Mark Twain and Horace Greeley popularized the Grand Tour in the United States but it was already a right-of-passage for upscale Europeans in the 19th Century. One could hardly be considered cultured without having visited the capitols of Europe to see the historic sites and view the Renaissance art.
After Rome, Athens, Paris and Pisa, the tiny town of Stresa on Lake Maggione, little sister to Lake Como, must have been a welcome break on the Tour. And the place to stay in Stresa was the Grand Tour Hotel. Two of the Hotels most famous guests were Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway. Churchill honeymooned at the Grand Tour and Hemingway was first there when the hotel was requisitioned as a hospital in World War I. He returned in 1945 as a regular guest to the same room, #205, he had when he was wounded as an ambulance driver during the war.
We didn't stay at the Grand Tour Hotel, listed today in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, but found a place more suited to our style - and our budget. Besides, it was closed for renovation but we did sneak a peak at the lobby. And it certainly is grand.
And on the subject of the Grand Tour, we saw a travel piece on BBC last week where the host said there is no reason for travelers today to repeat the old "grand tour," that there are enough cultures represented in London alone that one needn't travel at all. Rubbish! There is no substitute for actually seeing the Parthenon, the Coliseum, or the art of Florence. The definition of 'cultured" hasn't changed in 150 years.
