarajevo. In between he travels the battle field of World War 1 and 2 and the Spanish civil war and historic places like Prague, Budapest, Gdansk and Tsjernobyl. This is the Amazon-link: //www.amazon.com/Europe-Travels-Through-Twentieth-Century/dp/0307280578/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211028177&sr=1-1
In Amsterdam the best bookstores are located at around Spui: Athenaeum, American Bookstore and Scheltema. Utrecht has some nice second hand stores along The Old Canal (Oudegracht). I could show you around and introduce you to some Dutch writers when you are in the Netherlands.
Best regards,
Willem van Zeeland ph +31 6 15018371
1) How about Graham Greene “Travels with my aunt”?
2) There’s a Shakespeare and Co. bookstore on the left bank across the river from Notre Dame in Paris.
//www.shakespeareco.org/
Does your 100 euro budget include ALL travel costs, or is that separate?
Having made a few Grand Tours back in the 60s, I need to add a few things to this otherwise lovely account. As part of the low-budget tour, hitchhiking was by far the more common option than driving a VW bug. Everyone hitched and stayed in hostels, one of the great ways to meet people from other countries. Thumbing was efficient, pleasant, and safe. (Alas, it was all those in the US in the 60s, too – I thumbed to LA from DC in 4 days in ’68.) The other common way to go was via Eurailpass which not only permitted jumping on and off any train as the spirit moved you, but gave you the option of sleeping on the overnight train when you didn’t have money for pensiones.
For France reading: Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French.
I find it hard to believe that you have made it impossible to print this article. In fact, it doesn’t even seem possible to save it. How antediluvian of you. The only option is to hope I never miss an installment of this series so I can accumulate a stack of inky, odd shaped bits of newspaper as a record of the adventure.
La Central is an amazing bookstore in Barcelona.
Dear Mr. Gross, if you happen to include Amsterdam, my native city, I’ll be happy to give you the (free) local Grand Tour, custom made for you, show you the bookstores you should know, and introduce you to some Dutch people (traditionally a crucial part of any Grand Tour). I’ve just done it this past week for a friend from Mobile, Alabama, a professor and world traveler. I now divide my life between the Gulf Coast and Amsterdam. You’re very welcome here! Let me know, Frans van Rossum
If you intend to see the Balkans, Rebecca West is a must.
Add Tim Moore’s The Grand Tour to your collection. And if you like that, read his French Revolutions, one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
You should be able to find both in used bookshops in London.
Happy travels…
I was just on line with Capital One who informed me that there is a minimum $10 for cash advances.
The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara. Che documents his travels through South America in this journal. The reader discovers how the journey changes a young Che’s entire outlook; Che’s revolutionary fervor grew from his travels.
On my grand tour in the summer of 1964, my art professor/tour guide used to say “Don’t READ about it… Go out and DO it.” In other words, why waste time reading when you are spending all that effort and money to BE THERE. Read about it before you go, or afterward, when you are sitting around the house; not while you have the oppportunity to be seeing all those new and interesting things. You can read that book in your easy chair, but you can’t see the real Mona Lisa there. By the way, it was the best summer of my life.
I would suggest “The Charterhouse of Parma,” by Stendhal. It’s just a great book; one part comedy, and one part tragedy. And, with a little luck you might see some of the settings for the book while you are in Europe. Have a safe trip and I look forward to your dispatches.
The subway’s not necessarily the cheapest way to get to the center of town. In Madrid, buy yourself a ten-trip ticket for the subway/bus; the cheapest (and, if it’s not rush hour, fastest) way to the center, though, is to take the bus to Avda de América and then from there switch to the subway system. There is a (recently-added) tax that applies for taking the subway fromt he airport directly that makes it more expensive than using two swipes on a ten-trip ticket (although the difference is about 80 euro cents, so about seventeen dollars.)
rick steve’s Europe thru the Backdoor, and/or any of his individual countries’ books. especially good for decent food at low prices and determining WHICH art works to seek out (he provides historical background) and how to make the most of your money. He writes in a humerous way and has great tips about all sorts of things. Have a great time!
