The Grand Tour

[Savonarola]

I was recently back in Detroit and visited the Detroit Institute of Art.  One of the sections they have is called "The Grand Tour," which has a collection of 17th and 18th century paintings and objet d'art from (or inspired by) Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice that would have been typical for a young man on his grand tour to have collected.  At the end there was a "Your turn" place which asked the visitor to describe his own Grand Tour on a three by five card and place it in a binder.  I wrote:

Paris- to study culinary arts
Florence- to burn secular vanities to study the Renaissance
Fez- to study sacred music
Southern Spain- to see the old Moorish kingdoms and study their architecture

(Yes, I realize this misses the point of the Grand Tour, which was to get drunk and collect venereal diseases.)

How would you answer that, assuming you could pick any four cities for your Grand Tour, (not necessarily near each other, or in Europe) which would you pick and what would you do there?

[Maladict]

Great question. My younger self would have gone for the more classical Grand Tour (and did). But now that I have already spent a couple of years in Italy and travelled extensively in Europe, I'm drawn more to the other parts of the old world.

- Peloponnese: seen the highlights, but there is infinitely more to study on that small bit of land.
- Egypt, simply because it would take months to take in the sheer amount of history on display.
- The Levant, preferably Syria but any of the four countries really.
- Iran, to correct my woeful lack of knowledge on all things Persian.

[Josephus]

hmmm....without thinking about it too much.

Japan. To witness its culture.
St. Petersburg, Russia. To read Russian lit on the banks of the Neva
Iraq. (With guides, handlers and security). To correct my knowledge of all things Babylonian
Chechia. For a Bohemian ending

[mongers]

New York
Istanbul
Delhi
Beijing

[The Minsky Moment]

Mar-a-lago: to move my arms back and forth to Elton John
The Titanic: I hear all the cool kids are doing it
Hong Kong: John Lee assures me its great now that they've cleared out the democracy rats
Moscow: lunch with Prigozhin at Ruski, a lovely windowed restaurant on the 85th floor with spectacular views.  What could go wrong?

[garbon]

New York
Berlin
Florence
Rome

[grumbler]

Mar-a-lago: to move my arms back and forth to Elton John
The Titanic: I hear all the cool kids are doing it
Hong Kong: John Lee assures me its great now that they've cleared out the democracy rats
Moscow: lunch with Prigozhin at Ruski, a lovely windowed restaurant on the 85th floor with spectacular views.  What could go wrong?

Let me guess: your wife/NOK suggested this itinerary.