Mr Harty's grand tour - Russell Harty

It was mid-18th century when the classic Grand Tour was in its heyday and thousands of English travellers would direct themselves southwards to delight in things new and old and to compose long accounts of the rigours and dangers they confronted.;This is Russell Harty's personal account of his journey as he encounters the manners and customs of people from all over Europe - the majestic and the domestic, the grand and the gosspiy, the touching and the exotic, the gentle and the generous.;However, Russell Harty travels very much as a man of the 20th century - by motor car, high-speed train, boat and aeroplane. The journey starts at Dover and wanders through the Low Countries, a rain-soaked day on the battlefield of Waterloo with the present Marquis of Anglesey, lunch at the EEC with Barabara Castle, the new sights and old smells of Paris, the wealth of Lyons and on to Germany and "Checkpoint Charlie".;The journey ends in Naples in the presence of Vesuvius, the lingering influence of Emma Hamilton, the English garden at Caserta and the festival of Santa Maria at Carmine.