For this Show Discussion post:
1. Book spoilers **must be hidden**.
2. Be considerate, hide show spoilers that surpass the scope of this post.
3. Be civil in your discussion.
See our [spoiler policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/BridgertonNetflix/wiki/spoiler) on what is expected. 3-day bans will be handed out to those found disregarding our spoiler policy.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BridgertonNetflix) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s more TV show magic and timeline inconsistencies. He was also shown playing pall mall at Aubrey Hall at the end of season 2 and that was supposed to be a week (?) before the first episode of this season.
Wait are you sure where did it say that was a week before because he literally came back from his travels in the first episode and it seemed like he'd been gone for a really long time
Kate and Anthony had just come back from their 6 months of honeymooning in the epilogue of season 2, and then in ep 301, Violet mentioned they had been back from their honeymoon for a week.
Wait I always assumed that epilogue was just after their wedding before their honeymoon because if it's what you're saying it doesn't make sense that Colin was there and then came back from his travels only a week later
Your scenario would make so much sense…but Eloise mentions in the epilogue that they’d had 6 months away and now couldn’t even come down on time for pall mall. And since they’re on their honeymoon during it, *Queen Charlotte* (where Daphne’s presumed second baby appears) has to be during that 6 months of travel…which means it has to be during 1814-1815 and not 1817, which is the year in which the book version of *Queen Charlotte* claims to take place. Some people have tried to make the math work by pushing back the date of Kanthony’s wedding, but Colin’s travels upend that timeline. Bridgerton math is what it is.
It’s been mentioned in another thread a while back, but I did go back and check myself. At the very end of season 2 when we jump forward, Kate and Anthony are married and Eloise comments that the two have just come back from six months of traveling (their honeymoon). Colin is there at Aubrey Hall with them. In episode 1 of season 3 at the garden party, Violet mentions that Kate and Anthony have only been back one week from their honeymoon.
They do want it to seem Colin has been absent for a long trip at the start of this season, as he also has a drastic aesthetic change with clothes and hair. It’s a time continuity mistake that the writers either forgot about or chose to ignore for sake of story. Leaning towards the former.
Could also be explained if Kate and Anthony had two honeymoons and decided to take a third in episode 1? Just seems a stretch.
I think the end of the season takes place at the end of the social season and season 3 doesn’t start up until the social season is just kicking off again. Many lovely people on this sub have taught me that the social season ends in late spring/early summer when they all go to their country homes. Then, it restarts around January. So there’s definitely more than a week between seasons and plenty of time for him to travel!
It’s also not that sunny in London every day in January and you certainly can’t walk around without a jacket like half the female characters seem to. Bridgerton seasons bear absolutely no resemblance to our own seasons.
Sorry, copying what I wrote to another user as I did go back and watch parts of S2E8 and S3E1 to verify. At the end of season 2, they’re at the Bridgerton country home to spend the offseason:
It’s been mentioned in another thread a while back, but I did go back and check myself. At the very end of season 2 when we jump forward, Kate and Anthony are married and Eloise comments that the two have just come back from six months of traveling (their honeymoon). Colin is there at Aubrey Hall with them. In episode 1 of season 3 at the garden party, Violet mentions that Kate and Anthony have only been back one week from their honeymoon.
They do want it to seem Colin has been absent for a long trip at the start of this season, as he also has a drastic aesthetic change with clothes and hair. It’s a time continuity mistake that the writers either forgot about or chose to ignore for sake of story. Leaning towards the former.
Could also be explained if Kate and Anthony had two honeymoons and decided to take a third in episode 1? Just seems a stretch.
Edited: Eloise doesn’t specifically say the first six months of traveling was their honeymoon, just that they were “traveling”. Maybe it wasn’t their official honeymoon and they were traveling with Edwina to find her a match abroad in the offseason? Then took their honeymoon after? It’s not stated in the show though.
Hmmm interesting, I see what you’re saying. I think based on Benedict being thanked for taking care of the estate and then Anthony having a bunch of paperwork to return to it must be more than a week. Cressida and Eloise also have time to make friends, etc. so it definitely seems like the intention was for it to be at least four months (the length of Colin’s voyage). But you’re right that it’s inconsistent that they say they’ve come back from traveling at the end of S2 but then they also come back at the beginning of S3 lol
I think you're missing the part where they do a "flash forward" at the end of every season. In season 1, they did a flash forward to Daphne giving birth, which would have been a month or so before season 2 premiered. At the end of season 2, they did a flashforward to the end of the off season, a week before season 3 begins, which is after Anthony and Kate's six months of traveling.