Of course, Shakespeare in Paris is a classic. Also, Elephant Books in Barcelona and Massolit Books in Krakow are great little used bookstores-cum-cafes where you can relax a bit…of course, the fun part is that they’re small stores so you’re really at the whim of whatever they have in stock. Have a great trip!
first, i wonder how many “grand tours” were foisted upon youngsters who have fallen in love with the wrong person and have been prescribed travel by their parents ‘to forget’?
books: -“black lamb and gray falcon” by rebecca west -“down and out in paris and london” by george orwell -“empires of the word, a language history of the world” by nicholas ostler -“a man without qualities” by robert musil -“querelle” by jean genet -“charmed circle” by james mellow (i wish “alexandria quartet” by lawrence durrell applied here)
I think there is an English language used bookstore in Paris on Rue LaPlace, near the Luxemburg Gardens. I was wandering around the area, came across it, and picked up Colin Dexter’s Riddle of the Third Mile which kept me entertained on the 11 hour flight to Mauritius later that day.
Hey there, future Rockstar! Give us a call now to get started: 1-800-730-6392
The Renaissance – Setting Popular Travel in Motion
As the renaissance spread through-out Europe, bringing with it a new artistic and academic focus, it became fashionable for young aristocrats to visit the great master pieces of the classical era as part of their classical education, (mainly Roman art and architecture.) This became known as the Grand Tour.
A Trending Itinerary
During the 16 th and 18 th centuries a standard itinerary was popularized. While detours included many European destinations, the grand tour typically started in London and included Paris, but focused mainly on Italy, especially Rome. Few visited as far as Greece, which was still under Turkish rule. The grand tourists visited famous ruins, architecture, fountains and churches. Admission to Greco-Roman statues and paintings included both private collections and museums. Travel guides were available for the grand tour and the tour typically lasted for many months and sometimes years. Besides visiting art and architecture, a grand tourist could also listen to music, visit theaters, be tutored in languages, fencing, dancing, riding and other popular activities. The grand tour was often seen as a rite of passage and was considered a symbol of status.
Souvenirs and postcards
Determine which path is right for you
Grand tourists returned to display items otherwise unavailable at home. Popular souvenirs included art, books, sculptures, clothes, glass, coins and other cultural gems. Micro-mosaic became popular and often depicted famous landmarks. It could be worn as jewelry or be sent home in the form of small pictures to friends and family as a fore-runner to the modern post-card. Cityscape and landscape paintings or vedute became immensely popular during the time of the grand tour and provided “snap-shots” the tourist could bring back and present as a visual tale of their travels. Etchings of the grand tour also became very popular. Some grand tourists commissioned their own artists to accompany their travels.
Tour Guides
While it was common practice to hire a personal tour guide for the grand tour, printed travelogues or itineraries became popular to both travelers and non-travelers. Published accounts and letters of personal experiences gave insight to what the grand tour could offer for the populace of the time, but they also help illuminate the historic trend for us in modern times.
By Jessica Lang, Multimedia Team Specialist, Travel Planners International
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Celebrate the past. define the future., in collaboration with, four cities, one journey, soak up the past by stepping into modern-day venice, siena, rome and palermo., the plague of 1575, from the depths of darkness to a modern celebration of light, life inside the contrade, discover the true meaning of siena’s notorious horse race, a world without art, how an italian idea unlocked art for everyone, opera reinvented, the youth reclaiming italy’s largest opera house, through the eyes of visionaries, from how we see the universe through galileo's eyes to understanding rising sea levels with caneletto's remarkable talent—explore some of italy’s most inspiring innovations., from san marco to the moon, the ideal city, the first social network, origins of street food, canaletto's secret, the city of networking, city of water, middle ages air conditioning, discover more about the grand tour's history, how tourism hasn’t changed from the grand tour to the present day, sun, sea, sex and art, 9 books and films inspired by the grand tour, from mary shelley's 'frankenstein' to john hughes' 'national lampoon', the art that made grand tourists flock to italy, the artistic gems of ancient and renaissance italy, explore italy's most iconic locations in 360˚, the journey continues, online exhibits, street view, artworks and photographs, collections.
The Grand Tour isn’t only a TV show about cars, in actual fact, The Grand Tour is a very important part of the history of travel and tourism (and I expect this was the rationale for the name of the show ‘The Grand Tour too!). In this article I am going to teach you what The Grand Tour was, why it was so important to tourism and where the popular Grand Tour destinations were. Ready to learn more? Read on…
Why is the grand tour important to tourism, the grand tour- paris, the grand tour- france onwards, the grand tour- heading north, the grand tour in the media, further reading.
