Viewing the Room

Theatrical release poster from 1985 film

Although the tradition of Grand Tours-- fashionable youths roaming the European continent-- had ended, one cannot help but feel its spirit lives on in the gaggle of on-lookers and sight-seers crowding St. Peter's Square or the Florence Cathedral every year. Tourism, no matter what era, remains the same.

However, a traveler on the early twentieth century will have an experience more akin to the Grand Tours. At the turn of the century, even as class barriers begin to crumble, travel was still dominated by the middle class. A female traveler in this era, for example, would travel with a chaperon—no respectable young female will be without one. She, like her itinerary, would embody convention.

That is the basic premise of A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster.