Grand Tour, Part 12: Home Is Where the Heart Is

We have returned from our year-long Grand Tour. Our last stop was Gilbraltar, where we were feted by the families of the garrison officers. We found the romantic Moorish architecture to be in direct contrast to the bastions built by Britain to fortify this rock jutting out of the sea. We were also fortunate enough to spend some time in the Garrison Library (an honor normally reserved only for the soldiers stationed here, but you know SOMEONE in our group would bat her eyes!). The library is an amazing place stocked with tomes in many languages and covering hundreds of years. We also visited the cemetery to pay our respects to the sailors buried there who died in the Battle of Trafalgar.

And now we are back in our own little homes, having bid each other a teary goodbye after living cheek-by-jowl for so many months. Ah, but the comfort of friends, family, and familiar surroundings cannot be overestimated. Yet somehow England looks smaller, perhaps less colorful, than we remembered it. Then again, it is dreary December, so perhaps our outlook will improve in the spring.

In the meantime, everyone we know wants to hear more about our travels, and we have no end of invitations for dinners and teas. Remembering all our adventures brings a smile to our faces every time. And we find we have opinions on matters we had not considered before, such as whether antiquities should be left in their native lands and how women and gentlemen should relate to each other.

We’ve also collected a number of keepsakes along the way. Here are a few of mine:

Lace from Venice

A set of etchings of the Roman ruins

A Moorish shawl

So what did you bring back from your travels? Is there somewhere else you’d like to travel next year? I do believe we can find a likely chaperone to accompany us. Or are you happy now that you have safely returned to England’s shore?

Grand Tour, Part 11—A Detour on the Road Home: Malta

Alas! We had planned to visit Athens as our last stop, but war has broken out there! British travelers fleeing the conflagration meet us at the docks in Sicily and warn us not to continue in that direction. The Ottoman Pasha has besieged Athens, his war engines pounding the fair city into ruins far less charming than the ones left by the ancients. With a heavy heart, we decide to book passage to Malta instead and begin our journey home.

Malta is a tiny island just to the south of Sicily, but its strategic location, between Italy and Africa, has made it a contested place for centuries. Nearly 300 years before we set foot on it, King Charles of Spain ceded it to the Knights of St. John (and the portion of them on the island became known as the Knights of Malta). This Order protected pilgrims traveling back and forth between Europe and the Holy Land, and rescued those who had been attacked at sea. Many of the beautiful churches, palaces, and gardens in Malta stem from their time on the island. Their rule only ended with the arrival of Bonaparte.

In 1798, when the knights refused to supply Napoleon’s fleet with water on its way to Egypt, the French conquered the island and initiated radical reforms. The Maltese people revolted and asked the British government for help. The British defeated the French, so now there has been a garrison on the island for many years, and indeed, the harbors provide homes for many British ships.

So, sweeping churches, majestic palaces, peaceful gardens, stunning artwork, and . . . men in uniform! What more could a girl want?

Our two days in sunny Malta are spent touring and socializing. A handsome lieutenant assigned to us by the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet himself escorts us through the fort-like Church of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John, where we find not only stirring architecture but the tombs of the valiant knights of old. We take tea with the Commander in his gorgeous residence, which the lieutenant confides was once the home of the Grand Master of the Order. He also reminds us that none other than Byron once visited these very shores, penning some of his poems here.

In the evening, we attend a ball with the regimental and the naval officers in attendance. The gentlemen outnumber the ladies by a delightful three to one, ensuring that everyone who wishes to dance can do so with a variety of partners. And a quartet of gentlemen are more than happy to sit out the dancing to play cards, promenade, and discuss the latest literary compositions of our fine empire. Quite a few can quote Byron.

On the way back to our hotel, we are verses a little more authentic: by singers playing Maltese songs, as sweet and spicy as the culture from which they sprung. We soak it all up, drink it all in, knowing that shortly, our travels must end. The next stop is Gibraltar, and then home!

Grand Tour, Part 10: The Music of Palermo

The mainland of Italy has faded behind us as our packet heads across the blue, blue waters toward Sicily. Even a half hour out we can see Mount Aetna rising from the sea, steam obscuring its summit. Who knows, we might even witness an eruption while we’re visiting!

However, we don’t need a volcano to be hot. Even this late in the season the sun beats down unmercifully. We are cautioned to keep a good sturdy bonnet on our heads anytime we are out of doors. Yet how can we be concerned in such a charming place? As we near the island, we can see the city, cupped by lofty and barren hills with Mount Pellegrino standing on its headland. Palm trees and weeping cedar overhang the shore. And flowers are everywhere.

