April General Meeting

8 pm Kevin James, Scottish Studies Foundation Chair, University of Guelph
The Grand Tour: A Very Brief History

At a time when many of us are emerging from two years limited to armchair travel, Kevin takes us on a journey through Europe and through time as we explore popular routes and travel practices on the Grand Tour. Then as now, Europe’s landscapes and people captured the popular imagination and motivated travellers from Britain and beyond to visit the continent. We will explore the most popular routes and sights as we ask what helped to make the Grand Tour a rite of passage for generations of travellers.

Kevin has been a member of the Department of History at the University of Guelph since 2000. He holds the Scottish Studies Foundation Chair, directs the Centre for Scottish Studies, and teaches and advises students exploring many dimensions of modern Scottish history, especially nineteenth-century travel cultures.