First published: Stroud, Alan Sutton, 1992

Includes bibliography (p.326-338) and index.

Travel for pleasure developed greatly in the eighteenth century, and in this scholarly, yet accessible study, Jeremy Black examines travel on the Continent, the so-called Grand Tour. The Grand Tour considers not only the standard destinations of France and Italy but also the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland and the Balkans. It describes in detail the modes of transport, the range of accommodation, the food and drink, the pleasures and hazards of travel, ranging from sex and sensibility to debt and dysentery, as well as the effects of the French Revolution on the British tourist. Quoting extensively from eighteenth-century tourist correspondence, particularly hitherto uncited manuscript collections, and illustrating the text throughout with a superb collection of photographs and maps, Jeremy Black builds up a vivid and frequently amusing picture of the travel experiences of British aristocrats on the Continent.