Epoch of the Grand Tour - Term Paper Example

EPOCH OF THE GRAND TOUR The Grand Tour epoch, one of the most distinct and specific periods in history of travel and tourism flourished from the mid-17th century until the onset of easily available and relatively fast rail transport in the middle of the 19th. The authorship of this term is attributed to Richard Lassels, a priest who wrote the famous The Voyage of Italy published in 1670. The book immediately turned very popular among the British public, especially wealthy young men whom overwhelmingly believed that knowledge came entirely from the external senses. Travel, thus, was an obligation for the person who wanted to further broaden his or her mind and so increase his or her knowledge of the world (Buzard 37-38). Although travel was always associated with visiting some other places this term comprised a number of variations and meanings: the purposes and means of travel might vary greatly. Traveling for the benefit of one’s health was a fashionable tendency in the 18th century. Thus, in one of the brightest pieces of the travel literature of that period Celia Fiennes in The Journeys of Celia Fiennes (1697) wrote that her journeys had been undertaken "to regain my health by variety and change of air and exercise” (Fiennes 2). Also during the mid 18th century the idea of simple scenic pleasure touring began to gain popularity among the English upper class. Exploring the remote areas of the country inaccessible due to harsh traveling conditions was an interesting challenge to the domestic tourist. Later on many commercial ventures started offering package tours to Scotland and other areas. Of these Cook’s tour’s were so highly successful, that at the end of the Napoleonic Wars they started offering tour packages to foreign lands as well. With its origin in the Grand tours domestic tourism was further promoted by the restrictions on foreign travel by the Napoleonic Wars lasting from 1790 to1815 (Buzzard 38). The idea of traveling for the sake of self-discovery, morale and intellectual development was not new in the 17th century: such travels found their reflection in the so-called ‘travel literature’. One of the earliest pieces of for the sake of travel and writing about it is Petrarch’s (1304–1374) ascent of Mount Ventoux with the author drawing a parallel between climbing the mountain and his moral development as a person (Petrarch 1948). However, the idea of traveling for the sake of learning and education – the key idea underlying the Grand Tour – was a relatively new one even in the 18th century (Brodsky-Porges 173). Although representatives of other European nations adopted the same belief that genuine knowledge comes exclusively from the external senses, the Grand Tour is essentially a British invention: at that time Great Britain was the wealthiest country in the world with extremely numerous upper class representatives of which had both the time and the wealth to spend years traveling around the world. As a result, young English elites often spent from several months to several years traveling around Europe in an effort to see the cultural artifacts of antiquity and the Renaissance, learn languages, architecture, geography, culture, and visit other aristocratic societies of Europe (Brodsky-Porges 173-174). Typically, the Grand Tour included visiting the most famous cities of France, Italy, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands with Calais, Paris, Turin, Venice, Naples, Florence, and Rome being the primary goals. The Grand Tourist would journey from city to city and typically spend weeks in smaller cities and some months in each of the three key cities. Travel was not easy in the eighteenth century. The most popular crossing of the English Channel was made from Dover to Calais, France. A trip from Dover across the Channel to Calais and onto Paris routinely took three days. The crossing of the Channel was not a trouble-free one. There were hazards of seasickness, illness, and even shipwreck. The journey from France to Italy could be done by sea' where the tourist faced the danger of pirates, or by land by sedan chair over the Alps, where constricted passes made travel an expedition in terror. If the tourist chose to sail to Italy rather than scale the Alps, he would first journey to the south of France. The English were delighted by the warm weather, sunshine and the fields of lavender, calling Provence “almost Paradise”. To sail across the Gulf of Genoa, a tourist engaged a fishing boat in Marseilles or Nice. The Gulf of Genoa was notorious for its sudden squalls. The hazard of storm and shipwreck or attack by pirates hovered, but it could be much faster than the long laborious trek through the mountains, and the alpine passes were closed in the winter. Many Grand Tourists chose to either begin or end their tour in Holland. The Dutch were the kings of trade in the 18th century, and passage home to England could be booked on one of their superb merchants ships (Buzard 42). Carrying letters of reference and introduction, the youthful nobility often used their own horse-drawn coaches to circumvent the risk of renting a carriage that was infected with fleas or merely in poor condition. An accompaniment of servants for a nobleman who intended to spend one to four years roaming through Europe on the Grand Tour would comprise two coachmen, a pair of grooms for each carriage, armed outriders and a tutor/guide at the least. Other probable servants might include a valet and a secretary. Grand Tourists did not carry much money due to the risk of highway thieves, so letters of credit from their English banks were presented at the major cities. Since many of the Tourists spent so much money abroad, the English politicians complained vociferously about the tradition of the Grand Tour (Chard 43). While the aim of the Grand Tour was educational a vast deal of time was spent in more frivolous recreations such as extensive drinking, gambling, and personal encounters. The journals and sketches that were supposed to be finished during the Tour were often left quite empty. As the trip’s goal was educational, young Englishmen in particular were generally accompanied by a tutor who ensured that his charge spent ample time studying museum collections of natural history and antiquities. But these tutors (usually educated but impoverished men) were not able to stop their charges from also pursuing wine, women, and song (Chard 47). If the tourist was prepared to take advantage of the opportunities so richly offered, the returns were of almost incalculable value. The educational possibilities of well-directed travel might be seen its influence upon an eager young tourist like Goethe (Mead 375). However, the early philosophy of travel as a prescribed trip to finish the formal education did not remain unchanged during the Grand Tour epoch. The motivations, purposes, routes, and travelers themselves underwent deep changes during the two centuries so that the Grand Tour gradually evolved to the modern form of travel known as tourism (Brodsky-Porges 1981). After the arrival of railroad transportation (around 1825) the pattern of travel transformed dramatically, and although the Grand Tour ritual continued, it was of a qualitative difference. The travel became much cheaper to undertake, safer, easier, and more accessible for the middle classes. As a result, the classic Grand Tour epoch was over with modern forms of tourism slowly but steadily taking over the luxurious travels of the past. WORKS CITED Brodsky-Porges, Ned, The Grand Tour: Travel as an Educational Device: 1600–1800. Annals of Tourism Research 1981, VIII(2): 171–186. Buzard, James. The Grand Tour and after (1660-1840), In Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 37-53. Chard, Chloe Pleasure and Guilt on the Grand Tour: Travel Writing and Imaginative Geography, 1600-1830. Manchester University Press/St. Martins, 1999. Fiennes, Celia. The Journeys of Celia Fiennes (Equestrian Travel Classics). Long Riders' Guild Press US, 2001. Mead, William Edward. The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914. Petrarch, Francesco. The Ascent of Mount Ventoux. In: Elvin Cassirer, eds., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948, pp. 36-46. Read More