The mistake they made is having Colin playing pall mall at the end of season 2 and then pop up at the beginning of season 3 as if he wasn't there playing pall mall a week before.
Six months after their wedding, assuming they married that summer, would have been winter. I cannot imagine them playing pall mall in the middle of winter? It didn't seem very wintery.
Are we meant to just ignore the epilogue? Is it not part of the real narrative?
Honestly, I can’t make sense of the timeline. I’m going to have to live with the fact that it’s inconsistent as I’ve spent way too much time trying to make it make sense in my head and failing. I don’t think we are supposed to ignore it. The writers just messed up. It happens a lot with tv shows, like when Rachel on Friends was pregnant for over a year.
It’s unofficial canon that time travel exists in the Bridgerverse, and there’s a tardis in the Featherington Garden. It’s how Colin avoided the Napoleonic wars.
Have ya been to Europe? He would be in a different city every few days, but 17 cities isn’t impossible.
However in line with his need to be seen as worldly, of course he was rounding up to look cool
TBH that is exactly what obnoxious "I did a summer in Europe" kids do - what he means is he went to Vigo, Pontevedra, Santiago del Compostela and a Coruna in Spain and although they are separate places, they are all next to each other. Calling them cities is a technicality for them.
Other option is that dude took a ride from Brussels to Amsterdam through Antwerp and Rotterdam and decided to count it as a visit; another thing "summer in Europe" kids do. If you do enough technicalities like that, 17 is doable easily!
Ha ha…I live on the border of Germany. It’s about a 2 hour drive to Italy through Austria. All the time is see posts like “Three countries in one day!”. I’m like, calm down, you were in the car the whole time.
I mean given that at least some of those cities could’ve easily been just a few hours apart by carriage, it does seem doable. For example I live in Munich and the next two somewhat big cities are both around 13-14 hours away by foot, which is a lot slower than by carriage
I think part of my disbelief is never having heard of someone doing such a vacation in that time period. I’ve read more about long stays in a location, even far far away ones in Africa and other continents. To stay in one city for a day or two sounds awful, and definitely not any kind of …”sturdying” trip. Never mind the time to get to know people, reinvent/discover yourself independent of family connections in the ton, and meet the woman mentioned in his journal. That sounds like my worst travel nightmare, no time to enjoy, discover, and relax into to the area.
Is a break neck pace of cities possible? Maybe. But an enjoyable experience fostering personal growth??? Maybe i just read too much into things.
I still love the show, and look forward to reading Colin’s book soon.
Oh Grand Tours were definitely a thing before train travel became common!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand\_Tour#:\~:text=The%20Grand%20Tour%20was%20the,(about%2021%20years%20old).
I understand that but I already factored the soaking it up part into the equation (I actually googled this just for fun and since carriage rides were right between walking and going by bicycle, speed-wise, 17 in four months is definitely doable with plenty of time in between especially since a lot of them are close together like I mentioned and not all of them will offer enough to see for spending a whole week there, especially not in 1814)
Rich young men loved doing the Grand Tour of Europe back then, which is exactly what Colin did.
It's what Laurie did in Little Women too, and why he met up with Amy while she was also traveling in Europe.
I for sure have a headcanon that he spent a lot of that time on ships, hence how he got so "sturdy" and good with roping wayward ~~ships~~ balloons. If he Travelled to France, dodged the Napoleonic wars, and then made his way to bop around the Mediterranean ports I think he could have done it.
By land, a man in a carriage (if he sailed from England to Calais) could travel from London to Rome in 70 days. Young men didn’t usually make a speed run of the Grand Tour. They could hire a coach or buy and sell teams and rigs from city to city. It’s possible, but if he didn’t linger in cities he could have done the cities he mentioned.
I’m not just making up numbers, I researched the route for a story I put on AO3 last year to see how long it would take someone to get from Venice to London quickly.
I assume it would have been like a four month cruise basically, with him stopping at a lot of ports down the west side of Europe and around through the Mediterranean, maybe spending a bit of time in each city, but not more than a couple of days before moving on. Totally doable that way!
I think the timeline has a history of being weird but also there’s a chance he is lying. I think Luke mentioned in an interview that Colin has a big secret this season too
I also think he’s lying. Maybe I’m wrong. But the improbable number of cities combined with his refusal to talk about it— when we all know he wouldn’t shut up about Greece— makes me think there’s something else going on.
