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The Grand Tour as an institution was ultimately worthwhile for the Tour has been given credit for an dramatic improvement in British architecture and culture. The French Revolution in 1789 marked the end of the Grand Tour for in the early nineteenth century, railroads totally changed the face of tourism and travel across the continent.

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Although the Grand Tour was predominantly undertaken by gentlemen, a number of ladies also travelled abroad. The blue-stocking Hester Piozzi was particularly well-known for her travels in the 1770s and 1780s.

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The Grand Tour was extremely exclusive and only undertaken by the very rich, mainly the sons of the aristocracy. This was because travel was both difficult and expensive. Travellers carried little money for fear of robbery. Instead, they took letters of credit from their London banks which they then presented in major cities.

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Gentlemen often travelled abroad under the care of a tutor or “Bear Leader”. In Georgette Heyer’s novel, Devil’s Cub, the Marquis of Vidal discovers an English clergyman travelling in France: “There is a divine, lately passed through Paris, bear-leading some sprig of the nobility. They are bound for Italy.” Mr Comyn goes on to describe him as “a needy divine…who has the good fortune to be in charge of a young gentleman making the Grand Tour

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The chief destinations were the great cities of the Renaissance and the remains of classical civilisations, which usually included the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii.

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From Paris, travellers usually proceeded to the Alps and then by boat on the Mediterranean to Italy. They would usually visit Rome and Venice but their tour might also include Spain, Portugal, Germany, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Baltic.

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The Grand Tour was a period of foreign travel commonly undertaken by gentlemen to finish off their education. It was popular from the mid-17th century until the end of the 18th century when the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars stopped most foreign travel.

It saw a revival in the early 19th century after peace was restored in Europe. However, as travel became cheaper and easier, and in particular with the advent of the railways, visiting Europe ceased to be the province of the elite; the days of the Grand Tour were over.