The harbor is crowded as we enter, yet all we can hear is music. A boat full of musicians has come to greet us, playing us right up to the quay. And close to hand is the best hotel in Palermo, the Prince of Wales, run by Mr. and Mrs. Page. She speaks faultless English even after years in this exotic locale.

We have only one night in Palermo, alas, so we must make every moment count. Mrs. Page advises a trip to the Marina, an amphitheatre with marble seats where the nobles of Palermo gather to listen to music. On the way we pass along the Toledo, the main street on Palermo, where cloistered beauties watch from overhanging balconies. A mustachioed gentleman approaches, one of the famed Storytellers, offering to beguile us with tales of Arabia. For a silver coin, he tells us about the giant skeletons found nearby. Surely they are the Cyclops!

Down in the Marina we are given a further taste of Arabia. We listen to the music, harp and flute, in lilting songs so foreign to the precise music we were taught at home. Then it’s up the stairs into the public gardens for a promenade. Oh, I do believe those gentlemen are staring. Quick, put up your parasol!

Another Storyteller draws nearer. Perhaps the adventuresome young ladies might like a tour of the catacombs? Usually it is forbidden for women, but for the right price . . . . A few of our number, who shall be nameless, decide to throw caution to the winds and accompany him deep under the cathedral, where more than the chill air raises gooseflesh. And there seems to be music here as well. Is that the wind moving past the boxes and statues or the voices of those long gone? Hand me my shawl, will you?

Thankfully, we all return in time for a dinner replete with delicacies from the sea. How sad we only have night here! Normally we would tarry among the mountains of Sicily, but the nights are getting longer, and soon it will be difficult to reach home. So, tomorrow it’s overland by litter to Catania, and then on to Athens!

The Grand Tour, Part 9: Ah, Roma!

We have left sweet Venice, and more than one heart, behind, and have reached what many consider the pinnacle of our time in Italy:  none other than Rome itself! I must admit to some trepidation.  Mrs. Starke reports that the inns near the city are all infected with a horrid sickness she calls Mal’ aria. She also advises that we are not to step outside our hotel at night because of the fogs and noxious vapors that arise. 

Yet being around so much history cannot help but impress.  Even the gate we ride through into the city, the Porto del Popolo, is magnificent, towering stories above us in ornamented stone and braced by columns. It seems that Rome was once so full of marble columns topped by busts of famous people or gods that the government actually put a tax on them!  Sadly, many have fallen now or been taken away.

Oh, but it seems we are surrounded by antiquities!  We have all been inspired to purchase notebooks and began sketching.  See our impressions?

 

 

After a day or two of fountains, churches, and palaces, we hire a guide specifically for Rome, and he beckons us closer.  Going out by night dangerous?  Oh, no, no.  The best way to see the ancient sites is by moonlight, which softens the ravages of time and sets the stones to glowing.  Under his guidance, we tiptoe through grottoes, vast coliseums, and hallowed halls alike, awed by the former glory, afraid to wake the slumbering ghosts of the past. 

And of course, we must purchase souvenirs!  So many of our countrymen and women have passed this way before us that a rousing trade has arisen in brooches, plaques, and sketches of all the wonderful sites.  See the lovely brooch I found to bring home?

 

I hope we can find a particularly burly porter when we head off to Sicily!

[For those of you still in the twenty-first century, check out this site from the University of Oregon.  The interactive map allows you to see what Rome looked like in the late 18^th century, with photographs of the same sights today.  Really cool!]  

The Grand Tour, Part 6: Climbing Over Mountains

We are having a few challenges on our Grand Tour, I fear. Several of us were highly tempted to remain in Paris but were finally persuaded to join us aboard our hired Voiturin as we set off across France for Italy. These hired carriages can hold four to six passengers and luggage, but the drivers appear to be rather new, and we’ve had a few near misses with other carriages, horses, and a rather fierce-looking bull. We’ve also had a few disagreements on which pass to take, finally settling on one of the more popular ones over Mont-Cenis and down into Turin. Unfortunately, that means we won’t be able to stop at Leukenbad as QNPoohBear had hoped, but she’s been a good sport about it.