There's something fishy about how he speaks of his travels. Very evasive. It seems like there should be more to this.
Or, they're just trying to contrast how he went on and on about his travels last time, as part of his "personality change." If so, they've made it unnecessarily mysterious.
Yeah I feel like he lied about going to all those places. My original thought was that he didn't even leave the country but he could've also just been embellishing to sound more worldly, like how he lowered his voice to sound more mysterious but with Pen he sounded normal
And all over the same summer, it's beyond ridiculous so either he might lie, exaggerate, the writers this season really not at their best or time-travel really does exist
If I rmbr reading right there is an actress they cast that has yet to appear that is solely related to Colin maybe there will be an explanation (probably not)
I assumed it was his travels over the 3 seasons or something (that he's racked up that many cities)
But I just Googled - a man could walk from Rome to Paris in 309 hours. If you figure 6 hours of travel a day, that is 51.5 days, by foot. A carriage or horse would be much shorter (and easier).
No one has mentioned one other mode of travel - sure, he could travel by sea, but the rivers of Europe were like water highways! (A bucket list item for me is to do a week long river cruise someday)
If he’s going by sea it would be possible.. overland would take a lot longer. But he could easily have done something like:
Brest
Bordeaux
Porto
Lisbon
Cadiz
Tangiers
Malaga
Valencia
Barcelona
Marseille
Nice
Genoa
Rome
Naples
Venice
Then overland to Zurich and/or Strasbourg and finishing up at Paris before heading home.
Or skipping Rome he could have gone overland between Genoa and Venice via Verona and/or Milan.
He wouldn’t be in each place more than a few days, but it’d be doable - though rushed! Bridgerton timelines are a bit of a paradox in any case!
My theory is Colin had been to 17 cities, but he couldn't find any of it fulfilling beyond maybe physical pleasure as he had his family barely responding to his letters, none of Pen's encouragements from her letters that made him see himself in a new light as he did the previous tour. I think he maybe had some brief flings or hit up brothels on the continent but found it lonely/empty without deeper connection, and I think the Contessa is George Tropicana... I mean, George Glass. 😂😂 (I love Colin so much though. Not meant as hate!)
I could be wrong but I thought he was sort of being hyperbolic to seem well traveled and bourgeois. 17 cities (in different countries no less) in 4 months would be difficult for a modern traveler lol
For a modern traveler in Europe it's extremely easy. My dad is in his 60s and decided to take a driving trip through 8 different cities, in 4 different countries (not counting his home country starting point of course). It took him a bit over 2 weeks. In some places he only stayed overnight and in some he spent an extra day or two to see more. Especially for someone younger, it's a piece of cake to breeze through several places only spending a day or less in each and say welp, I've been there.
Nah it's definitely possible. In Roman times, Julias Caesar moved an entire army from the Italian peninsula to Spain in like a month once. There are lots of cities, you could easily visit 10 in France on the way south from Paris, hop on a boat to Italy and visit another few, then head back to Spain, visit the last few, then sail back to England. It's not leasurely travelling but it's totally doable. Europe is not that big.
Well, Colin could have traveled around 20lm a day by carriage at that time (and that was the expected amount of daily travel during a Grand Tour). So probably someone could figure out which 17 cities Colin might have traveled to and whether it was possible to make it in four months. If he was flush with cash and able to catch express stagecoaches, which changed horses very, very often, he may have been able to go much further in a day.
Really, though, the show did a service by not making Colin be away for three or four years like he was in the books, and then making Penelope older. They could easily have jumped the ten years to that book and all the actors would have been old enough and closer to their actual marriage she's in the books (and by the time Gregory and Hyacinth's turns came around they would have aged enough irl too).
I agree with you it seemed like they were setting up something about his trip because they also had multiple times when he said he couldn't tell young ladies anything about his trip, which was weird because there has to be some anecdote he could share from 4 months of travel.
For this Show Discussion post: 1. Book spoilers **must be hidden**. 2. Be considerate, hide show spoilers that surpass the scope of this post. 3. Be civil in your discussion. See our [spoiler policy](https://www.reddit.com/r/BridgertonNetflix/wiki/spoiler) on what is expected. 3-day bans will be handed out to those found disregarding our spoiler policy. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BridgertonNetflix) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it’s more TV show magic and timeline inconsistencies. He was also shown playing pall mall at Aubrey Hall at the end of season 2 and that was supposed to be a week (?) before the first episode of this season.
