On Tuesday, March 17, 2026, the Badische Landesbibliothek will open its new exhibition "Dreams, Wonders, Adventures – Places of Longing in Travel Literature" at 7 p.m.
The exhibition asks how travelers over the centuries have perceived and processed their experiences. After all, travel is always associated with expectations that are fulfilled, disappointed, or changed along the way. Four popular travel destinations associated with very specific ideas are presented: the Holy Land as a destination of religious longing, Italy as a cultural dream destination, Iceland as an island of natural wonders, and South America as an unknown New World. Using often richly illustrated reports, the exhibition traces the experiences and adventures of earlier travelers and lets them have their say. This results in a diverse view of destinies, centuries, and continents: as if traveling through time, aspects of today's accessible regions of the world open up that we can only marvel at.
Of course, one's own cultural background shapes one's perception of the foreign just as much as the circumstances of a journey. There is a world of difference between Michael Heberer from Bretten, who got to know the Holy Land as an Ottoman galley slave in the 16th century, and the French tourist Paul de Musset, who three hundred years later celebrated Florentine ice cream as a marvel of colors and flavors. Iceland, which had been portrayed as barren and hostile to life since the early modern period, suddenly became a natural wonder in the 19th century with its lava fields, geysers, and northern lights, but also the setting for Nordic-Germanic legends. South America, on the other hand, was primarily the destination of conquistadors and missionaries until it was also discovered for nature travel in the 19th century: The German mercenary Hans Staden, who took part in the conquest of Brazil between 1548 and 1555 in Portuguese service, reports that he was abducted there by wild naked, ferocious cannibalistic people and only narrowly escaped death by cannibalism. This then became Europe's supposedly authentic knowledge of the New World.
The exhibition combines the various travelogues into a mosaic of longing, thrills, and fascination.
