Imagine being free to travel around Europe, unlimited by time or money, meeting people and seeing places as they were shortly after Queen Victoria ascended the throne of Britain in 1837.



This journal, written over seven years by a wealthy Victorian woman, paints vivid pictures of a world when the British Empire approached its zenith and Britain became the first superpower on Earth.



She describes the life of the British abroad on extended leave, visiting the centres of Classical antiquity and the Renaissance on their Grand Tours around the Continent. She also shows Swiss Alpine life and landscapes in 1846 through her own detailed drawings.