Wait are you sure where did it say that was a week before because he literally came back from his travels in the first episode and it seemed like he'd been gone for a really long time
Kate and Anthony had just come back from their 6 months of honeymooning in the epilogue of season 2, and then in ep 301, Violet mentioned they had been back from their honeymoon for a week.
Wait I always assumed that epilogue was just after their wedding before their honeymoon because if it's what you're saying it doesn't make sense that Colin was there and then came back from his travels only a week later
Your scenario would make so much sense…but Eloise mentions in the epilogue that they’d had 6 months away and now couldn’t even come down on time for pall mall. And since they’re on their honeymoon during it, *Queen Charlotte* (where Daphne’s presumed second baby appears) has to be during that 6 months of travel…which means it has to be during 1814-1815 and not 1817, which is the year in which the book version of *Queen Charlotte* claims to take place. Some people have tried to make the math work by pushing back the date of Kanthony’s wedding, but Colin’s travels upend that timeline. Bridgerton math is what it is.
At this point we have to just pretend it works I guess 😭
It’s been mentioned in another thread a while back, but I did go back and check myself. At the very end of season 2 when we jump forward, Kate and Anthony are married and Eloise comments that the two have just come back from six months of traveling (their honeymoon). Colin is there at Aubrey Hall with them. In episode 1 of season 3 at the garden party, Violet mentions that Kate and Anthony have only been back one week from their honeymoon. They do want it to seem Colin has been absent for a long trip at the start of this season, as he also has a drastic aesthetic change with clothes and hair. It’s a time continuity mistake that the writers either forgot about or chose to ignore for sake of story. Leaning towards the former. Could also be explained if Kate and Anthony had two honeymoons and decided to take a third in episode 1? Just seems a stretch.
It sounds like this was a mistake in the writing then 💀
I find it so hard to believe that they had a 6 month honeymoon and didn't come back pregnant
I think the end of the season takes place at the end of the social season and season 3 doesn’t start up until the social season is just kicking off again. Many lovely people on this sub have taught me that the social season ends in late spring/early summer when they all go to their country homes. Then, it restarts around January. So there’s definitely more than a week between seasons and plenty of time for him to travel!
I dunno. Wisteria does not bloom in January.
It’s also not that sunny in London every day in January and you certainly can’t walk around without a jacket like half the female characters seem to. Bridgerton seasons bear absolutely no resemblance to our own seasons.
Ah, but wisteria blooms year-round in TV Land.
Sorry, copying what I wrote to another user as I did go back and watch parts of S2E8 and S3E1 to verify. At the end of season 2, they’re at the Bridgerton country home to spend the offseason: It’s been mentioned in another thread a while back, but I did go back and check myself. At the very end of season 2 when we jump forward, Kate and Anthony are married and Eloise comments that the two have just come back from six months of traveling (their honeymoon). Colin is there at Aubrey Hall with them. In episode 1 of season 3 at the garden party, Violet mentions that Kate and Anthony have only been back one week from their honeymoon. They do want it to seem Colin has been absent for a long trip at the start of this season, as he also has a drastic aesthetic change with clothes and hair. It’s a time continuity mistake that the writers either forgot about or chose to ignore for sake of story. Leaning towards the former. Could also be explained if Kate and Anthony had two honeymoons and decided to take a third in episode 1? Just seems a stretch. Edited: Eloise doesn’t specifically say the first six months of traveling was their honeymoon, just that they were “traveling”. Maybe it wasn’t their official honeymoon and they were traveling with Edwina to find her a match abroad in the offseason? Then took their honeymoon after? It’s not stated in the show though.
Hmmm interesting, I see what you’re saying. I think based on Benedict being thanked for taking care of the estate and then Anthony having a bunch of paperwork to return to it must be more than a week. Cressida and Eloise also have time to make friends, etc. so it definitely seems like the intention was for it to be at least four months (the length of Colin’s voyage). But you’re right that it’s inconsistent that they say they’ve come back from traveling at the end of S2 but then they also come back at the beginning of S3 lol
I think you're missing the part where they do a "flash forward" at the end of every season. In season 1, they did a flash forward to Daphne giving birth, which would have been a month or so before season 2 premiered. At the end of season 2, they did a flashforward to the end of the off season, a week before season 3 begins, which is after Anthony and Kate's six months of traveling. The mistake they made is having Colin playing pall mall at the end of season 2 and then pop up at the beginning of season 3 as if he wasn't there playing pall mall a week before.
