Sam Clemens wrote to his mother February 17 if 1878:
Life has come to be a very serious matter with me. I have a badgered, harassed feeling, a good part of my time. It comes mainly of business responsibilities & annoyances, & the persecutions of kindly letters from well-meaning strangers—to whom I must be rudely silent or else put in the biggest half of my time bothering over answers. There are other things, also, that help to consume my time & defeat my projects. Well, the consequence is, I cannot write a book at home. This cuts my income down. Therefore, I have about made up my mind to take my tribe & fly to some little corner of Europe & budge no more until I shall have completed one of the half dozen books that lie begun, up stairs. We Please say nothing about this at present. We propose to sail the 10th April.
From "A Tramp Abroad": One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I determined to do it. This was in March, 1878.
I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the capacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service.
It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Harris was in sympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as I was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn the German language; so did Harris.
Toward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt, and had a very pleasant trip, indeed.
After a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a long pedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the last moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took the express-train.
European Itinerary, 1878-1879 (from Mark Twain’s Notebooks and Journals, Vol II)
- 11 April 1878 Holsatia sails from New York
- 25-[30] April Hamburg
- [1-3] May To Cassel, via Hanover and Göttingen; excursion to Wilhelmshöhe
- 4 May Frankfort on the Main
- 6 May – 23 July Heidelberg
- 24 May Excursion to Mannheim
- 30 May Excursion to Mannheim
- 10 July Excursion to Worms
- 23 July To Baden-Baden
- 24-[27] July Black Forest carriage trip. Via Forbach, Schönmünzach, and Allerheiligen return to Baden-Baden
- 1 August Twichell arrives in Baden-Baden
- 2 August *Excursion to Favorite Schloss; return to Baden-Baden
- 4 August *Excursion to Gernsbach, via Ebersteinburg and Neuhaus; return to Baden-Baden
- 5 August *To Allerheiligen, via Achern and Ottenhöfen
- 6 August *To Heidelberg, via Oppenau
- 8 August *To Heilbronn
- 9 August *Neckar boat trip from Heilbronn to Hirschorn
- 10 August *Return to Baden-Baden
- 12 August *To Lucerne; rejoin the family party
- 15-16 August Excursion to the Rigi-Kulm; return to Lucerne
- 21 August To Interlaken
- 23 August *To Kandersteg
- 24 August *Over Gemmi Pass to Leukerbad
- 26 August *To Saint Niklaus, via Visp
- 27 August *To Zermatt (Matterhorn)
- 28 August *Excursion to Riffelberg and Gorner Grat
- 29 August *Excursion to Gorner Glacier
- 30 August *Return to Visp, via Saint Niklaus
- 31 August *To Ouchy, via Bouveret; rejoin the family party
- 2 September Excursion to Castle of Chillon
- 4 September *To Martigny
- 5 September *To Chamonix (Mont Blanc), via Têtes Noires and Argentière
- 6 September *Excursion to the Montanvert
- 7 September *To Geneva; rejoin the family party
- 8 September Twichell departs for home
- 10 September To Chamonix
- 12 September Return to Geneva
- 14 September To Chambéry
- 16 September To Turin
- 18-[24] September Milan
- 24 September Bellagio on Lake Como
- 25 September-17 October Venice
- 17-28 October Florence
- 28 October-11 November Rome
- 11 November Return to Florence
- 13 November To Bologna
- 14 November To Trento, via Modena, Mantua, and Verona
- 15 November 1878-27 February 1879 Munich
- 28 February-10 July Paris
- 10 July To Brussels
- 12 July To Antwerp
- 14 July To Rotterdam
- 15 July To Amsterdam
- 17 July To The Hague, via Haarlem
- 19 July To Flushing to catch the night boat to England
- 20-28 July London
- 28 July-2 August Stay at Condover Hall near Shrewsbury
- 2-3 August Excursion to Oxford
- 4-18 August London
- 18-20 August Excursion to the English Lake District – Windermere and Grasmere
- 21 August Arrive in Liverpool
- 23 August S.S. Gallia sails from Liverpool
- 3 September Arrival in New York; leave immediately for Elmira
* Accompanied by Joe Twichell