Oh What A Time... - #182 The Grand Tour and are The Killers better than The Beatles? (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

For the eighteenth-century gentleman few things marked a rite of passage more than the grand tour - so this week we’re seeing what exploring Europe, the UK and North America was like in the 18th and 19th Centuries.Elsewhere, Elis has been dreaming about Chris’ fictional children being good at football. If you’ve got any dreams to share, you know what to do: [e-mail] from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, What a Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, add free, plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets, and access to the Oh Watertime Group chat. Plus, if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate

where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O-Watertime. Hello and welcome to Oh, What a Time, which is a proper history podcast, all of the facts and the stories are done for us by a real historian called Dr. Dahl Rieworthy, very talented man. However, not the stories from our lives. No, no, no, no, no. However, occasionally we will delve into the fantastical,

and I'm going to say that I had a dream about Chris Skull and his lovely wife. Oh, here we go. The dream was, it's it. I dream that. you had a third kid, a daughter called Ruth. Ruth? And it was yours. Sorry. And I raised her as my own.

And she was basically the most talented footballer on earth. But she was like three or four, maybe even younger. And we were all on holiday like when we got to Cornwall. And me and Tom were just talking about Ruth's skills. And Sophie, Chris's wife, would go, yeah, she's quite good. And Chris would sort of quite humbly and modestly say, yeah, it's definitely something we're looking to encourage. And then Tom and I, like in a sitcom, would look to her left,

and she'd be doing, like, croiftoning adults and doing, like, reponnes and stepovers. And bamboozling adults, but adults would be falling over and dropping their drinks. It was like a proper sort of with sitcom timing. I'd walk into the kitchen in the place we'd go to in Cornwall. I'd say, so they're... Clubs looking at Ruth. And Sophie or Chris would go, yeah, but obviously she's still young.

And then he'd look out the window and she'd be like sort of doing kickups with a golf ball on this coast. That thing Maradonna you had to do who'd volley it really high. Yeah, yeah. 40 yards into the air and trap it perfectly. Starts off with the football

and then with a sort of golf ball and then with a squash ball. And it was a really funny dream. And I woke up and I laughed out loud. Was there a look? on Chris's face, even a wry smile that on seven level he knew. No. It was like they didn't realise, but everyone else did.

And so there was an awful lot of me and Tom sharing glances and raising eyebrows and be like, she's clearly, Ruth's clearly got it. I love you gone for such a sort of normal name as well, Ruth. Ruth. Ruth's skull. She's the future of English football. Well, what's quite exciting is, I wonder if that has happened to someone. Do you think like Lionel Messi's dad over the playground was like five-year-old Lionel Messi just ripping it up? Yeah, he's actually very good, isn't he?

Yeah, he's all right. Yeah, we'll encourage it for as long as he enjoys playing. I'll take him to the sessions. I'm thinking is the situation would probably be, let's just say for the sake of the story, a dad that's not been that involved in turning up to the weekend matches maybe because of work or something like that. It comes to the first one where the, when the kids six. or seven, and then the kid scores 14 goals. Yeah. There's 15

scouts in Barcelona coat stood around the edge. It's like, oh wait a second. I might not need to work again. And one scouting in a Northampton town cup, and you're thinking, well, that guy's got no chance. That guy's got a long journey home. Well, actually, Chris, your son's

sunny. He's good football. I've seen him kick a ball. He's got a right old right peg on him. He's got talent. He's no Ruth. I'll say that. But then again, who is? And everything you were doing was always so domestic. So I'd be saying, so, Ruth's got a decent first session. And he'd be like washing up.

And then she'd be doing sort of keep yuppies, but just with her heel. And then this morning, because I'm doing stand-up tonight, I was walking to the, I was doing the school run. And on the way back, I was thinking myself, okay, well, clearly I'm writing better jokes in my dreams than I am when I'm conscious. So Paul McCartney famously wrote yesterday in a dream. I thought I'm going to have to somehow utilise this. This dream

gag writing. El, have you ever heard the argument I have with Josh Whitaker that the killers are better than the Beatles? Are you ready for my argument on this? I was thinking about you on Saturday because I did the Car 10 race, which is Cardiff to 10 on the

bike, which is 110 miles. I think I did 177 kilometres, 175. Wow, fair play. And as I came in, there's like little festival happening in Tenby. And as I cycled in, they played Mr. Brightside by the kids.