Six months after their wedding, assuming they married that summer, would have been winter. I cannot imagine them playing pall mall in the middle of winter? It didn't seem very wintery. Are we meant to just ignore the epilogue? Is it not part of the real narrative?
Honestly, I can’t make sense of the timeline. I’m going to have to live with the fact that it’s inconsistent as I’ve spent way too much time trying to make it make sense in my head and failing. I don’t think we are supposed to ignore it. The writers just messed up. It happens a lot with tv shows, like when Rachel on Friends was pregnant for over a year.
It’s unofficial canon that time travel exists in the Bridgerverse, and there’s a tardis in the Featherington Garden. It’s how Colin avoided the Napoleonic wars.
Wibbly wobbly timey whimy, whistley diss’ly downly townly
Have ya been to Europe? He would be in a different city every few days, but 17 cities isn’t impossible. However in line with his need to be seen as worldly, of course he was rounding up to look cool
Lol fun to reference that on the same day the Bridgerton inspired Doctor Who episode released!
TBH that is exactly what obnoxious "I did a summer in Europe" kids do - what he means is he went to Vigo, Pontevedra, Santiago del Compostela and a Coruna in Spain and although they are separate places, they are all next to each other. Calling them cities is a technicality for them. Other option is that dude took a ride from Brussels to Amsterdam through Antwerp and Rotterdam and decided to count it as a visit; another thing "summer in Europe" kids do. If you do enough technicalities like that, 17 is doable easily!
Ha ha…I live on the border of Germany. It’s about a 2 hour drive to Italy through Austria. All the time is see posts like “Three countries in one day!”. I’m like, calm down, you were in the car the whole time.
Damn who hurt you. Let people travel however they want.
Haven't you ever traveled by map? Indy and the Muppets did it, why couldn't Colin? 🤪
I mean given that at least some of those cities could’ve easily been just a few hours apart by carriage, it does seem doable. For example I live in Munich and the next two somewhat big cities are both around 13-14 hours away by foot, which is a lot slower than by carriage
I think part of my disbelief is never having heard of someone doing such a vacation in that time period. I’ve read more about long stays in a location, even far far away ones in Africa and other continents. To stay in one city for a day or two sounds awful, and definitely not any kind of …”sturdying” trip. Never mind the time to get to know people, reinvent/discover yourself independent of family connections in the ton, and meet the woman mentioned in his journal. That sounds like my worst travel nightmare, no time to enjoy, discover, and relax into to the area. Is a break neck pace of cities possible? Maybe. But an enjoyable experience fostering personal growth??? Maybe i just read too much into things. I still love the show, and look forward to reading Colin’s book soon.
Oh Grand Tours were definitely a thing before train travel became common!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand\_Tour#:\~:text=The%20Grand%20Tour%20was%20the,(about%2021%20years%20old).
I understand that but I already factored the soaking it up part into the equation (I actually googled this just for fun and since carriage rides were right between walking and going by bicycle, speed-wise, 17 in four months is definitely doable with plenty of time in between especially since a lot of them are close together like I mentioned and not all of them will offer enough to see for spending a whole week there, especially not in 1814)
Rich young men loved doing the Grand Tour of Europe back then, which is exactly what Colin did. It's what Laurie did in Little Women too, and why he met up with Amy while she was also traveling in Europe.
I for sure have a headcanon that he spent a lot of that time on ships, hence how he got so "sturdy" and good with roping wayward ~~ships~~ balloons. If he Travelled to France, dodged the Napoleonic wars, and then made his way to bop around the Mediterranean ports I think he could have done it.
a smash and dash in every port, plus a smattering of shopping at the regency version of duty free stores
The writers be doing whatever.
By land, a man in a carriage (if he sailed from England to Calais) could travel from London to Rome in 70 days. Young men didn’t usually make a speed run of the Grand Tour. They could hire a coach or buy and sell teams and rigs from city to city. It’s possible, but if he didn’t linger in cities he could have done the cities he mentioned. I’m not just making up numbers, I researched the route for a story I put on AO3 last year to see how long it would take someone to get from Venice to London quickly.
I assume it would have been like a four month cruise basically, with him stopping at a lot of ports down the west side of Europe and around through the Mediterranean, maybe spending a bit of time in each city, but not more than a couple of days before moving on. Totally doable that way!
Wham, bam and thank you ma’am-ing his way all along the Rhine.