The Grand Tour was the name of a traditional trip through Europe, undertaken by Upper Class boys as they were coming of age. It was mostly the British nobility and landed gentry who went on a Grand Tour, but this did extend to other wealthy Europeans and, later, South and North Americans as well as Filipinos.
According to The National Trust , the term ‘Grand Tour’ was coined by the Catholic priest and travel writer Richard Lassels (c.1603-68), who used it in his influential guidebook The Voyage of Italy (published 1670) to describe young lords travelling abroad to learn about art, architecture and antiquity.
The Grand Tour was a form of travel from around 1550-1850. It was at its most popular during the 18th century, and was said to be the way to end a boy’s education – making them a man. Often, these adolescent boys would be accompanied by tutors who would make the scenes in front of them come to life. It was more of a hands-on education, much like how we have field trips today. The Grand Tour, however, was much more lengthy.
This rite of passage was a very important point in the timeline of the history of tourism – but why?
The Grand Tour is important to the overall history of tourism because it represented travel for educational and recreational purposes rather than, for example, trade or military reasons. It contributed greatly to the cultural, social, architectural, gastronomic, political and artistic evolution of the home country’s of these travellers – especially when, as time went on, it became accessible to not only gentry but artists, collectors, designers and more. These people would take influence from the things they saw abroad. Buildings in Britain would follow architectural styles the designer had seen in Italy , for example.
It is also so important because it was during this large timeframe that the term ‘tourist’ was first properly used. Without it, the history of tourism as we know it would look massively different. People were travelling en masse (although not in groups, per se, as this was before proper public transport existed), visiting new destinations and bringing back stories of their trips. As mentioned, The Grand Tour expanded from being purely a British upper class thing to being something taken by the working class, as well as nobility from other countries. It was highly influential.
The Grand Tour paved the way for the ongoing popularity of museums – as it was clear that people who travelled to different countries often had an interest in learning about the history and culture . It proved there was a need for lodgings for people visiting from out of town; it encouraged the growth of restaurants so visitors could try the local cuisines and so on. Essentially, it was the start of what we now know as tourism because it had such a large and visible influence.
There was no set itinerary for a Grand Tour. It was up to the individual, and often influenced by their interests or finances. However, most people followed the same vague outline at least. Paris and Rome were firm favourites along with much of the rest of Italy, but a typical itinerary might have looked something like this – if travelling from Britain, that is…
One would start their trip properly in Dover, on the south coast of England. This remains a popular transport hub for people travelling out of the country. From here, our Grand tourist would head by boat across the channel to Ostend in Belgium or either Calais or Le Havre in France depending on their preference. Here, the tourist and their tutor (and servants, if they had any) would decide on the next move.
Often this would be to purchase a coach to transport them from place to place. This would generally be sold on again when it was time to get back on another boat – although some travellers would dismantle theirs and take it with them on their trip.
The first major stop on anyone’s Grand Tour was Paris. The capital of France and the city of love and romance, as well as baked goods, beautiful artwork and breathtaking views, Paris was an obvious choice. Grand Tourists would often hire a French speaking guide to accompany them throughout the entirety of the trip, because it was Europe’s dominant language at the time. Paris was an ideal place to acquire some to join you on a Grand Tour!
Pairs held a world of opportunities, too. Fencing tutorials, dance lessons, French language tutorships, riding practice and so much more. On top of this was the sophistication of the French high society, which would help to polish the traveller’s manners for his eventual return to England.
After getting to know Paris, one would make the journey across to Switzerland to visit either Lusanne or Geneva. This would be only a short stop, however, in order to prepare for an often-difficult journey across the Alps. The really wealthy Grand Tourists would be carried across by their servants, but generally everyone struggled together.
Awaiting them on the other side of the Alps, of course, was Italy. This is typically where our Grand Tourists would spend the most time, visiting different cities and generally exploring over the course of quite a few months. Turin and Milan would be early stops, followed by an extensive stay in Florence. Home to a larger Anglo-Italian diasporic community, Florence was an excellent part of a Grand Tour and one which allowed for a lot of fun and socialising. From here there would be shorter trips to Pisa, Padua, Bologna and Venice – the latter being a high point for many.