And no wonder! The views out the carriage window are nothing short of amazing. We cross the high bridge over the River Orge and then a while later descend into the Forest of Fontainebleau, which our guide Mrs. Starke calls “gloomily magnificent” with its tree-shrouded rocky hills. One of our members is so entranced with geology that she insists we stop at the Grottoes of Arcy, where we climb through caves, torches held high, to view the stalactites and strange paintings made on the walls by ancient peoples.

After a night at the Hotel du Parc in Dijon, we continue on a road that is growing more difficult. Steep precipices fall into fertile river valleys; crusty crags grasp at the sky. In places, our drivers insist that we disembark and walk to save the horses, but who can resist gulping in great lungfuls of crisp, cool air. Marveling, we pick up handfuls of snow along the roadside even though it has long since melted away back home.


And we are not alone among the heights. Shepherds guide herds of cattle through the alpine pastures, playing on pipes that seem older than the hills. Other travelers pass on mules and horseback. Gentlemen try their luck in mountain streams, hoping to catch their dinner.


And there as we pass into Gex is Lake Geneva below us, a glittering jewel surrounded by glaciers! We crowd the windows of the Voiturin, setting our conveyance to shaking and one of us, ahem, to shrieking. Good thing we are descending into the valley, finally crossing a double set of bridges, their arches reflected in the lake. At the Gate we are required to surrender our passports (retrieving them again at the Bureau des Passeports), and then we are taken to the finest hotel in the city, Les Balances, for a fine dinner and a good night’s sleep.

I promise to sit in the middle of the Voiturin on our next leg of the journey, and I shall be happy to spend the evening mending your sleeve where I clung a bit too tightly on that last hill. Next, on to Turin!

Grand Tour, Part 5: The Palace of Kings

We’ve been having so much fun in Paris. We spent an afternoon at the Museum of Natural History and Botanical Garden, which also includes a menagerie of animals in their natural habitats. So innovative! We shopped and walked until we had to soak our feet at night. Of course we took in a drama at the Theatre Francais. But there’s one thing more we must do in this area, something many an English lady and gentleman seem compelled to do: Visit Versailles.

The Palace of Versailles outside Paris started as a hunting lodge, but after it was acquired by King Louis XIII and enlarged by his son and grandson, it became one of the most elaborate and extensive palaces in Europe. At one time, it housed more than a thousand courtiers and their families. By the mid-1700s, it was filled with finest artwork, statuary, and furnishings. The surrounding acres of gardens had been tamed into rigid patterns that defied nature.

The Revolution changed all that. It served as museum, then hospital, and all the major pieces it had so proudly boasted were sold, sent to museums, or otherwise dispersed.

So now, we wander through ornate rooms where kings and queens have trod, our footsteps echoing in the emptiness. The ceilings hearken back to the days of greatness, while murals, too large to be moved, hint of the grandeur that once dominated here. One can only wonder what the tree called Le grand Bourbon, planted in the Orangery and said to be over 400 years old, would tell us if it could speak. Careful not to disturb the workers manufacturing arms in one part of the palace, we make our way back to our hired coaches, sobered.

But we cannot leave Paris on such a note! Off we go to the an evening at Académie Royale de Musique, an opera house where some of the magnificence of the Bourbons lives on in the elaborate sets and authentic costumes. And don’t forget, tonight we must have the servants pack our things, for tomorrow we head out of Paris, on our way to the Alps!

Grand Tour, Part 4: The Art of Paris

We’re here in Paris! We are staying in a sumptuous hotel close to the opera-house, which I am told has the greatest splendor of set decorations of any theatre in Europe. Streets seem a bit more narrow than we’re used to and a lot dirtier. But the architecture is even more sweeping, a grand scale envisioned by Napoleon. Many of his plans remain unfinished, such as the Arc de l’Etoile and the Fountain of the Elephant. But our dear Mrs. Starke calls the Louvre, which houses the Musee Royal, one of the most perfect specimens of modern architecture. Many of its treasures were plundered in the wars, but plenty remain for us to appreciate!

Let’s go there first this morning. It is open Tuesday through Sunday, and foreigners like us are allowed entrance free from 10am to 4pm so long as we show our passports. We wander through the marble-tiled ground floor, where from the vestibule through the various rooms we find statues from Rome and other parts of Italy crowded side by side. As you know, in her guidebook Mrs. Starke puts exclamation points beside the most meritorious things to view. It seems that covers everything in the Louvre! One item with three exclamation points is a the statue of Silenus with the infant Bacchus (much like this one), which was discovered in the 16th century in the gardens of Sallust.

