The Grand Tour Quotes

“We all stood in the vast theater of ancient Ephesus ... and had our picture taken. ... We add what dignity we can to a stately ruin with our green umbrellas and jackasses, but it is little," Mark Twain reported with his habitual humor.”
― Sabine Arque, The Grand Tour: The Golden Age of Travel

“Basque aussi, mais de l'autre côté de la frontiére, Biarritz n'était à l'époque de Victor Hugo qu'un village de pécheurs. Mais le grand homme voyait loin : «Je n'ai qu'une peur, écrivait-il, c'est qu'il ne devienne la mode. Déjà on y vient de Madrid, bientôt on y viendra de Paris. [ ...] Biarritz mettra des rampes à ses dunes, des escaliers ses précipices, des kiosques à ses rochers, des bancs ses grottes, des pantalons ses baigneuses ... »”
― Sabine Arque, The Grand Tour: The Golden Age of Travel

“Travels are one of the sources of history: by the narratives of travelers the history of foreign nations is placed beside the particular history of each country," wrote François-René de Chateaubriand in the preface to his Travels in America (1836)”
― Sabine Arque, The Grand Tour: The Golden Age of Travel

“Zweig, who had made frequent journeys around Italy before World War l, was delighted to discover that "the Germans, formerly the largest contingent of travelers, are reduced to a modest number, among whom only the 'Thomas Mann German, the quiet, cultivated one' is to be found.”
― Sabine Arque, The Grand Tour: The Golden Age of Travel