Submitted by scott on
Start Date
End Date

Attempting to economize, Sam Clemens moved his family from Hartford, Connecticut to Europe. First leg was to Geneva, Switzerland.


From July 27 to August 1, 1891,  from Aix to Bayreuth to attend the Wagner festival.  For a humorous account of the trip from Aix-les-Bains to Bayreuth, read Sam’s third letter to McClure’s Syndicate, “Playing the Courier,” which first appeared in the Illustrated London News on Dec. 19 and 26, 1891. Sam later revised the piece and included it in the 1893 collection, The £1,000,000 Bank-Note and Other New Stories.


From August 11 to August 15, 1891, from Bayreuth to Marienbad, Germany


February 29, 1892 Monday – Sam and Livy left the children to their studies in Berlin for the sunnier climes of the French Riviera and a three week rest to regain their health.


From June 1 to 3, 1892 - the family was in transit from Lake Como, Italy to Bad Nauheim via Lucerne and Frankfurt.


June 13 Monday – Sam left Bad Nauheim alone and traveled to Bremen, Germany, where he would take passage the following day for New York [June 12 to Fiske]. He took a room ath the Hotel de l’Europe in Bremen [NB 31 TS 53].

June 14 Tuesday - Sam left Bremen for New York in the steamer Havel.

June 22 Wednesday – Sam arrived in New York City [MTLTP 311n1]. 


July 5 to 15, enroute from New York to Bremen, Germany on the S.S. Lahn


September 15 Thursday – The Clemens family left Frankfurt, headed for Lucerne, Switzerland.  Stayed over-night at Basel. / Left Basel at 2.10 p.m. Sept. 16, reached Lurcerne 5.15, where they stayed at the Hotel Des Balances.  

September 20 Tuesday –  The family left Lucerne and traveled to Milan, Italy.

September 22 Thursday – The Clemens family left Milan at 11:45 a.m. and traveled five hours to Bologna, Italy. The family left Bologna and arrived in Florence, Italy.  They likely spent the next two days at the Hotel New York, moving into the Villa Viviani on Sept. 25


 

June 5 Friday – Sam, Livy, and Jean left Hartford for New York, where they met their other daughters and Sue Crane. The party stayed at the Murray Hill Hotel.

New York to France:  Gascoigne

June 6 Saturday – At 5 a.m. the Clemenses sailed from New York for France on the Gascoigne. The family would not return for more than eight years and would never again live in Hartford.

Aix les Bains

From June 21 to June 27, 1891, Sam was in Annecy. I have found no direct mention of where the Clemens' were while at Haute-Savoie but it is possible they tried the Thermes de Sant Gervais Mont-Blanc.  From June 27 to July 27, 1891, he was at Aix-les-Bains.  Scharnhorst reports they departed for Geneva on the 28th.

The Wagner Opera festival opened in Bayreuth [Brooklyn Eagle, July 19, 1891 p.7]. This paper reported in a dispatch from London, “Bayreuth is overflowing with visitors, fully 50 per cent of them being Americans.” The Clemens party would arrive there on July 31 [July 10 to Hall]. The festival was held each year in the town of Wagner’s birth. Performances were given in a theater designed by Wagner in 1872, the Festspielhaus, with excellent acoustics.

Of the trip from Bayreuth to Marienbad, Schornhorst  (pg 7) writes: "The family left Bayreuth on August 11 and railed some sixty miles east to Marienbad, in Bohemia, where they spent the remained of the month.  Sam was so enchanted by the landscape along the route; he had "never made so picturesque a journey before," ... " and there cannot be another trip of the like in the world that can furnish so much variety and of so charming and interesting sort."

“They returned to Germany at the end of August, to Nuremberg, which he notes as the ‘city of exquisite glimpses,’ and to Heidelberg, where they had their old apartment of thirteen years before, Room 40 at the Schloss Hotel, with its wonderful prospect of wood and hill, and the haze-haunted valley of the Rhine. They remained less than a week in that beautiful place, and then were off for Switzerland, Lucerne, Brienz, Interlaken, finally resting at the Hotel Beau Rivage, Ouchy, Lausanne, on beautiful Lake Leman” [MTB 923]. (Editorial emphasis.)

September 5 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: Sept. 5. Left Heidelberg for Lucerne 8.50 a.m. [NB 31 TS 3].

September 9 Wednesday – Left Lucerne by boat, 9.45 a.m. Left Alpnach in two carriages at 10.45. Lunched at the Lion d’Or, at 1. p.m.; passed through Brienz mid-afternoon; glimpsed a small white peak of the Jungfrau at 6.10; at 6.30 the vast pile was in full view & from then till 7.10 it was richly tinted with pink, the other mountains very dark, nearly black. Meantime, reached Victoria Hotel, Interlaken 6.30 [NB 31 TS 4].

Sam also wrote an account of the trip he called “part diary and part comment,” titled, “Down the Rhône,” which was first published in 1923 in Europe and Elsewhere. The account begins on this day:

Scott, Arthur L. “The Innocents Adrift Edited by Mark Twain's Official Biographer.” 

September 30 Wednesday – At Arles, France

October 1 Thursday – In Nimes, France at the Hotel Manivet,

October 2 Friday – Sam and Joseph Verey left Arles for Avignon, France [2nd letter to Livy, Sept.28; NB 31 TS 7]

October 3 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: Avignon. Oct. 3.—leaving, 11 am.

