Centuries ahead of those “Brits Abroad” tabloid headlines that make us hang our heads in shame, the British were still managing to cause chaos on the continent. The Grand Tour was a chance for upper class boys to kick up their heels and party across Europe under the auspices of an educational expedition, before getting married off and settling down in a massive country pile. A sort of Georgian Gap Year. We look at where they went, what they got up to and what they brought back with them in an age before antibiotics.

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Reading List: The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century by Jeremy Black

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We Are History is written and presented by Angela Barnes and John O’Farrell. Production by Simon Williams. Group Editor is Andrew Harrison. We Are History is a Podmasters Production

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