Europe within Reach

Download or read book Europe within Reach written by Gerrit Verhoeven and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-06-24 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Europe within Reach Gerrit Verhoeven traces some sweeping evolutions in the early modern travel behaviour of Dutch and Flemish elites (1585-1750), as the classical Grand Tour was slowly but surely overshadowed by other types of travelling. Leisure trips to Paris, London or Berlin, a cours pittoresque along the Rhine, domestic trips in the Low Countries and a series of other destinations gained ground, while new sorts of travellers cropped up: female and middle-class travellers, domestic servants, children, youngsters and the elderly. Verhoeven does not only trace these evolutions, but also explains why Netherlandish travellers gradually turned into art connoisseurs; why they were spellbound by sites of memory and by rugged landscapes; or why all sorts of fashionable gadgets and thingies were bought on the way.