And you started cycling at 100 miles an hour. I've been on the bike by that point for nine hours. And it gave me a little Philip. And I remember thinking, this is the Chris Skull lifestyle. This is the Chris skull lifestyle.

It's a great song. It's catchy. My argument is The Beatles aren't that great. I didn't come into Hey Jude. Yeah, exactly. I didn't cycle it to 10 Beatle of me do. They couldn't afford the rights on that.

My argument is it's easier for the Beatles to be the Beatles because they're working to a blank pop music canvas. That's harder. Although they're first, they can't invent it. They can write any song in any genre almost because there's nothing there. By the time the killer's come along, 30 years. later, you know, they're having to be inventive. They're coming up with Mr. Brightside when the canvas is already three-quarters full.

And that's why it makes it even better song. A, they weren't that inventive. And B, music had existed before the Beatles. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what you think it was. It wasn't just sort of plain chant in cathedrals. It was there was a lot of that. Yeah, there was that.

But there was also a huge folk scene. Yeah, and rock and roll. And all sorts of blues and gospel and R&B. There was a lot of music. Green sleeves. Chris basically thinks there was Vera Lynn, George Formby. Yeah, yeah. And 500 carols.

Yeah. It's not really an argument, Chris. I'd say that's a point of view, which is of absolutely no merit. I wouldn't say that's an argument. Do you know what it is? With the greatest of respect, it's the kind of argument someone on cocaine would make. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

It's a proper three. 3 a.m. in a toilet cubicle argument. Please, can I request the audience to provide their reasons why the killers are better than the Beatles? You're free to be as creative as you want, but I feel like I need some backup here. This is a rich territory for correcting the historical record. It was just funny because I now always associate that song with you. And when I, when I cycled in and they played it, it just made me, I was laughing. Ross in the line and I'm in all the photos.

Love me. Well, there we go. There is an argument of no value, but if you do agree with Chris Skull, do get in contact with the show, which is exactly what Mike Deakin has done. So we're going to kick off this episode with a bit of correspondent from Mike Deakin, and then we're going to get into the history proper. So, you sent us some correspondence, have you? Well, let's take a look at you then.

Deeks has suggested, a Deekmeister, has suggested, a brand new segment, which is called Oh, What a Miss. I've thought the new segment says, Mike, oh, what a miss, to go with Oh, What a Shame, to highlight missed opportunities for comment. In the Flotus app, which is an episode we did quite recently on the First Ladies of the United States, did I hear correctly that Lou Hoover's maiden name was Henry. I think I did, but I can't recall a single one of you picking up on this open goal. Wow.

Like, as a comedy writer, I feel ashamed. that I missed that. That's a kind of open goal, Ruth would never miss. Absolutely, yeah. On the Wikipedia page for Herbert Hoover, it even lists his spouse as Lou Henry Hoover. Jokes such as, she was red-faced because his presidency sucked

were surely low-hanging fruit. Oh, what a miss, or is it just me that missed something? Love the pod, keep it up, Mike. Mike, you're quite right. That's a tap-in. Come on, guys. What are we doing? What are we doing it for, Henry,

and not pick up on the Henry Hoover. I can't get off of them. Yeah, absolutely. I cannot get over that. If we've missed any other tap-ins, any puns along the way, do get in contact. I'm not sure I'm confident enough for our audience. Our listenership to Cindy start emailing all of the jokes we could have made. I think my confidence is brittle enough as it is.

Do you know what would be a nice thing for them to bring in for the Henry Hoover? I think now that we have, you can have screens on anything, it would be a changing facial expression on the Hoover, depending on what you've just sucked up. Oh, yes. If it's disgusting, then Henry suddenly looks nauseated, frowns, exactly. But what might be disgusting for you might be enjoyable for a Hoover? Like I imagine hair is a feeling of, you know, reward. For reasons from simplicity and for marketing, you are directly anthropomorphizing Ms. Hoover.

It's a human brain, basically. So if it sucks up candy floss, it's smiling. If it's mouse droppings, it's not happy about it. I think that's the simplest way to do it. I think that Hoover is going to fast have an existential. crisis because rarely is it hoovering up a Sunday roast. Or it could have, it could start frowning and the more you hoover, the more it smiles because it's pleased that it's cleaning.

That's nice. That's nice. So Mike Deakin, thank you so much for sending that in. If you guys have heard us miss an opportunity, do send it in to Oh What a Miss, the new hot format point courtesy of our wonderful listener. We look forward to hearing from you and here's how. All right. horrible look.

Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at ohwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What a Time pod. Now clear off. Now each week on this show as one of the benefits for our top tier patrons, the Oh Water Time All-Timmers, we will take a name. in that tier and figure out where in history this individual may have been. What a name we have for you this week.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Lucy Rocket. That is one of the all-time great names, isn't it? I wish I was called Lucy Rocket. Lucy Rocket. I'm getting 70s American female stunt person vibes. At one point, probably the most famous woman in America. Yeah. And she's broken every bone in her body.

Yeah, yeah. The Grand Canyon, I think, is involved in a lot of her. Occasionally, it would go wrong, but that is why the public loved her. Once tied 150 fireworks to herself to see if she could make herself leave the ground on bonfire night. It didn't work. But there's always some mad stunt, I think, each year that Lucy Rockies were running, no one else was brave. She would do her stunts in a sort of Wonder Woman, like, US flag kind of. of sequined sort of swimsuit.

Yeah, yeah. Just such dangerous stuff. And because it was the 70s, completely unplanned, it was, I've done any maths to make sure that that's going to, you're going to survive that, Lucy? No, no, it's all, no. All done on vibe. Tried to do a 12 double-decker bus jump and just slammed into the first floor of the first

bus. Yeah, as 90,000 people went wild because she's so popular. The other option is like, Kate, I'm thinking like a cartoon character from kids TV, mid-90s, built a rocket in her back garden and in every episode goes into space to visit aliens and different life storms. She's just like a normal schoolgirl, but she has this little thing that she's built a functioning rocket in her garden. And every episode she goes off on it. That's my other thing. It's a bit sweeter.

Tom, you were so innocent. Thank you. Or maybe part of a government health initiative in the 90s to make kids eat rocket salad because rocket's good. for you. There you go. It'll be big as strong like Lucy Rocket. Yeah.

What does Lucy Rockett eat? Just Rocket salad. There you go. There you go, Lucy. Pick which one of those you want. And if you want your name speculated upon, here's how you can support the show.

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for us slash oh, what a time? Gentlemen, what are we talking about today? Today we are talking about the Grand Tour of people exploring Europe, the early holiday makers, basically, into Europe and their experiences there and why it came about and the sort of people that did this. I'm going to be discussing the Grand Tour in Europe, France and Wales, as done by William Wordsworth in the 18th century.

Oh, lovely. Well, I'll be looking at Canada in a brand new way, which I'm very excited about. Tom, what about you? I'm going to kick things. off by telling you lovely boys all about basically the start of the gap year. So let's get things off with this. Did you guys take a year out? Did you do that? Have you ever had a sort of, before uni, that sort of stuff? Were you the sort of people that did that? No, and I was extremely cynical about people who did. Yes. Like extremely cynical. Okay. And resented that people had basically gone on a big holiday, sort of felt like they were more worldly wise than me because I'd spent a lot of my time in

Woolworths. I think now, the older I get, the more of the world I want to see. Yeah. And the more intrepid I've become, actually, because you only, you know, you only get one go. So you may as well try and make the most of it. And now I wish I actually haven't been as cynical about Gap years when I was sort of 18. I completely agree.

I think mine wasn't really cynicism. I think I was just a bit nervous to do it, really. So I did have a year out. I just worked in Safeway Bakery and Bath. Yeah. I basically made it as far as Bristol. in terms of places I travelled. When I was 18, I lived like that more,

because you wouldn't have had, there was, especially the kids who did it before university, they often did have a slight swagger of, yeah, but you wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't understand because you haven't seen the things I've seen. You're not Jack Kerouac. You went on the piss for six months. Yeah, you've not, you didn't fight in the Vietnam War.

Yeah, come on. You ever tried a pad tie? No, thought not. Yes, in Bristol yesterday. No, I couldn't agree more. I don't know if I was discussing this on this podcast, actually. I've, having not liked it when I was 18 and 25 and again when I was 30, I'm rereading on the road by Jack Kerou.

And now because I'm not going to go and, you know, sort of drive to Mexico with no plans and $10 in my pocket and sort of uncover some of the greatest jazz musicians in the US, I'm now really enjoying it because I'm, like a suburban father of two. And it's just complete escapism. I would say my year out was the direct opposite to that novel. I didn't go anywhere on the road unless my mum was driving me to the Safeway Bakery.

