Text 1: Diary of a tour manager, by Rosa Bellingham

An original contemporary blog.

Day six of ten. Forty-eight passengers, one coach, one driver called Marco and me, and so far we have lost nobody, which is the main thing a tour manager is paid for.

My day starts at six. I check the hotel has the breakfast room open early, count the suitcases onto the coach and then count the people, twice. Everyone wears a little radio earpiece so they can hear me in crowded places, and I carry a yellow umbrella so they can see me.

The schedule is tight. Yesterday we did Florence in a day: the cathedral at nine, a guided walk until twelve, two hours of free time for lunch and shopping, and back on the coach at half past two for the drive to Siena. Some guests love the pace. Others tell me, politely, that they would like to see one painting for longer than four minutes.

Things go wrong, of course. On Tuesday Mr Venables left his passport in a café, and I spent my free afternoon at a police station. But I deal with the tickets, the hotels, the luggage and the languages, so that they don’t have to. Most of my passengers are on their first trip abroad, and by day ten they are swapping addresses.

Text 2: A letter from a conducted tour, by Miss Agnes Halstead

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1868, a woman describes to her sister a holiday in Switzerland taken as part of an organised party led by a conductor from a travel agency.

Dearest Kate, you would laugh to see us. There are thirty-two in our party, clerks, schoolmistresses, two clergymen and a great many widows, and we go everywhere together like a flock of sheep behind Mr Angove, our conductor.

He is a wonder. He has our railway tickets in a great pocket book, and coupons for every hotel, so that we never pay a bill or speak a word of French. At every station he counts us aloud, and woe to the one who is not there.

We are kept tremendously busy. On Tuesday we rose at four to see the sun upon the snow, crossed a lake by steamer, went up a mountain by mule and were at dinner in Lucerne by seven. I have seen more in a week than I thought to see in my life, though I confess I could not now tell you which glacier was which.

Some English travellers we meet look down their noses at us and call us a herd. One gentleman at the hotel said that Switzerland was spoilt by such parties. But I could never have come alone, and nor could any of us. I have made three firm friends and, I think, one admirer. Your loving sister, Agnes.

Using information from both texts, explain briefly what it was like to travel as part of an organised tour.

You should make it clear which text you are referring to.