October 9 Friday – In their winter quarters at 7 Körnerstrasse, Berlin,

Osnabruck, Oct. 28. — The seventieth anniversary of the birthday of Rudolph Virchow.  Sam’s version of events from his sixth Europe letter for McClure’s Syndicate, entitled, “German Chicago”:

December 18 Friday – Sam left Berlin with William Phelps and traveled 125 miles south to Dresden

December 19 Saturday – Sam may have stayed overnight in Dresden or returned late Dec. 18.

The route plotted is my best guess based on 5 geographic points:  Berlin, St. Gottard Pass, Milan, Genoa, and Merton.  Information that the Clemenses passed through St. Gottard Pass, Milan and Genoa come from personal correspondences.

March 24 Thursday – Sam and Livy left Menton for Pisa, Italy with Joseph Verey, their courier.
March 25 Friday – Sam and Livy were in Pisa, Italy. Sam’s notebook lists the Eden Hotel:
March 26 Saturday – Sam and Livy were in transit from Pisa to Rome, Italy.
March 27 Sunday – In Rome, at the Hotel Molaro, for "a charming five weeks."

June 2 Thursday – Sam’s notebook in transit from Cadenabbia to Lucerne.
June 3 Friday – The Clemens family rested in Lucerne, Switzerland [NB 31 TS 50].
June 4 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:  The Clemenses proceeded on to Frankfurt, Germany, where they took rooms at the Schwan Hotel [NB 31 TS 50].
June 5 Sunday – The Clemenses rested in Frankfurt, Germany at the Schwan Hotel [NB 31 TS 50].

June 13 Monday – Sam left Bad Nauheim alone and traveled to Bremen, Germany, where he would take passage the following day for New York [June 12 to Fiske]. He took a room ath the Hotel de l’Europe in Bremen [NB 31 TS 53].
Sam’s notebook: “Arrived here at 5.23 June 13 — left Nauheim 9.05 a.m.” [NB 31 TS 53].

June 14 Tuesday – In Bremen, Germany   Sam left Bremen for New York in the steamer Havel.

Bremen to New York:  Havel

July 14 Thursday – On or about this day the SS. Lahn reached Bremen. Shortly, Sam continued on to Bad Nauheim to rejoin Livy.

August 5, At the Kaiserhof Hotel in Bad Nauheim, Germany, Sam wrote of ... a bit of traveling the past few days, without specifics,

September 15 Thursday – The Clemens family left Frankfurt, headed for Lucerne, Switzerland, a trip of some 207 miles [NB 32 TS 24; Sept. 17 to Whitmore]. Sam related that Livy’s condition forced them to stop for the night in Basel:
September 16 Friday – Sam’s notebook shows the record of travel:
Left Frankfurt Sep. 15. / Stayed over-night at Basel. / Left Basel at 2.10 p.m. Sept. 16, reached Lurcerne 5.15 [NB 32 TS 24].

Florence to the States:  Kaiser Wilhelm II

March. 21. Drove to station with Livy, Susy & Jean. / Wm Walter Phelps arrived presently. He & I went to Genoa by the 11.35 train, arriving at 6.25 [NB 33 TS 4].
Sam and Phelps traveled 166 miles to Genoa, where Sam spent the night in a hotel [Mar 22 to Jean Clemens].

March 22 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Sailed in the Kaiser Wilhelm II at 11 a.m.” [NB 33 TS 4].

New York to Genoa:  Kaiser Wilhelm II

May 13 Saturday – At 10 a.m. the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II sailed for Genoa, Italy from New York

June 15 Thursday – In Sam’s June 20 to Susan Crane Sam wrote they’d left the Villa on this day; but in his notebook he gave 6 p.m. Friday, June 17, even though Friday was June 16 [NB 33 TS 18].

June 16 Friday – Sam’s notebook:  Left the Villa Viviani at 6 p.m. Friday. June 17 [Friday was June 16]. Dined & stayed at Dr. Wilberforce Baldwin’s, 1 Via Palestro [NB 33 TS 18].

Frederick J. Hall responded to Sam’s June 2, wanting out of business, with a five-page typed letter.

June 28 Wednesday – At about 8 a.m Sam left Munich for Berlin to accompany daughter Clara back to Munich. Sam’s notebook reveals the trip:  June 28. Arrived at Berlin at 8.28 p.m about 12 ½ hr. out from Munich — still good daylight. Clara, Mrs. Willard & Secretary Jackson at station. Staid at Jackson’s [NB 33 TS 20].

July 1:  Webster & Co.’s financial statement: In excess of $62,000 in uncollected installment accounts, $197,089.75 in liabilities [MTLTP 349n2].

Return to the States, August 1893:

August 26 Saturday – Sam and daughter Clara left Franzensbad and traveled by train to Leipzig, taking rooms at the Palmbaum Hotel [Aug. 28 to Livy]. Note: date is calculated.

August 28 Monday – In Leipzig, Germany shortly before breakfast and catching a train for Bremen, Sam wrote to Livy, still in Franzensbad with Susy.

Bremen to New York:  Spree

New York to Southampton and Le Havre:  SS New York

March 7 Wednesday – Sam sailed on the SS New York for Southampton and Le Havre [MTHHR 23].

March 8 Thursday – At sea on the SS New York,

Contact Us