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THE THIRD ROAD TO THE EAST. JOURNEYS, MOBILITY AND TRAVEL COMPANIES FROM WIEN TO BAALBEK AND PALMYRA VIA CONSTANTINOPLE BETWEEN THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND MODERN TOURISM.

P. Gerbaldo

Abstract

In the middle of XVIII century the Italian architect Giovanni Battista Borra travelled to Ottoman Empire with the scientific expedition in Levant organized by James Dawkins, John Bouverie and Robert Wood. Progress, knowledge and communication were the goal of the expedition. Borra’s task was drawing archaeological sites. The report of his scientific journey is published by Robert Wood in: The ruins of Palmyra otherwise Tedmor in the Desert (London, 1753) and The ruins of Balbec otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria (London, 1757). With this books Europeans travellers discovered Palmyra: the city in the desert. The last destination of the Levant. In fact, at the end of Enlightenment, the journey was still a scientific expedition with different interests: naturalistic, historical and economical. But where does the East begin? The Third road to get to the East through Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Black Sea or Greece was more interesting for travellers than scientific expeditions. Along the Third road, some travellers between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries discovered the European part of the Ottoman Empire. The journey of pleasure in East was difficult. After Costantinople, before Thomas Cook and the birth of modern tourism, European needed not only a guide but a “tour operator”: the Dragoman. He was a travel businessman. The travellers' itineraries in the Levant met those of the pilgrims. For both of them the Dragoman was fundamental. The paper starts from the words written by the travellers about Palmyra and along the Third road to see the following impact of Europeans in Levant. The beginning of the modernization. The birth of the art of journey for pleasure in the Ottoman Empire before the age of the Orient Express.

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