But this didn’t conclude the Italian part of a Grand Tour at all. Venice gave way to Rome – particularly for the study of the ancient ruins here as well as the artwork of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque time periods. From Rome some of the more curious travellers went to Naples, where there was a big music scene, and even (after the mid 18-th century, of course) to Pompeii and Herculaneum to see the recent discoveries. Later still, some of the most adventurous Grand Tourists headed to Siciliy to see even more archaeological sites, Greece for the sunshine and culture, and Malta for its history. For the most part, however, Naples or Rome were the usual end to an Italian adventure.
From Italy, most Grand Tourists would head back across the Alps to parts of Europe which were more dominated by the Germanic language. This included Vienna, Innsbruck, Dresden, Potsdam and Berlin – all beautiful cities with distinctive architecture and beautiful culture nuances. Some would even study at the universities in Heidelberg or Munich to round off their trip. Finally were flying visits to Holland or Flanders, before travelling back across the channel and returning to England full of the warm wonders of European travel and education.
By looking at this route, it almost seems reminiscent of an itinerary. And this is true, and is another reason why the Grand Tour is so important to tourism – it was the blueprint for many itineraries travellers and tourists still use today.
There are few pieces of media which actually depict someone going off on a Grand Tour – but we can see references to it, and influence from it, in many media stories. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in fact, was said to be conceived during her own Grand Tour; the doctor in the story is born in Naples and travels throughout Europe.
There are various non-fiction books which make great reference to the Grand Tour, such as Francis Bacon’s Of Travel – a guide which is still relevant today – and some books which were more of a hybrid between fiction and non-fiction. These include Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Italian Journey.
We can’t forget, of course, the TV show which takes its name from this early tourist phenomenon. The Grand Tour is a British motoring TV series, featuring Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson. Initially, it centred around car reviews and timed laps, motoring challenges and races, studio segments, and celebrity guests – with the ‘studio’ being a large portable tent. They filmed in different locations across the globe, hence the name. In a BBC article before the show was first launched, Clarkson said that the name brought to mind the tradition of Grand Tours, and reflected how the show would be filmed in different countries.
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Notwithstanding the aristocratic associations of “ Le Grand Tour ,” this version of the post-Renaissance voyage of discovery might best be described as a postmodern, postcolonial road movie. Produced and directed by François Cheval, curator of the Musée Niépce, it featured three French artist-photographers (in order of appearance: Ange Leccia, Jean-Luc Moulène, and Patrick Tosani) who set out on the trail of their nineteenth-century predecessors in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine with the idea of doing things differently this time around.
Flashback : Developing since 1997, “ Le Grand Tour ” formally got under way four years ago with the idea of creating an exchange between the venerable museum of photography (which traces its origins back to 1861) and the societies of the Middle East that have long served as “subjects” of Western photographers.
Interior (tracking shot) : Rather than attempting to reproduce the events organized in Damascus and Saida (where the large-format contemporary photos were shown in highly visible public spaces and the digital copies of vintage images were distributed among surrounding shops), the exhibit at the Musée Niépce was conceived as a kind of walk-through travel album juxtaposing the experiences of the three artists with judiciously chosen photos and drawings from the past. In an introductory sequence, “views” and portraits by Félix Bonfils, Henri Béchard, Zangaki, and other nineteenth-century photographers alternated with initial impressions recorded by the contemporary artists on exploratory visits to the region: Moulène’s glimpses of Alexandria (1997); Leccia’s montages combining multiple video stills of young women’s faces or strolling couples, also in Alexandria (1997); Tosani’s visual “notes” from his preliminary trip to the West Bank and Jerusalem (2000). In the main exhibition space, these episodic images gave way to a selection of the pieces resulting from each artist’s residency: Azé , 2003, a monumental video triptych by Leccia incorporating street scenes (and sounds) from Damascus and Alexandria; large-format landscapes, cityscapes, and portraits of Saida inhabitants by Moulène; still lifes and portraits of Palestinian children by Tosani.
