2017年6月英语六级仔细阅读2题源

　　The Itinerary

　　The Grand Tourists wanted to visit Paris, Rome, and Venice, cities considered the major centers of culture at the time. Florence and Naples were also popular destinations. The Grand Tourist would travel from city to city and usually spend weeks in smaller cities and up to several months in the three key cities. Paris was definitely the most popular destination.

　　The most common itinerary of the Grand Tour began in Dover, England, and crossed the English Channel to Ostend, in Belgium, or to Calais or Le Havre in France. The trip from Dover across the Channel on to Paris customarily took three days. The crossing of the Channel was not an easy one as there were risks of seasickness, illness, and even shipwreck.

　　From Ostend or Calais, the Grand Tourist could hire or purchase a coach, which he could resell in any city or disassemble and pack to portage across the Alps. Some chose to make the trip by boat as far as the Alps, either traveling up the Seine to Paris, or up the Rhine to Basel.

　　Upon hiring a French-speaking guide—French was the dominant language of the elite in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries—the Grand Tourist and his entourage would travel to Paris. There he might take lessons in French, dancing, fencing and riding. The appeal of Paris lay in the sophisticated language and manners of French high society, for French was the language of diplomats and would prepare the young man for a leadership position at home, often in government or diplomacy.

　　From Paris he would typically go to Geneva, Switzerland. From there, the Grand Tourist would endure a difficult crossing over the Alps into northern Italy, which included dismantling his carriage and luggage. If wealthy enough, he might be carried over the hard terrain by servants.

　　Once in Italy, he would visit Turin, then might spend a few months in Florence, where there was a large expat English community. The Uffizi Gallery offered in one place Roman sculptures and Renaissance paintings and sculptures that would later inspire galleries adorned with antiquities at home. While in Florence, he might make side trips to Pisa, Padua, Bologna, and Venice. The British saw Venice as the epitome of decadent Italian culture, making it a highlight of the Grand Tour.

　　From Venice Grand Tourists traveled to Rome to study the ruins of ancient Rome, and the masterpieces of painting, sculpture, and architecture of Rome's Early Christian, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. Some also visited Naples to study music, and after the mid-18th century, the archaeological sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii. But Naples was the usual southern end of the tour.

　　On the return, Grand Tourists traveled north through Italy, traversing the Alps and heading north through to the German-speaking parts of Europe. Travelers might stop first in Innsbruck before visiting Vienna, Dresden, Berlin and Potsdam, with perhaps some study time at the universities in Munich or Heidelberg. From there they visited Holland and Flanders, visiting more galleries, before returning across the Channel to England.

　　Since there were few museums anywhere in Europe before the end of the 18th century, Grand Tourists often saw paintings and sculptures by gaining admission to private collections, and many were eager to acquire examples of Greco-Roman and Italian art for their own collections. In England, where architecture was increasingly seen as an aristocratic pursuit, noblemen often applied what they learned from the villas of Palladio in Venice and the evocative ruins of Rome to their own country houses and gardens, as well as to the furniture and accessories they contained.