And I didn't do any drugs. And there was completely no mind expansion. I saw no son. But the thing is, I survived it. No mind expansion. You must have been quite a lot of sugar though if you worked in a bakery. Yeah. Well, I was allowed to reduce the donuts at the end of the day.

So I would treat myself to a 1P packet of donut that should have been 55P. That's one of the perks, one of the perks. Right. Let's get to history, though. So the year out begins essentially with this sort of start of the grand tour. Back in the 18th century, okay, few things marked a rite of passage, the young gentleman. It's kind of quite wealthy people as always and women, more than the grand tour it was called. And that was essentially a long jolly around Europe.

European mainland to see all the sites and all the cities. Just like package holidays a day, there was basically a tendency for northern Europeans to seek the sun and warmth of the Mediterranean climate. And the first grand tour is to do this emerged in the 17th century when aristocrats took advantage of peace, prosperity. And also, this one blew my mind, 17th century, printed travel guides that early, yeah, to set off around Europe and explore an encounter. their continent. Let's start with that. Is that earlier than you would assume this would have been that people... Yes. Yeah, it is for me as well. The 17th century, the 1600s. Wow, that's amazing. Absolutely. And they were printed guide and people were going off around Europe for a year out,

essentially. So most Northern Europeans, they made a beeline for Italy. That's where they're really going in the 17th century, home to the Romans, of course, and all those ancient ruins, as well as the Eternal City itself and all the artistic treasures of the Renaissance. Do you want to guess why it was that English travellers were particularly drawn to places like Venice. This is really interesting to me. Why do you think the English were drawn there? Is it not Marco Polo or something like that?

Like this is his stories? It is to do with a great name. It is to do with stories though. Cheap fax? It's those tiny beers you can get in packs of 24. Romantic weekend break. It is a, well, romance comes into it. is writing and romance.

Who is a great, who's the greatest name, arguably, in English writing? Who would you say in British writing? Shakespeare. Yeah, exactly. Or Merchant of Venice. Because, exactly,

because they were now, at that time, they were able to read printed editions of Shakespeare's plays following the publication of the first folio in 1623 and the second in 1632. And it gave them a chance

to see the places that Shakespeare had written about. So Verona, Venice, Rome. So all these English tourists are like, I want to see the places that I've heard of on stage from Shakespeare. I want to see what they're actually like. And of course, where there were tourists, where these English tourists went, there was money.

And you talk about the fear of going abroad, L, and people not sharing the language. Well, Italians, Greeks, Levantines, North Africans, they saw an opportunity to capitalize on this. and the most popular of which was to offer their services as a Chicharoni, which is a tour guide. So in the 17th century, if you were English or Welsh or, you know, Northern European, you arrive in Italy, and there were tour guides awaiting you there to give you, to use their knowledge, take you around the sites to entertain and to educate and sometimes to fleece visitors.

One such visitor was a Scottish travel writer, a man called William Lithgow, also incidentally people thought maybe a spy, who voyaged to Italy in 16th. 10, Lithgow wrote of how his guides told stories about the landscape in history, but he also wrote of the expectation that these tourists had for the guides. Tourists basically felt that the tourists should be able to be hired in any particular place, that their information should be accurate. And this is the most sort of holiday-makery thing I've read so far is the fact they felt they should be able to haggle on the price of the guide.

This is one of the big things. People love a haggle on holiday, don't you? I know. That used to be such an annoying aspect of holiday. I'm the least natural haggler. Have you done it? I am beyond rubbish and terrible at negotiate. You should have, you should see me when I've,

I remember I bought a second-hand car and everyone said, you've got a haggle. I can't remember what it was, say three grand. And I was like, can he move on the price? I went, no, and I went good, no. Didn't expect you to. Yeah. And five grand later, you've got a car.

So, no. Oh, God. One thing I was thinking about tourist guides in like, I mean, even if you go back to like the 80s in a pre-internet and information age, how easy it would be to make stuff up and that not to, you can't check that. You can't verify what you've been told. So as a tour guide, you could be paying so fast and loose with the truth. And if you're just basically really entertaining, people are going to want to see you. Yeah.

Well, also, it's like things like you've got pubs with amazing stories and they were just invented by the landlord to drive tourism to the area because people weren't able to check it and it was just imaginative bollocks. Well, Lithgow, okay, Litho, he has a problem with these guys. He's actually not particularly kind about them in the way he writes of them. He often calls them savages or ignorant, but it's basically just his prejudice bleeding through.

