The Grand Tour · event 1 of 10

1600s

The Grand Tour begins. Wealthy young northern Europeans start spending one to four years travelling to France and Italy, ostensibly for education. It creates the first genuine tourist economy: guides, souvenir painters, maintained ruins and a market for the view as a commodity.

The The Grand Tour era

  1. 1600s
  2. 1719
  3. 1750s
  4. 1786
  5. 1830
  6. 1836
  7. 5 July 1841
  8. 1855
  9. 1869
  10. 1888

See the full timeline or read the short history of travel.