With summer came the great exodus from the sweltering weather of London. The railways had opened England’s coastal resorts to the middle classes in the Victorian era, and the tramways and motorbuses opened them to the working classes, enabling them to take part in the popular concept of the “week-end.” Accordingly, the upper classes frequently moved on to Trouville-Deauville or Biarritz–both in France–for their summer getaway.

The seaside resort had its roots in the mid-18th century as an extension of the older health regime of the spa where physicians believed the sea to have prophylactic powers at the August spring tides. The first sea-bathing resorts began in North Yorkshire and spread quickly to south-eastern England, the most fashionable being Margate, Brighton and Weymouth. With the royal patronage of the Prince Regent upon Brighton, the seaside resort became the fastest-growing kind of British town by the first half of the 19th century, and by the 1900s, every English and Welsh coastline was studded with resorts of different sizes, and every possible market could find a congenial holiday home in one or other of well over 100 substantial coastal resorts, the largest of which had well over 50,000 year-round residents.

Ensconced in a boarding house, or perhaps a sea-side villa, the intrepid holidayers would venture to the coastlines for the morning dip. Children were handled by nannies attired in straw boaters and stiff white pique dresses, who pushed perambulators in which the babies were almost hidden behind the bathing dresses, towels, wooden spades (for iron ones were forbidden because they could cause injury) for their elder siblings. Despite the relative modesty of bathing costumes, it was considered an article of clothing improper for a mixed crowd and until 1901, both sexes were confined to segregated bathing machines (roofed and walled wooden carts that rolled into the sea) to retain a measure of propriety.

As the only activity for women involved jumping through the waves while holding onto a rope attached to an off-shore buoy, their bathing costume was quite unsuited for real swimming. Made of serge or preshrunk mohair in black, red or navy, it consisted of a knee-length skirt, a pair of bloomers and a tunic, or a combination type with skirt. The costume was then accessorized by long black stockings, lace-up bathing slippers, and fancy caps. The style of costume changed little between the years 1880 and 1907, cap sleeves being the only new concession to fashion. It was Australian swimmer, Annette Kellerman, who heralded the transformation of the bathing costume’s silhouette.

Her performance as an “underwater ballerina” was a version of synchronized swimming involving diving into glass tanks and looking graceful. Since her costume was tailored to suit her movement, she was arrested for indecent exposure because her swimsuit showed arms, legs and the neck. Though Kellerman later changed the suit to have long arms and legs and a collar, it kept the close fit of her first costume. After this event, bathing wear started to shrink, first uncovering the arms and then the legs up to mid-thigh. Collars receded from around the neck down to around the top of the bosom. The development of new fabrics allowed for new varieties of more comfortable and practical swim wear. Until 1860, it was customary for men to swim nude, and after this was banned in 1860, masculine bathing costume followed the lines of womens, consisting of shirt and shorts, made of dark-colored serge. As with women, men’s costume changed by the late 1900s, when a few daring men were seen swimming topless!

Sunday heralded the end of the weekend. Bathing on the Sabbath was frowned upon and after morning services, visitors thronged the promenades, attired in their Sunday whites to enjoy the sun, regimental bands, minstrel players and delicious treats sold by vendors. As the dusk fell, servants or hotel staff, or perhaps just the family, busily packed their belongings for the return to London on Monday. Sated and full of sea air, the weekend getaway to the beach was open to nearly all classes and walks of life. For the unforunates who were unable to afford the cost of the trip, charitable organizations brought the beach to them, one well-known London-based charity importing sand to the East End to give the children a taste of the delights of a sea-side resort.

Up to the mid-nineteenth century the great leisure center of Europe were the German spas. However, when gambling was outlawed, the pendulum swung towards France and Monaco. The greater ease and inexpensive fares offered by both railways and ocean liners enabled society to hare off to Monte for a bit of gambling, to a tiger hunt in Bengal, or hunting on Baron de Hirsch’s estate in Austria. By the end of the London season, most, if not all, of society, having eaten its way through autumn to August required a place where their system could recuperate.

That notorious gourmand, King Edward, when Prince of Wales, not only encouraged the trend for rich, heavy sauces, multiple courses a la russe, and snacking at all times of day and night–washing it all down with copious amounts of wines and champagne (pink was his favorite)–but also the late-summer jaunts to Baden-Baden (pictured above), Marienbad or Carlsbad, where he and other gourmands were placed on a strict regime that combined diet, exercise and the taking of the waters.

The German spas were also a great place for the person with a slightly sullied reputation to mingle with people they wouldn’t necessarily have been able to meet in Paris, Vienna or London. A young lady of fortune or without fortune viewed Ems, Homburg and Marienbad as the ideal terrain for post-Season husband-hunting. The general atmosphere of “here today, gone tomorrow” encouraged liaisons and friendships otherwise avoided. And even the king wasn’t exempt from the somewhat permissible atmosphere of the spas: ladies of dubious antecedents and reputations regularly propositioned Edward through his equerry Sir Fredrick Ponsonby, who tells in his memoirs of a particularly aggressive lady of easy virtue who, when the King turned her down, then offered herself to him!

After Christmas, the travelers would return to the Continent and throw themselves into the South of France Season, which lasted until mid-May. The Riviera stretched from Marseilles to Monte Carlo, and many books extolled the sunshine, dry warmth and gorgeous scenery as an ideal setting for those suffering poor health. While consumptives and hypochondriacs toddled to Cannes and Nice, those with money to burn (and sometimes with pockets to let) dashed to Monte Carlo and its world-famous casino where the ordinary gambling unit was a mille, worth about 40 pounds. In its season, Monte Carlo attracted the super-rich Americans traveling over in yachts, widows both wealthy and on the prowl, and so many Russian princes and Grand Dukes that it seemed the court of St. Petersburg was replicated many miles (or versts to the Russians) away. A few, such as Alice Keppel, Edward’s maitresse-en-tete, preferred Biarritz, a small French city founded by Empress Eugenie, where the English influence was very strong.

Towards the end of the 19th century a few sporting enthusiasts discovered skiing in Scandinavia and brought it south, causing the Alpine resorts of Wengen, Gstaad, Davos and Adelboden–all located in Switzerland–to take off. By the mid-1900s, winter sports became so popular they were to have become incorporated into the aborted 1916 Olympics.

But all good things must come to an end. After the hustle and bustle of Monte Carlo and the German spas, society returned to England with lighter pockets and trimmer waistlines, only to begin the social round again, sparking a continuous cycle of gluttony and excess counteracted with a period of diet and restriction.