TRAVEL DIARY - YORKSHIRE FAMILY IN EUROPE

A Hand-book for Travellers on the Continent, 56 PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT DIARY NOTES bound in, John Murray, 1841

Footnotes

"We proceeded at 10 o'clock to hear the much celebrated organ of Haarlem, of which, as accustomed to hear its rival at York we presumed ourselves not to be indifferent critics... York was superior in power..." - A journal of a three month tour of northern Europe written by Thomas Davison Bland, of Kippax Hall, West Ridings, Yorkshire, commencing with a crossing from Hull to Rotterdam. Here his party ("nine en famille and four servants") stayed at the Hotel de Pays. This hotel is that recommended by Murray's guide ("A large house but expensive"), one of many examples in which one can see how the early Victorian traveller made use of, and was influenced by, printed guides in their choice of itineraries. For example at the museum in the Hague the picture gallery was closed "so we were prevented from seeing the famous Bull of Paul Potter" (described by Murray as "a most celebrated picture").

After Holland they visited Germany (Coblenz, Frankfurt, Bonn, along the Rhine, Heidelberg, etc. ending up in Baden Baden), before returning via Nancy, Fontainbleau and Paris. Generally an enthusiastic and positive traveller Bland only occasionally gives way to surprise at local practices, such as a time when before the ladies had retired from a hotel dining room "the cigar was introduced!!!".

Provenance: Thomas Davison Bland (1783-1847), of Kippax Hall, Yorkshire, ownership inscription dated "Midsummer 1841" on title-page and bookplate.