The Occidental Tourist!

Recently I recounted to my readers how I left my beloved Yorkshire to spend a week in the Italian Lake District. The travelling was done by train and I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that it took me three days to get to my destination. I started to think about people who travelled in bygone times before the advent of our modern forms of travel. When I started some research on the subject I came across the idea of the ‘Grand Tour’, this was undertaken by many a young person in an effort to broaden the mind and fit into high society.

Imagine you are a young aristocrat in seventeenth or eighteenth century England, the ultimate ‘must do’ experience of the time was to embark on a Grand Tour of Europe. These tours were designed to broaden the horizons of young people to prepare them for life in the upper echelons of society. The tours themselves took in all the major cities of classical culture and art so that when the young tourists returned to England they would be very knowledgeable on these subjects.

Typically the tour would last two to four years, therefore only open to wealthy people who could afford long periods away from home, and indeed the accommodation and travel expenses for these extended periods. Normally the English Channel would be crossed on the Dover to Calais route, the tour would then move on to Paris for the first stop. Paris was very popular as many of the English aristocrats at the time spoke French as this was the language of the royal court and the rest of high society.

Apartments would be found and rented for the weeks or months that each stop demanded. Paris, Rome and Venice were the three main cities at which stops would be made and the art, culture and architecture would be exhaustively explored. As time went on and roads became better and safer to be travelled on, more cities were added to the itinerary, Florence and Naples being very popular as well. Months would be spent at the major cities whilst a matter of only a few weeks were passed at the smaller cities.

The journey to Italy from France was no mean feat in those days; the choice being either to take a boat across the Mediterranean or dismantle the travelling coach and have it transported over the Alps. However as Italy was definitely well on the tourist trail they had to get there by whatever means possible. Later when excavations began at Herculaneum and Pompeii even more people embarked on these educational tours.

Credit has been given to the Grand Tour for innovation and diversification in British architecture as people brought back ideas for designs for their own homes. Many famous architects of the time were greatly influenced by what they had seen on the Continent and further afield and used these influences when designing for their customers.

The nineteenth century opened up travel to more people as the railway network spread across Europe. More people could afford to travel and touring was no longer limited to the upper classes.

Nowadays we think nothing of hopping on a train or aeroplane to be taken to all sorts of destinations in all corners of the globe. Although essentially our reason for travel is usually is to have a holiday we also like to take in the sights and sounds and learn a little about the place we are visiting. In our own country you can usually find a bus tour with a commentary in most cities that you can hop on and off at places of interest thereby creating your own little mini-tour. However we have those pioneers to thank for much of our architecture and innovations in travel. I’ll certainly be thinking of them when next I leave our shores.

Do you want to be an occidental tourist in the UK? – if so look through the hundreds of interesting things to do at the weekend that can be purchased as a gift or for yourself from My Outdoor Store.