One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years - and a World of Change Apart
Age range: + years old
Publication Date: 25/06/2014
It was the tour that changed the way we travel. In the summer of 1863 seven people left London on a train that would take them on a thrilling adventure across the Alps. They were the Junior United Alpine Club and members of Thomas Cook's first Conducted Tour of Switzerland. For them it was an exciting novelty; for us it was the birth of mass tourism, and it started with the Swiss. A century and a half later travel writer Diccon Bewes set off on the same three-week trip. His quest: follow their itinerary, stay in the same places, and discover how much has changed. And how much hasn't. His guide was Miss Jemima, a member of that Club who wrote a diary as she travelled - a diary that was lost for decades but survived as a unique record of a historic tour.Slow Train to Switzerland is the fascinating account of both trips from London to Lucerne. It's a revealing look at the early days of tourism, when going abroad meant 18-hour days and wearing the same clothes for weeks. And no toilets on the trains! It's also the story of how a nostalgic tour surprised an expat author, revealing a Switzerland very different from the present - and a stunning and unexpected personal connection with the past.That first trip saw the end of travel for a privileged few and the start of tourism for the masses. It also helped transform a poor Switzerland into one of the wealthiest countries on earth. And now it gives us a second chance to experience travel the way it used to be: slow.
- ISBN:
- 9781857886252
- 9781857886252
- Category:
- Travel writing
- Age range:
- + years old
- Publication Date:
- 25-06-2014
- Language:
- English
- Publisher:
- Hodder & Stoughton General Division
- Country of origin:
- United Kingdom
- Pages:
- 320
- Dimensions (mm):
- 216x153x24mm
- Weight:
- 0.4kg
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