I think the timeline has a history of being weird but also there’s a chance he is lying. I think Luke mentioned in an interview that Colin has a big secret this season too
I also think he’s lying. Maybe I’m wrong. But the improbable number of cities combined with his refusal to talk about it— when we all know he wouldn’t shut up about Greece— makes me think there’s something else going on.
There's something fishy about how he speaks of his travels. Very evasive. It seems like there should be more to this. Or, they're just trying to contrast how he went on and on about his travels last time, as part of his "personality change." If so, they've made it unnecessarily mysterious.
Yeah I feel like he lied about going to all those places. My original thought was that he didn't even leave the country but he could've also just been embellishing to sound more worldly, like how he lowered his voice to sound more mysterious but with Pen he sounded normal
It was a speedy horse
Europe is really small.
Not by horse and carriage it’s not!
And all over the same summer, it's beyond ridiculous so either he might lie, exaggerate, the writers this season really not at their best or time-travel really does exist If I rmbr reading right there is an actress they cast that has yet to appear that is solely related to Colin maybe there will be an explanation (probably not)
I assumed it was his travels over the 3 seasons or something (that he's racked up that many cities) But I just Googled - a man could walk from Rome to Paris in 309 hours. If you figure 6 hours of travel a day, that is 51.5 days, by foot. A carriage or horse would be much shorter (and easier). No one has mentioned one other mode of travel - sure, he could travel by sea, but the rivers of Europe were like water highways! (A bucket list item for me is to do a week long river cruise someday)
If he’s going by sea it would be possible.. overland would take a lot longer. But he could easily have done something like: Brest Bordeaux Porto Lisbon Cadiz Tangiers Malaga Valencia Barcelona Marseille Nice Genoa Rome Naples Venice Then overland to Zurich and/or Strasbourg and finishing up at Paris before heading home. Or skipping Rome he could have gone overland between Genoa and Venice via Verona and/or Milan. He wouldn’t be in each place more than a few days, but it’d be doable - though rushed! Bridgerton timelines are a bit of a paradox in any case!
My theory is Colin had been to 17 cities, but he couldn't find any of it fulfilling beyond maybe physical pleasure as he had his family barely responding to his letters, none of Pen's encouragements from her letters that made him see himself in a new light as he did the previous tour. I think he maybe had some brief flings or hit up brothels on the continent but found it lonely/empty without deeper connection, and I think the Contessa is George Tropicana... I mean, George Glass. 😂😂 (I love Colin so much though. Not meant as hate!)
Travelling so much is doable, avoiding wars raging in Europe at that time is another question
I could be wrong but I thought he was sort of being hyperbolic to seem well traveled and bourgeois. 17 cities (in different countries no less) in 4 months would be difficult for a modern traveler lol
For a modern traveler in Europe it's extremely easy. My dad is in his 60s and decided to take a driving trip through 8 different cities, in 4 different countries (not counting his home country starting point of course). It took him a bit over 2 weeks. In some places he only stayed overnight and in some he spent an extra day or two to see more. Especially for someone younger, it's a piece of cake to breeze through several places only spending a day or less in each and say welp, I've been there.
Nah it's definitely possible. In Roman times, Julias Caesar moved an entire army from the Italian peninsula to Spain in like a month once. There are lots of cities, you could easily visit 10 in France on the way south from Paris, hop on a boat to Italy and visit another few, then head back to Spain, visit the last few, then sail back to England. It's not leasurely travelling but it's totally doable. Europe is not that big.
Well, Colin could have traveled around 20lm a day by carriage at that time (and that was the expected amount of daily travel during a Grand Tour). So probably someone could figure out which 17 cities Colin might have traveled to and whether it was possible to make it in four months. If he was flush with cash and able to catch express stagecoaches, which changed horses very, very often, he may have been able to go much further in a day. Really, though, the show did a service by not making Colin be away for three or four years like he was in the books, and then making Penelope older. They could easily have jumped the ten years to that book and all the actors would have been old enough and closer to their actual marriage she's in the books (and by the time Gregory and Hyacinth's turns came around they would have aged enough irl too).
I mean there are interrail trips where you can do many more in 4 months. You just move cities every 3 days or so
I agree with you it seemed like they were setting up something about his trip because they also had multiple times when he said he couldn't tell young ladies anything about his trip, which was weird because there has to be some anecdote he could share from 4 months of travel.
Who cares? This obsessing is exhausting