If nothing was overtly political, all the scars of recent history were present in landscapes, faces, and objects alike. At the same time, the energy of the images and the palpable intensity of the artist-subject relationships marked the key contrast with the monochrome stillness of the historic works. But the most ingenious aspect of the project was Cheval’s deliberate “miscasting” of his artist sidekicks—Leccia, connoisseur of Corsica and Japan, transplanted to Syria; Moulène, artisan of the everyday, confronted with the demand for epic history “paintings”; and most audaciously of all, Tosani, the perfectionist of the studio, catapulted into a war zone—leading in every case, as Cheval points out, to a “veritable osmosis” between their habitual work and the situation at hand.
— Miriam Rosen
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Taking trips around Europe, the Maison unveils its Le Grand Tour High Jewelry Collection, which is inspired by its birthplace’s cultural legacy.
V an Cleef & Arpels—the pioneer of high joaillerie —has introduced the peak of the goldsmith ‘s profession, taking inspiration from the tale of the ‘ Grand Tour ‘ that was famous in the 18th and 19th centuries. A tale that follows young aristocrats who embarked on this voyage across the European continent to complete an over-academic education, which was then required to mould their character, widen their brains, and assure their acceptance into society.
The tour featured two mandatory passages: a visit to Paris and stays in Italy’s major towns. While northern France, Switzerland, the Alpine Alps, and German regions were all popular stages, the actual route varied. Today, in honour of its birthplace’s cultural history, the Maison is reinterpreting their High Jewellery Collection with the release of Le Grand Tour raconté par Van Cleef & Arpels.
“The collection pays tribute to the beautiful idea of travelling for art and education,” said Chief Executive and President of Van Cleef & Arpels, Nicolas Bos. Who unveiled the grand collection at Villa Medici. An event, which was inspired by a 19th century painting of the palace.
To transcribe the beauty of the writings and works encountered in the context of the Grand Tour, Van Cleef & Arpels has deployed the full spectrum of its expertise and its particular taste in jewels with roughly 70 pieces, reasserting its devotion to the arts.
Impressive necklaces and girandole earrings were launched in such a dazzling fashion, all inspired by Renaissance stones. Following that, wide bracelets reproduce vistas of well-known locations in the style of ancient micro-mosaics, and sculptural clips are produced from historical cameos and intaglios.
The creativity of its design studio, the trained eye of its gemologists, and the savoir-faire and mastery of its High Jewelry workshops has proved that the Maison’s designers and craftsmen have breathed life into pieces conceived like so many travel sketches: an invitation to set forth and admire in wonder.
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The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a ... and crossed the English Channel to Ostend in Belgium, [b] or to Calais or Le Havre in France. From there the tourist, usually accompanied by a tutor ... sculpture, and architecture of Rome's Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. Some travellers also visited ...
Beginning in the late sixteenth century, it became fashionable for young aristocrats to visit Paris, Venice, Florence, and above all Rome, as the culmination of their classical education. Thus was born the idea of the Grand Tour, a practice that introduced Englishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and also Americans to the art and culture of France ...
The average Grand Tour lasted for at least a year. As Katherine Gazzard, Curator of Art at Royal Museums Greenwich explains, this extended journey marked the culmination of a Grand Tourist's education. "The Grand Tourists would have received an education that was grounded in the Classics," she says. "During their travels to the ...
Grand tour, multiyear journey, typically running through France and Italy. ... Young Britons customarily crossed the English Channel from Dover to Le Havre, France. They then converged with young men from other countries such as France, ... Florence was known for its Renaissance art, and travelers sought admission to private collections to ...
A Grand Tour was both an educational trip and an indulgent holiday. The primary attraction of the tour lay in its exposure of the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, such as the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, as well as the chance to enter fashionable and aristocratic European society.
Englishmen abroad. At its height, from around 1660-1820, the Grand Tour was considered to be the best way to complete a gentleman's education. After leaving school or university, young noblemen from northern Europe left for France to start the tour. After acquiring a coach in Calais, they would ride on to Paris - their first major stop.
The Grand Tour. Meryl Cates. October 2, 2013. Opening Fanfare, The Grand Tour. Photograph by Stephanie Berger. «In celebration of the New European Paintings Galleries, 1250-1800, the Museum hosted two special evenings of concerts on September 17 and 18. Music and art came together to illuminate the time period represented by the galleries ...
Itinerary of the Grand Tour. The traditional route of the Grand Tour usually began in Dover, England. Grand tourists would cross the English Channel to Le Havre in France. Upon arrival in Paris, the young men tended to hire a French-speaking guide as French was the dominant language of the elite during the 17th and 18th centuries. In Paris ...
