Grand Tour

“ In short, the object of the Grand Tour was to see and be seen. The very term seems to be an extension of usage from the word employed to describe driving in one's coach about the principal streets of a town. The Duchess of Newcastle, in 1656, wrote from Antwerp: "I go sometimes abroad, seldom to visit, but only in my coach about the town, or about some of the streets, which we call here a tour, where all the chief of the town go to see and be seen, likewise all strangers of what quality soever." [305] Evelyn, in 1652, contrasted "making the Tour" with the proper sort of industrious travel ”

“ Some men of real eminence and many of respectable attainments were secured as traveling tutors. Scholars of this sort were far from being the shallow dolts often satirized by critics of the grand tour. ”

“ That part of France in which our scene is laid, presents features which differ very much from the dull and uninteresting aspect of the land from Calais to Paris, and from Paris to the mountains of Switzerland--the route generally pursued by our travelling countrymen, whether they go forth to make what is usually called the grand tour, or content themselves with idling away a long space of mispent time amongst the Helvetian mountains. ”

“ Travel was regarded as an essential finish of one's education, whether one traveled alone or with a tutor. The fashion of travel once established, it often tempted men, and even women, of mature years to undertake extended journeys. The itinerary, of course, varied somewhat according to personal tastes and special needs, but in general the regions visited by tourists bom on the Continent were substantially the same as those that attracted Englishmen. ”

“ Even in our time the old type is not altogether extinct, and may be occasionally encountered in a railway carriage or at a mountain inn, but it is daily becoming more rare.
Our main theme is, then, the touring of Englishmen upon the Continent of Europe in the eighteenth century. Practical considerations of space, as well as the actual practice of all but an insignificant fraction of tourists, compel us to limit our view to France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the Low Countries. ”

“ Every traveler on this route, which is destined to be the favorite choice of the lover of the grand and imposing in American scenery, no less than of the hurried business-man with whom time is money, will find the enjoyment of his tour greatly enhanced by the cheerful and instructive companionship of this agreeable volume. ”

“ It is a tour which embraces country widely differing in characteristics—one which takes in both the long, broad, ribbon-like roads of Central France, flanked by meadows, orchards, and farmsteads, and lofty mountains from the peaks of which other peaks capped with glistening snow may be gazed upon, sunlit valleys and sparkling lakes. It is a tour which no man could possibly make without a good machine, and yet it is a tour which, with a good machine, can be considered easy and comparatively inexpensive. ”

“ This form of locomotion, in the country of the amenities, is attended with a dozen discomforts; almost all the conditions of the business are detestable. They force the sentimental tourist again and again to ask himself whether, in consideration of such mortal annoyances, the game is worth the candle. Fortunately a railway journey is a good deal like a sea-voyage; its miseries fade from the mind as soon as you arrive. That is why I completed, to my great satisfaction, my little tour in France. ”

“ Here, then, is the final travel letter I shall write on this world-girdling tour.
It is a woeful ending for the "sparkling gems" of travel stuff which have gone before.
It will record the sad contrast between my start from my native land, gaily sailing out of the Golden Gate, a de luxe first-class passenger, and winding up my joy-ride around the world by coming through Hell Gate steerage, barely escaping being condemned as a criminal and executed on the high seas, chucked overboard and fed to the sharks.
The lights and shadows of this wicked world are something fierce. ”

“ I judged it best to go to bed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes to make the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself.
Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did not take in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, the Wetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see if these were important, and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour of Europe could not be complete without them. ”

“ The most charming part of Tours is naturally the shaded quay that overlooks it, and looks across too at the friendly faubourg of Saint Symphorien and at the terraced heights which rise above this. Indeed, throughout Touraine it is half the charm of the Loire that you can travel beside it. The great dyke which protects it, or protects the country from it, from Blois to Angers, is an admirable road; and on the other side as well the highway constantly keeps it company. A wide river, as [6] Tours you follow a wide road, is excellent company; it brightens and shortens the way. ”

“ It must not be imagined that a walking tour, as some would have us fancy, is merely a better or worse way of seeing the country. There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening’s rest. ”

“ It has become the custom to ride through England or France, and thus combine a sight-seeing tour with a long bicycle ride, rather than make similar runs at home, and why not here?
If a tour is possible in Europe, it certainly is possible in America, and to him who has eyes to see there is much to see and learn about his own country, if he goes on a wheel, that never can be seen in any other way. Now, too, the facilities for such a trip are greatly improved over anything in the past. ”

“ There is no feeling in the world so exhilarating and delicious as that experienced in starting off on a Bohemian tour, without luggage, without responsibilities, unhampered by fear of railway time-tables or the care of boxes, dawdling or hurrying at will, starting at what hour one pleases, and out all day in the fresh mountain air, with al fresco meals and a turf siesta. ”

“ This is as delightful a holiday as one could imagine, and the foreign tour—which has often been made merely as a succession of nights of travel in stuffy sleeping-cars or a round of overfeeding orgies at Parisian hotels and restaurants—has added charms of which the generation before the advent of automobiles knew nought. ”

“ The narratives of modern travellers are often learned, more often flimsy, and from the universality of locomotion, much given, like the prayers of the old Pharisees, to tedious repetitions. A tour in Greece or Italy now affects us with unutterable weariness. A journey from London to York affords more real novelty than many of these excursions. ”

