Monday, August 5,1878 – Sam and Joe left by Baden-Baden rail to Achern, for a week-long tramp. Sam wrote at 8:30 PM from Allerheiligen, Germany to Livy in Heidelberg. Sam wrote of almost being left at Baden Baden that morning, having waited on the wrong side of the train tracks. After having their day “mapped out” by a schoolmaster named Scheiding, the rest of the day was full:
We took a post carriage from Achern to Otterhöfen for 7 marks—stopped at the “Pflug” to drink beer...It was intensely Black-foresty.../ We walked the carriage road till we came to that place where one sees the footpath on the other side of a ravine, then we crossed over & took that. For a good while
we were in a dense forest & judged we were lost, but met 2 native women who said we were all right. We fooled along & got here at 6 P.M—ate supper, then followed down the ravine to the foot of the falls, then struck into a blind path to see where it would go, & just about dark we fetched up at the
Devil’s Pulpit (where you & I were,) on top of the hills. Then home. And now to bed, pretty sleepy & requiring no whisky.
(DbD)
August 6 Tuesday – Clemens and Twichell walked from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, Germany, ten miles. They then took a train from Oppenau to Heidelberg “through clouds of dust”.
August 7: “We have had a long & most enjoyable day in a carriage up to Hirschhorn & back with Smith”
August 8 Thursday – Joe and Sam took the train up the river valley to Wimpfen. They started out on foot, and took a peasant’s cart seven more miles to Heilbronn. They browsed around the town and admired the old buildings. They ordered red wine at the Hotel zum Falkan but got something different. They discovered the label was wet and had just been applied. Sam wrote in his notebook “2000 labels sent to one American firm so they can furnish any wine desired.” He also noted an unusual ornate clock on Heilbronn’s Rathhaus, built in 1550, which he later put in Chapter 12 of
A Tramp Abroad.
Sam didn’t sleep well, as he: ...heard the 1⁄4 hours struck & the sweet trumpet blow, from 10.15 to 4.30. Got up in night to get my feather bed & barked my brow on an ornament of the tall stove. I could not do it justice, so said absolutely nothing.
The hotel about 300 years old is a comparatively modern building—but some of the stenches were quite old—they were antiques, I should say.
August 9 Friday – Twichell and Sam took a boat from Heilbronn for a trip down the Neckar River, stopping for beer and chicken at Jagtfeldt, then continuing toward Hirschhorn in a new and smaller boat.
August 10 Saturday – In the morning the men explored Dilsburg Castle. Sam and Joe started back to Baden Baden by train. They took a swift raft ride of the lower river to Heidelberg, plowing the raft into a bridge. “Blazing hot in train.” They stopped at Friedrich.
From Sam’s notebook:
“Took a bath at Friedrich. In Evening to bed early, with the new home magazines [July Harper’s, and Atlantic] which I had saved all day & wouldn’t cut a leaf. Twichell the ass, writes & goes to the music. I lie & smoke & am wise”.
[Unable to locate Friedrich. Joe and Sam possibly stopped in Karlsruhe on the way to Baden-Baden]
August 11 Sunday – Sam and Twichell returned to Baden Baden. Livy, the children and the rest of
the Clemens party had already gone on to Lucerne, Switzerland