Although some made detours around war zones to still make a Grand Tour during the Napoleonic Wars (Regency Travel: Traveling Abroad in the 19th Century), a new game introduced in 1810 brought Europe to all of Britain. Walker’s New Geographical Game: Exhibiting a Tour Through Europe was marketed as a children’s board game published by William Darton, a children’s author and board game maker in 1810.
Players would start the game in London and then advance tokens through Europe, ending the game in Athens. Each space, of 133, they landed on would obtain rewards or forfeits, depending on the place, and intended to teach current affairs and history of Europe as well as improve reading and “conversational skills”. The game featured a pyramid marker, four counters, and an eight sided teetotum spinner (Walker’s New Geographical Game Exhibiting a Tour Through Europe | Darton, William | V&A Explore The Collections). Some of the geography was iffy, and apparently there were also some racist undertones on commentary on Africa. The game board was an engraved map handcoloured and dissected onto 12 sheets that would then be laid on linen.
Darton was a Quaker, so the game also had some anti-war moralizing as well as some anti-Catholic content in addition to racism (Playing with Maps: Taking a Tour Through Napoleonic Europe with the Da — Bryars & Bryars).
There is some dispute about whether or not Grand Tours were paused during the Napoleonic Wars, and we know that Byron, for instance, began his in 1809 in Portugal. He avoided much of the conflict areas, travelling to Greece, Malta, and Albania and other southern places keeping him out of much of the continent. More travellers, including women, would resume the Grand Tour after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo until railway made European travel more accessible and it lost its exclusive appeal.
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