August 10 Saturday – In the morning the men explored Dilsburg Castle [Rodney 103]. 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 [103]. “Blazing hot in train.” They stopped at Friedrich [note: I can find no reference to what or where is Friedrich] . From Sam’s notebook:
Friday, August 9, 1878 – 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 [MTNJ 2: 132].
Powers: “Sam maintained his near-preternatural gift for spotting undraped females while traveling: ‘dozen naked little girls bathing’ just below Jagtfeldt, and, a little later on a ‘[s]lender naked girl’ who ‘snatched a leafy bow of a bush across her front & then stood satisfied gazing out upon us as we floated by—a very pretty picture’” [419-20].
Thursday, August 8, 1878 – Joe and Sam took the train up the river valley to Wimpfen.
Tuesday, August 6, 1878 – Clemens and Twichell walked from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, Germany, ten miles [MTNJ 2: 47, 129]. They then took a train from Oppenau to Heidelberg “through clouds of dust” [129].
July 25 Thursday – The second day of the carriage trip over country that Sam and Joe would tramp in early August. Eclectic entries from Sam’s notebook:
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:
Sunday, August 4, 1878: Sam and Joe took another one-day excursion from Baden Baden to Ebersteinburg to Nuehaus to Gernsbach, where they drank beer. The pair returned to Baden Baden in the evening. (DBD)
Friday, August 2, 1878: Sam and Joe took a short excursion (6 miles) to the popular Altes Schloss (Favorita Schloss), a conspicuous ruin on the summit of a hill outside town. Sam’s notebook holds an entry paraphrasing a guide book, that:
“...no tourist should fail to climb the mountain & enjoy the view. Hired boy to climb the Mt & examine (or enjoy?) the view. He felt well repaid for all his trouble.”
Later in the day they walked back through the woods to Baden Baden.
(DbyD)
Baden to Forbach direct. 12 M., Forbach to Schönmünzach; Schönmünzach to the summit of the Hornisgrinde; down to the Mummelsee, Seebach, Ottenhofen, and thence over the hill to Allerheiligen.
The Main-Neckar Railway (German: Main-Neckar–Eisenbahn, MNE) is a main line railway west of the Odenwald in the Upper Rhine Plain of Germany that connects Frankfurt am Main to Heidelberg via Darmstadt, Bensheim and Weinheim. It was opened in 1846 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.
The Main-Neckar Railway was built and operated as a joint state railway company, known as a condominium railway (Kondominalbahn), by the Free City of Frankfurt, The Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and the Grand Duchy of Baden.