As I say, Al, you talk about language, these guides were able to converse not only in their native tongue, but also in one of the major European ones as well, be it French, Italian or sometimes English. So you could find guides who spoke your native tongue. You would pay them the money after haggling and then they would take you around the sites of Rome, Venice or Verona. It just blows my mind that this was a case in the 17th century that people are travelling so far and all these things are in place with their printed, their travel guides and the guides who are speaking, your native tongue ready to take you around. I just find it staggering that so long ago that was

the case. Yes, good, isn't it? Crucially, though, what the tourists got for these exertions was like a sense of European history, okay? So a glimpse it, it's art, it's literature, it's taste of music, and above all, and I think this is a crucial thing in all of it, an understanding of how connected the continent was, basically a sense that there were European customs in common. This is what people brought back when they returned home again, And because of that, its popularity grew. By the 18th century, the phenomenon of the Grand Tour is so well established that there were common routes and itineries available

with the whole expedition time to fit a year-long right of passage. And English tourists, they cross the channel, they head to Paris. From there, they go to Switzerland, usually to Geneva. They then cross the Alps into Italy, the heartland of the Tour. So it's a real journey of discovery. And on the return leg, they take in Austria and Germany. And for those already on the continent, the aim was all. Also Italy. Italy is this huge draw, basically. It's, you know, a place of art and music and food and all this sort of stuff. It's a real draw. But the root differed depending on your point of origin. For example, the German writer, poet and philosopher, Gerta, he sort of disillusioned with life in the dark north of the continent. He ditches his desk job in Weimar in September 1786. And he makes his way to the passionate South, as he described it. And as he wrote, he kind of, he felt compelled to

visit Italy as a kind of pilgrim. He wanted to see classical civilization and to make real those things which so far he'd only read about the colours, the sounds, the smells, the physicality of the ancient world. I think that's what's crucial about these trips and why they must have been so exciting is that it's a time before photos. It's a time before film, obviously. So at best you've seen a painting of these places. You have no idea of what they really look like. So you are visiting places and seeing them completely fresh. It is also nice to get out of your own postcode. Yeah.

It's just, even like going away to watch your football team, just being a different town or city on a Saturday is a really refreshing, I think. Yeah. You know what as well? I was listening to CMAT has got this song called Eurocountry, and it's about how she feels that island is fast becoming less of a unique cultural place and more as a blended European state. And that actually a lot of European nation states are now almost becoming homogenous.

And I mean, if you go back to the era you're talking about, outside of your postcode, everywhere is going to be so radically different and almost unacceptable, language, culture, traditions, architecture, it would be so wild. Such a good point. And even in a country with a shared language, different accents and vernaculars and based on the industry. And, yes, really.

But that's still true in the UK. Like you can travel 10 miles and the accent changes. You'd have no exposure to, you wouldn't have YouTube. So you'd have like literally no idea what you were going to see until you got there. But I think that's so exciting, isn't it? That must be, that's why it must have been an incredible experience. And indeed, Gerta, he makes it to Italy when he's there.

He moves to Verona, then Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. He does a whole lot across the water to Sicily. and he viewed classical art and architecture throughout and he was kind of especially in awe of Verona's Roman amphitheater, the ruins of Rome, all these things amazing, isn't it? Pompeii, seeing these things for the first time with no concept of what they were before you got there. I genuinely, this is what that must have been like,

I still remember the first time I went to a Pizza Express when I was nine. It was a friend's birthday, and it sticks in my mind of stuff. stone baked pizzas, the smells of the flour. It genuinely is still in my mind from all this time later. The idea of visiting the actual heart of Pizza Express. Yeah.

The heart of Pizza Express, aka Italy. Exactly, yeah, yeah. When you're used to gruel or whatever people would have eaten back in England at the time or suckling pig for every meal. We went to London though when I was very young. I remember seeing an advert. changing. So it was a bill, it was one of those moving billboards. So initially it's an advert for, I don't know, the Halifax Building Society and then a minute later, it's a native.

Yeah, or continental tires. I remember thinking, oh my God, we're in the future. I don't believe it. I won't believe it. The adverts are changing. And we went to McDonald's on that trip and I'd only ever seen adverts with Donald's on the telly, but there wasn't, the nearest one would have been about 50 months from where I lived. Yeah. And being like, oh my God, they're real. Similarly, again, more pizza innovation. I remember around the time of the World Cup in 1994, Pizza Hut launched the ice cream factory in Pizza Hut. Do you remember this? And it was, the deal was infinite ice cream. Wow. And I was like, we are going there for my birthday. This is a terrible business model. but it's going to really work for me.

