My friend Sean and his girlfriend Janey are visiting from Adelaide, Australia. They are the first guests to stay with us in our one bedroom apartment in Astoria.They arrived at the front of our building in a taxi. They called me, I came out and let them into the building (whilst giving them a hand with their luggage) and showed them up to our apartment.

In we stepped into the hallway and straight into the living room. And there they stayed. From the day-bed in the living room, they could see the bedroom and I pointed it out to them. Perhaps they went in for a sneak peek.

I have never understood the compunction to give visitors to one’s abode the “grand tour”. Though I admit that I have been given many grand tours before.

From a historical standpoint, I can hypothesize about how the grand tour tradition arose. That is, in many decades past, it was only the wealthy who could afford multi-room accommodations. So when a person had the good fortune to avail himself or herself of such abode, it was natural for them to show off their good fortune to his or her visitors as a very explicit and tangible sign that the hosts/owners had “arrived” in a material sense and also a social standing sense too.

As post-Industrial Revolution swelled the middle-class, more and more people were able to afford multi-room accommodations. And yet, in long industrialised countries where the great majority do live in modern comfort and convenience, we still feel the need to give first-time visitors the ‘grand tour’. Why? Do most of us do it from rote? Or do contemporary people do it for some other reason? Do we, as visitors, feel the need to reassure our hosts that yes, indeed, they spent their money well on their abode – a mutually reassuring “do ask, do tell” norm?

(Note, I do understand that the “grand tour” makes sense in the event of a renovation, when the visitor can make comparison with what had been.)