Thoroughly sated, we climb the stairs for Gallery of Apollo to see the paintings. The Gallery has nine parts, the first three devoted to French masters, the second three to German, Flemish, and Dutch artists; and the last three to Italian artists. Here again, paintings are crammed cheek to jowl, stacked frame to gilded frame from the high ceiling down nearly to the floor. Mrs. Starke recommends the Dropsical Woman by Geritt Dou in the Dutch section and Antiope Asleep by Antonio Allegri da Correggio in the Italian section (both two exclamation points!) as well as several works by Raphael. Also upstairs is the Exhibition Rooms of Living Artists, with more gorgeous works.

I think we could all spend all day here, but there are so many more things to see! One of the areas Mrs. Starke advises us to appreciate is the Boulevards, a set of drives and walks that encircles Paris, bordered by trees and gardens and filled with shops. Then, there is the tempting Bibliotheque du Roi, a library with more than 800,000 printed volumes, 80,000 manuscripts, and 5,500 volumes of prints. And that’s just one of several libraries open to the public in Paris. Oh, be still my beating heart!

Please look around and enjoy yourselves! Before we leave France, we must visit Versailles! In the meantime, do come back next week, when Nineteenteen celebrates Valentine’s day and the launch of the first book in the Everard Legacy miniseries: The Rogue’s Reform!

Grand Tour, Part 3: On to Paris!

Ah, when last we discussed our adventures on the Grand Tour, we had embarked on a ship crossing the Channel and were heading for Calais. The voyage was uneventful, except for the one member of our company who was hideously seasick, poor dear!

Luckily, the tide was high when we reached Calais, so we were able to sail right up to the quay. That was a blessing. At low water, smaller boats must be rowed out to the ships, and it’s always tricky getting a lady in full skirts over the side of the sailing ship and safely aboard the boats. Then too, once the smaller boats reach the shallows, there’s the question of getting from them to the shore. I’ve heard tales where men had to carry the ladies. And we are not talking gentlemen or gently!

We, on the other hand, can merely cross the gangplank onto the dock. However, the French do not seem content to allow us to do so alone. Dozens of men come aboard wishing to help us disembark, carrying our trunks and even our parasols! They are a rough bunch, but they seem civil enough and conduct us right up to the Monsieur le Commissaire, who will escort us to the customs-house. There we exchange our passports for French ones, and if we do not produce them quickly enough there is a great deal of hand-waving and exclamations in rapid French.

Everyone collected? Excellent! We had planned to spend the night in Calais, so off to our hotel, one that caters to visiting Englishmen and women, the Meurice. Our trunks will be examined at the customs-house and released, once we have paid a host of fees, including money for the captain, sailors, the commissioner, and the gentlemen who carried everything from the ship for us. My, but traveling can get expensive!

After a good night’s sleep on the sheets we brought ourselves, we hire a post-chaise for the ride to Paris. We could have taken the Diligence. It has an office very near the Meurice. But the large, lumbering coaches that carry people all over France are so much more uncomfortable than the English stagecoaches that we took pity on our still green friend and hired a carriage instead.

Mrs. Starke, from the written guide we’ve brought with us, advises us to take the road from Calais through Beauvais to Paris, as it is smoother, less hilly, and shorter. The road winds through fields of grain, and trees line the avenue as if you were going somewhere much finer than the local villages. We pass a mound, which our guides tell us once housed the camp of Julius Caesar. Roman medals and other artifacts have been found in the area.

And there’s a lovely convent, with its white walls. So French! No, wait. Is that smoke coming from the chimney? So many chimneys? It seems France has seen fit to transform many of its convents into factories, a fact that seems more sad than progressive as we head on.

And there, on the horizon, Montmartre! We’re almost to Paris!

The Grand Tour, Part 2: Sailing Away!

My dears, we are about to embark on our Grand Tour! We are booked to take the Dover packet today across the Channel to Calais. From there, we’ll travel by carriage to Paris. When we’ve filled ourselves with French pastries, we will travel over the Alps to Italy and through the countryside to Venice, then down to Rome. After seeing the sights there, we will take ship for Sicily, then Malta, and then Athens. From Athens, we’ll return home by ship to England via Gibraltar. I do hope I can count you as a traveling companion!

However, one of our traveling companions is coming along in a very helpful book. I have with me the guidance of Mariana Starke, a well-traveled lady who is not at all stingy with her advice. Mrs. Starke as she was known (although she never married) lived in India with her mother and father when she was a child and resided for many years in Italy, traveling in France as well. Her books were the first truly practical travel guides for Europe, including things like how to obtain passports, how much to spend on food, and where to stay in various cities. She was the first to use a rating system (like the stars of the Michelin guides or the diamonds of AAA), consisting of a number of exclamation points.

