The Grand Tour of Europe

The Grand Tour of Europe

Young English elite’s of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

often spent two to four years travelling around Europe in an effort to

broaden their horizons and learn about language, architecture,

geography, and culture in an experience known as the Grand Tour. The

Grand Tour began in the sixteenth century and gained popularity during

the seventeenth century.

Richard Lessels introduced the term Grand Tour in his 1670 book Voyage

to Italy. Additional guidebooks, tour guides, and the tourist industry

were developed and grew to meet the needs of the 20-something male and

female travellers and their tutors across the European continent. The

young tourists were wealthy and could afford the multiple years’

abroad. They carried letters of reference and introduction with them

as they departed from southern England.

The most common crossing of the English Channel (La Manche) was made

from Dover to Calais, France (the route of the Channel tunnel today).

A trip from Dover across the Channel to Calais and onto Paris

customarily took three days. The crossing of the Channel was not an

easy one. There were risks of seasickness, illness, and even

shipwreck.

The Grand Tourists were primarily interested in visiting those cities

that were considered the major centres of culture at the time - Paris,

Rome, and Venice were not to be missed. Florence and Naples were also

popular destinations. The Grand Tourist would travel from city to city

and usually spend weeks in smaller cities and up to several months in

the three key cities. Paris was definitely the most popular city as

French was the most common second langua...

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...ly and had substandard roads that made travel much

more difficult so they remained off most itineraries.

While the goal of the Grand Tour was educational a great deal of time

was spent in more frivolous pursuits such as extensive drinking,

gambling, and intimate encounters. The journals and sketches that were

supposed to be completed during the Tour were often left quite blank.

Upon their return to England, Tourists were supposedly ready to being

the responsibilities of an aristocrat. The Grand Tour as an

institution was ultimately worthwhile for the Tour has been given

credit for a dramatic improvement in British architecture and culture.

The French revolution in 1789 marked the end of the Grand Tour for in

the early nineteenth century, railroads totally changed the face of

tourism and travel across the continent.