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THE GRAND TOUR


Guided tours of Rome and Italy on the footsteps of the Grand Tour Travellers Educational and Cultural Touring: guided tours, excursions, private tours, tickets reservation.



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WHAT WAS THE GRAND TOUR In the past "Grand Tour" was the name of the journey thatthe European noblemen and rich bourgeois took in Italy, to discover its ancient beauty and its incomparable richness of arts and culture. It was more than a simple tour or a passing fashion, it became a fundamental moment in the cultural training of every cultivated European. To this end, we put at your disposal highly trained guides that will make you discover in an involving way the artistic beauties of our country in a new light. Besides, they will make you discover the less known treasures usually ignored by mass tourism. We organize theme itineraries - “tailored” on demand -, private guided tours to monuments and museums, attendance to traditional events, and much more.

	The passion of the traveller for the unlimited artistic heritage of Italy and its enchanting landscapes is not a product of the modern mass-tourism industry, but also in the past has attracted many cultivated persons who choosed our country for their pleasure travels. Expensive pleasure, once reserved to few rich peaple, full of troubles like long and unsafe travels, thieves, illnesses. These aspects, far from disturbing the Traveller, made the Gand Tour more appealing.

THE GRAND TOUR TODAY Today The Grand Tour Cultural Association aims at promoting the knowledge of the Italian naturalistic and cultural heritage in the mood of the travellers of that age. All this made the Grand Tour an essential step in the cultural an human training of the high society's members, an experience that was much more than what may be reprisented today by a simple plesure travel, in our age characterized by mass tourism and packaged touring. Anyway We are convinced that the old Grand Tour's experience have some aspects that we may try to recover, especially for who wants a full experience of Italy's artistic and cultural heritage whitout loosing the pleasure of discover, enjoing the undestranding of the connections between the many expressions of human spirit.

	WHEN THE TERM WAS COINED The term "Grand Tour" was coined by Richard Lassels in his account "The Voyage of Italy" inl 1670, in which he described his vojage inn Italy, voyage that since 1630 was groving in importance among the cultural elites of northern Europe. Travellers of theis age were, for example, Milton, Marvell, Harvey the philosopher Hobbes. Among those who left us remarkables travel books the most important where Philip Skippon, William Acton, John Evelyn, John Raymond and, as we said above, Richard Lassels.