The Grand Tour of Europe was the original “Gap Year” which was seen as an important rite of passage for young aristocratic English men in the 17th century following the end of the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War. It was seen as an opportunity to break away from routine and embrace the Arts, Culture and Architectural wonders of Europe and beyond where they could embrace a way of seeking education and refinement.

The young aristocrats could go on a group tour of discovery, where they could learn the French, German and Italian languages, see works of European Art (and have themselves portrayed by a painter), listen to European classical music, and see classical architecture. They could also practice gentlemen’s sports, such as horse riding and fencing.

The primary value of the Grand Tour lay in its exposure to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to be introduced to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent. It was commonly undertaken in the company of a cicerone, who would have been a knowledgeable guide or tutor.

While the Tour was not a religious voyage in itself, tourists from Catholic families visited the Vatican  while the Protestants often saw locations of the Protestant Reformation, such as Wittenberg, Geneva and Lousanne.

The benefit of the tour was out lined by Richard Lassels in his book The Voyage of Italy, where he listed four areas in which travel furnished an education: the intellectual, the social, the political and the ethical. The last being the most important because it brought together the opportunity of drawing moral instruction from all of what the traveller had experienced and seen.