El viaje a España de Charles Garnier y Gustave Boulanger (1868)

In May 1868, the architect of the Paris Opera and the Monte Carlo Casino, Jean-Louis Charles Garnier set off on a journey around Spain lasting 25 days; he was accompanied by his wife, Louise Bary, and two friends: his disciple the architect Ambroise Baudry and the painter Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger. After leaving Bayonne, they crossed the peninsular from San Sebastien to Cádiz, returning from Andalusia via Granada and Valencia, until heading for Perpignan via Figueras and returning to Paris. Throughout the journey, Garnier and Boulanger absorbed all they saw, and left a valuable testament of their trip in the text 'Itinéraire d'un Voyage en Espagne', a notebook unpublished until now, in which the most prosaic itinerary notes (budget, expenses, accomodation and means of transport), are mixed with brief and at times perceptive comments - in prose and verse - on cities & monuments.