Mrs. Starke’s advice on what to take with us in our travels is quite extensive, but I shall put what I deem the most important here:

• Our own sheets, pillow, and blankets. She also advises that our sheets be made of sheepskin, and that we bring essential oil of lavender to sprinkle upon our beds each night to drive away bedbugs and fleas.


• A mosquito net of thin gauze


• A travelling-chamber lock to affix upon our doors


• Pens, ink-powder, and wax wafers for letter writing


• Double-soled shoes and boots to take the chill from marble and brick floors
  
• A trunk covered with thick, painted sail cloth


• Our passports


• Letters of recommendation to all British ministers as well as highly respected persons in each of the cities to which we are travelling


• Likewise letters of credit from our bank in London, so that we only have to carry a small bit of cash and won’t be more attractive targets to robbers


• And a clever little device supposedly the size of a reticule called a soldier’s comfort. According to Mrs. Starke, it can serve as night-light, stove, and saucepan for cooking meats and vegetables.

All packed? Good! I’ve had your trunks sent ahead from the inn to the ship. We must stop by the Customs House in Dover and have them examine our passports. Goodness, but it’s a bit of a crush! With France being opened just recently after all the troubles with Napoleon, it seems everyone wants to be in Paris. There’s a retired general who will travel on the same ship with us, an ex-pat French aristocrat going back to see what might be left of his family, and several young gentlemen intent like us on seeing more of the world. The weather looks good for our passage, which should take about half a day, tide willing. I do hope no one gets seasick! The Channel is notorious for that.

Next stop, Calais, and then Paris!

The Grand Tour, Part 1: Planning

First, I’m very pleased to announce that Beebs won my second chance copy of An Honorable Gentleman. The Random Number Generator does not lie, even though its choice was oddly fitting since she also guessed right but lost out in the first chance! Beebs, contact me at reginascott@owt.com with your mailing address, and I’ll send it right out to you.

During our birthday house party, Lo suggested that we talk about activities on the Continent, such as the Grand Tour. As the Grand Tour was rather, well, grand, I’m planning for the topic to take a few posts to relay, and I’ll be sprinkling them in between now and spring.

To start out with, the Grand Tour came to be the term used for a trip a young man took to complete his education in the nineteenth century, sort of the senior road trip some take today. Only this trip took considerably more than roads to accomplish!

The general purpose of the Grand Tour was exposure. By traveling to foreign climes, the young man would see art, architecture, manners, customs, and cultures different from his own and come back better informed and better able to take part in his own society. The young men were generally gentry or aristocrats, and most often British, although youths from Northern European countries sometimes traveled as well, and there are accounts of Americans and South Americans joining the party.
On your trip, you were expected to view the other cultures, partake only to a certain extent that was proper, and somehow memorialize your impressions, whether through painting, writing a journal, or carting home representative books, artwork, or tokens that would then be displayed with pride the resulting years of your life.

So how did one go about preparing for a Grand Tour? I imagine there was a lot of dreaming involved, discussions with fathers, uncles, and older friends who had gone. Then, as you were finishing Oxford, say, and were between 17 and 20 years of ago, your family would look for a suitable guide to escort you. This guide would be a gentleman of some learning or pretension to the arts who could serve as companion, chaperone, and bodyguard. This paragon came to be called a bear-leader. Your parents paid the bear-leader to take you on your tour and ensure you had an educational, enjoyable, and not too enthusiastic time and that you came home safely, mind expanded, all limbs still intact. If you were wealthy enough, you had your own guide; otherwise you might share with one or two other young men.

The Grand Tour could take several months, or several years, depending on the itinerary and your family’s wealth and willingness to have you away from home. The most common itinerary included time in France (when Britain was not at war with it), Switzerland, and Italy (Rome, Venice, Naples), but might extend to the German States, Spain (when it was not at war), and Greece (if you weren’t afraid to brave the Ottoman Empire). As the nineteenth century wore on, and train travel became more available, more people began to take their own Grand Tours, whether young men from mercantile families or even well-chaperoned young ladies.

So, your families had the good sense to hire you two ladies with reasonable credentials and some experience with literature (cough, cough, Regina and Marissa). Think about where you’d like to go on your Grand Tour, ladies, and perhaps we can plot out an itinerary for the next few months.