The Grand Tour · event 4 of 10

1786

Mont Blanc is climbed. Paccard and Balmat reach the summit, and alpinism begins as a pursuit. Within eighty years the Alps have a tourist industry, mountain guides as a profession, and the first purpose-built hotels above the snow line.

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.