Richard Lassels, a Roman Catholic priest, coined the term 'Grand Tour' in his 1670 travelogue, The archetypal Grand Tourist was a young man of means and leisure, well-versed in Greek and Latin literature and possessing a keen interest in art. Accompanied by a tutor, British Grand Tourists often travelled by horse-drawn coach for days ...
Le Grand Tour effectué par William Thomas Beckford en 1780. Le Grand Tour, écrit de la même façon en anglais, est à l'origine un long voyage en Europe effectué par les jeunes hommes, et plus rarement les jeunes femmes, des plus hautes classes de la société européenne, britannique, allemande, mais aussi française, néerlandaise ...
The Grand Tour gave concrete form to northern Europeans' ideas about the Greco-Roman world and helped foster Neoclassical ideals. The most ambitious tourists visited excavations at such sites as Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Tivoli, and purchased antiquities to decorate their homes.[1] The artists and intellectuals who were inspired by the ...
History of the Grand Tour. In the early years of the 18th and 19th centuries it was fashionable, for wealthy British families, to send their son and heir on a tour of Europe. A trip that was designed to introduce the young ' milord ' to the art, history and culture of Italy. The British educational system was based on Latin and Greek ...
The Grand Tour was a trip of Europe, typically undertaken by young men, which begun in the 17th century and went through to the mid-19th. Women over the age of 21 would occasionally partake, providing they were accompanied by a chaperone from their family. The Grand Tour was seen as an educational trip across Europe, usually starting in Dover ...
French painter Jacques-Louis David's sensational works at the end of the 18th century shout out revolutionary zeal. In painting, the allure of color, the beauty of line, the mystery of pictorial space, and the drama of the composition tell stories. In portraiture, we see images of saints, gods, and sovereigns.
The Grand Tour became customary among British noblemen in the 17th century, following the end of the Thirty Years War, the English Civil War, and associated wars. With the Westphalian Treaty, peace became the rule, rather than the exception, in Europe. While the tourists were guided by a cicerone, the wealthiest could travel with a staff of ...
"The classic Grand Tour was the wealthy, young man who spent several months — at least —traveling in Europe after finishing his formal schooling," said Lynne Withey, author of "Grand Tours and Cooks' Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1750-1915" (William Morrow, 1997). The young man typically hailed from England, and the tour, she said, served as "hiatus between adolescence ...
This became known as the Grand Tour. A Trending Itinerary. During the 16 th and 18 th centuries a standard itinerary was popularized. While detours included many European destinations, the grand tour typically started in London and included Paris, but focused mainly on Italy, especially Rome. Few visited as far as Greece, which was still under ...
The Grand Tour of Italy Celebrate the past. Define the future. in collaboration with. and 6 more collections. Four cities, one journey Soak up the past by stepping into modern-day Venice, Siena, Rome and Palermo. Venice ... The artistic gems of Ancient and Renaissance Italy.
Le Grand Tour revisité. Pour une archéologie du tourisme: le voyage des français en Italie, milieu XVIIIe siècle-début XIXe siècle - By Gilles Bertrand. Richard Wrigley, Richard Wrigley. University of Nottingham. Search for more papers by this author. Richard Wrigley,
The Grand Tour was a form of travel from around 1550-1850. It was at its most popular during the 18th century, and was said to be the way to end a boy's education - making them a man. Often, these adolescent boys would be accompanied by tutors who would make the scenes in front of them come to life. It was more of a hands-on education, much ...
Notwithstanding the aristocratic associations of "Le Grand Tour," this version of the post-Renaissance voyage of discovery might best be described as a postmodern, postcolonial road movie.Produced and directed by François Cheval, curator of the Musée Niépce, it featured three French artist-photographers (in order of appearance: Ange Leccia, Jean-Luc Moulène, and Patrick Tosani) who ...
V an Cleef & Arpels—the pioneer of high joaillerie —has introduced the peak of the goldsmith 's profession, taking inspiration from the tale of the ' Grand Tour ' that was famous in the 18th and 19th centuries. A tale that follows young aristocrats who embarked on this voyage across the European continent to complete an over-academic education, which was then required to mould their ...