“ Our tour was an unqualified success. A more delightfully independent, a more restful, or a more remunerative way of seeing the country than by driving through it, without haste or any precisely arranged plan, it is difficult to conceive, ensuring, as such an expedition does, perfect freedom, and a happy escape from the many minor worries of ordinary travel—the only thing absolutely needful for the driving tourist to do being to find an inn for the night. ”

“ The taste, the fancy, the elegance, the refinement, are of those things which revive our standard of the exquisite. Such a piece of work is the purest flower of the French Renaissance; there is nothing more delicate in all Touraine.
There is another fine thing at Tours which is not particularly delicate, but which makes a great impres- sion, - the- very interesting old church of Saint Julian, lurking in a crooked corner at the right of the Rue Royale, near the point at which this indifferent thorough- fare emerges, with its little cry of admiration, on the bank of the Loire. ”

“ Whether, however, one enters Italy by one pass or another, the first part of one’s journey is by the well-worn road to Paris, which, by reason, I suppose, of its being the prelude to nearly every holiday tour that I make, never seems to be stale, old, or too well-known. ”

“ Then there began a strange feeling of freedom and novelty which lasted to the end of the tour.
Something like it is felt when you first march off with a knapsack ready to walk anywhere, or when you start alone in a sailing-boat for a long cruise. ”

“ A tour in Europe, carefully mapped out with an elaborate itinerary and a carefully connected timetable, may be full of instruction, but it often becomes a tax upon the spirit and a weariness to the flesh. ”

“ The circular tour is a magnificent idea, a praiseworthy business scheme; it has educated the minds of millions and why it should have ruined their manners is a mystery, unless indeed they had none when they were at home. Some of our fellow-travellers with whom we originally started disappear every day or two, to join us again. We lose them temporarily when we take a private conveyance or when they stop at a cheap hotel, but we come altogether again on coach or long car ”

“ Within the confines of that magic ring will be found more grand and wonderful scenery accessible by rail than within any similar circle swept anywhere on the surface of the world! Pilgrimages are made across the seas to behold the beauties of some one famed object The Via Mala attracts one, Mount Blanc another, the Colosseum a third, and the tourist, after all his great expenditure of time and money, comes away with one impression. ”

“ Truly the various people that the road-traveller comes in contact with from time to time often dispute interest with the scenery. As Sir Arthur Helps says, “In travel it is remarkable how much more pleasure we obtain from unexpected incidents than from deliberate sight-seeing,” and it certainly appears to me that a driving tour specially{25}
ARTIST AND AUTHOR lends itself to meeting with incidents. ”

“ A remarkable, astonishing, and delightful ride is before you. One wishes to look all ways at once, to admire the long curves of the winding track, the strangely carved walls of the cañon, the troops of llamas or burros with their Indian drivers, the steep pathways up which they toil, the patches of bright green in the midst of the brown slopes, and the gradually approaching city. ”

“ Its purpose is to save the intending Tourist time and trouble and to generally assist him in mapping out his tour, free of charge and irrespective of the make of tyres he uses.
The latest information relating to Tours, in any part of the World, can be furnished.
If you are unable to pay a visit to this office, send us a rough draft of your next proposed tour, and we will prepare a complete and detailed Itinerary and forward it to you by return of post. ”

“ They are cold and musty indeed, with that touching smell of old furniture, as all apartments should be through which [71] the insatiate American wanders in the rear of a bored domestic, pausing to stare at a faded tapestry or to read the name on the frame of some simpering portrait.
To return to Tours my companion and I had counted on a train which (as is not uncommon in France) existed only in the "Indicateur des Chemins de Fer;" and instead of waiting for another we engaged a vehicle to take us home. ”

“ HITTING THE TRAIL WALKING tours are popularly supposed to be feasible chiefly for those to whom this method of travel is incidental to their occupation—timber cruisers, landlookers, prospectors, game wardens and trappers of the North—men who daily match themselves against the forces of Nature. ”

“ Should you wish merely to make a rapid tour of the mountain region, it will be best so to arrange your route before starting that the first day will bring you where there is something to be seen, to a comfortable hotel, and from which your journey may be continued with an economy of time and money. ”

“ A trip of seventy miles is something of an undertaking in that region, and quite a crowd gathered around to witness our departure, not a soul of whom, I will wager, will ever hear the rumble of a stage-coach, or the whistle of a steam-car, in those sandy, deserted streets. ”

“ On that epoch-making day, the bloody axe of Charles Martel graved deep his name on the annals of France. But Tours has many another claim to historic renown. Touraine, the province of which it is the capital, is strewed with magnificent châteaux, whose very elaboration and beauty testify to how greatly French royalty and nobility loved its temperate climate. On our way from Poitiers to Tours, we shall pass through several charming little valleys and find attractive, though quiet, scenery, during most of the journey. The immediate surroundings of Tours are not pleasing. ”

“ The close of the holiday season sets most of us reflecting on the philosophy of travel, and many of us upon the simplest form of it, the philosophy of walking tours. Among serious and imaginative pedestrians there are only two schools or parties, and one school maintains that the pedestrian should go forth without map or compass, and wander until a wood beckons to him or a pathway points like a finger. ”

“ It is impossible to conceive a more romantic watch-tower for the fairy hill. The weather was remarkably mild and beautiful, and the full moon so brilliant that I could read with perfect ease in my carriage. ”