Sidebar: tourism and travel guidebooks, circa 1911

Tourism in Europe and elsewhere was growing increasingly popular in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries, which is why the Baedeker guidebooks began to be published (along with other guidebooks by competitors such as John Murray, Thomas Cook, and the Muirhead’s Blue Guides). Browsing through old copies of guidebooks from that era, you get a vivid sense of what it was like to travel through the Europe of that day (as you also can by reading almost any of the novels of Henry James).

1911 Baedeker guide

1899 Baedeker guide

In those days, travel was often by diligence, or stage coach, rather than by train; currencies were different in every county one visited, and had to be exchanged at the borders (some of us still remember having to do this, before the euro); and trips were usually of a much longer duration than we’re used to now; my 1888 Baedeker guidebook for Paris advises (in a section titled “Distribution of Time”) that

A stay of a fortnight or three weeks in Paris may suffice to convey to the visitor a superficial idea of the innumerable attractions which the city offers, but a residence of several months would be requisite to enable him satisfactorily to explore the vast treasures of art and industry.

from the 1888 Baedeker guidebook for Paris

These longer trips meant that tourists were often accompanied by several, often massive, trunks, rather than the single carry-on bag that many modern tourists travel with today, trying to avoid lost luggage (luggage concerns in 1911 apparently centred more on the possibility of inflicting “serious injury on the hotel and railway porters”, rather than the risk of luggage going astray).

Note to self: minimize the evil; pack light

Those vintage guidebooks provide detailed glimpses of what it was actually like to be a tourist in this bygone era, as you can see from the following extracts from the 1911 Baedeker guide to Austria-Hungary. One slightly surprising thing, illustrated in the fourth extract below, is just how popular cycle-touring was from the 19th century onwards, mainly because automobiles were still relatively scarce, as well as being expensive luxuries, and were priced well out of the reach of the average person. For more information, Wikipedia has a good article on the history of bicycle touring. So, by cycling from Passau to Vienna, we four are following a noble tradition (though I doubt that our machines will be equipped with lamps).

Travel options in Austria circa 1911

“Every machine must be provided with a lamp”

Currency in Austria, 1911

1911 Baedeker, advice to cyclists

Below, you’ll see Baedeker’s fold-out city map of 1911 Vienna, and a detail of the central region of the city as it was then; compare these with a detail from the Vienna map in our contemporary cycling guide. The newer map demonstrates better cartography, perhaps (through the use of colour, and better printing processes), but I find that it’s much more fun to peer at the older maps, and to imagine who, before me, might have been using this 112-year-old guidebook during their travels. The last few images show Baedeker’s guide to the best cafés in 1911 Vienna; a surprising number of them are still operating today (and we intend to visit as many of them as we can!). Confectioners and dairies (“for ladies”) were also listed.

1911 Vienna city map

1911 Vienna city map, detail

Cycle route into Vienna

Cafés in Vienna circa 1911, part 1

Cafés in Vienna circa 1911, part 2