Went in there, had one bowl of ice cream, and I couldn't have any more. I felt sick. But that particular innovation, I remember thinking, this is, this is what the future's going to be like. Claire's dad, my wife's dad, once worked in an ice cream factory,

four wool's ice cream. One day at work, he took his wellies off, or he's getting changed. Do you want to know what his work? Collies did? Any guess? You can probably guess what I did.

Fill them up. Fill them with ice cream, and I didn't notice and he put them on again. Oh, my gosh. Full of ice. That's a great. That's a good prank. See, that sort of prank I can get behind. Ice cream boots. Now, sticky feet. Why have you not such sticky feet, mate? I've thought, I've filled my wily. He's a full of ice cream. Next question. Why do you think? So Gertr, he's an aristocrat. So he's kind of precisely the sort of person who would go on this grand tour.

But through his writings, we kind of get a clear sense of what the grand tour was and how it become established in the European mine in the 18th century. It was, as he suggested, a chance to connect with the essence of civilisation, of European civilization, that is, by viewing what remained of the classics and engaging with what was being made now. As you say, Chris, it's like seeing these places, what are they? What is the past? What are they becoming and having no concept until you get there? Music and taverns, for instance, contemporary portraiture, all these things. And as for the tour guide, well, he also wasn't really happy with them,

especially those who tried to pack too much into their day. This is what he said in one of his diaries. An alert, well-informed guide raced me through the streets and so many churches and palaces I scarcely had time to mark the places I've visited. In other words, he had a guidebook which he used to tick off places he'd been to as a kind of aid memoir for later in life. The Grand Tour was ultimately encouraged and sustained by then brand new cultural move, which is neoclassicism, which is a movement which had spread around Europe, not only by books

and by scholars, but also more importantly by returning tourists. all over Europe in the second half of the 18th century, neoclassical art and architecture defined the very best of contemporary taste. So people were coming back from these trips with these ideas for design and art, and that was impacting the homes we had here and the homes at tourists around the world. We're returning to, for example, the US capital, which is completed in 1800 as a centrepiece of the new republic's government. Edinburgh's Newtown, that's neoclassical, that's hugely due to people return.

earn it with these ideas for architecture, the Swedish Parliament building, the Contracts House in Kiev. There's so many places around Europe. Look as they do because of this period of people travelling out during the grand tour and coming back with new ideas. You know when you're, I don't know,

say you're going on a city break or you're on a, you know, go away for someone's birthday or a stag or something and you're in, I don't know, Oxford. Yeah. And you'd be in a nice restaurant or a pub or a cafe in Oxford on the river. And the weather'd be good.

and obviously the architecture in Oxford is lovely and you think to say, God, yeah, if I lived in Oxford, oh, I'd be here every day and I would be, oh, I'd got all the bookshops every day. No, no, you'd still have to work. You'd have both your kids. You probably wouldn't live in the centre of town. It would be very similar to your own normal life.

The reason this is so nice is that it is a city break. You are having a break, you idiot. Before you get back to the grind. Absolutely. Neoclassicism was to be a common. European language, one even used in places untouched by the Greeks and Romans, and so was kind of indicative of a common, if then, embryonic, European identity. And this, basically, as a closing point, is why the Grand Tour mattered so much. And why in the end it was not just the privilege of a narrow elite, because it served to show Europeans that they all had something in common. And that the conflict of nations at that time, Catholic versus Protestant, all these sort of fiery wars was not. inevitable and another peaceful way of life was possible. So it kind of had a huge importance of that. It was a kind of exchange of ideas and it affected the whole world, really. And that is the story

of the first gap year. Well, that's the thing. Like, when I went on a stagued to Bucharest about 10 years ago, I remember saying, this is an exchange of ideas. I'm indulging in a pan-European exchange of ideas. As you were vomiting on a bounces shoes. Yeah. We see. to have just one idea and it's interesting to hear yours. All right, that's end of part one for the grand tour. If you want part two right now, you can wait for Wednesday. Or you can sign up and support the show at patreon.com forward slash oh what a time or go on Apple subscriptions. And you will also get two bonus episodes every month plus the full archive of bonus episodes too.

Why not do that? Otherwise, we'll see you on Wednesday. Bye. Goodbye. Oh, what a time is now on Patreon. and you can get main feed episodes before everyone else, add free, plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month,

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