Grand Tourism in a Coach and Six

European swallows winter in South Africa: these are seasonal migrations. European salmons, spawned in freshwater streams, swim all the way to the coasts of Greenland, only to return home to produce their own offspring and die; these are voyages that take years and give meaning to an entire lifetime. Likewise, young gentlefolk once left their homes in northern Europe to travel south, questing toward Italy and Rome, and then returned home, had children, grew old, and died. They called this youthful migration the Grand Tour. Those years of fruitful pilgrimage – Wanderjahre, the Germans called them – and education gave them memories that kept them company till their dying day: the lands wo die Zitronen blühen, “where lemon trees blossom,” ruins, carriages jolting along uneven highways, the warmth of sweet southern winds, cheerful peasant festivals, brigands, and bordellos. They also brought back physical objects that bespoke a love of the classical: some bulky, such as paintings and statues, others of smaller size, such as the reproductions of coins and etched gems called “zolfi.”