Hans Christian Andersen

On 31 October he set out on a journey that would last almost a year. The earnings from his play The Mulatto were to pay for at least the first part of it.

From 3 to 4 November he stayed with Count Conrad Rantzau, lord of the Breitenburg estate at Itzehoe.

On 6 November he called on the writer Karl Gutzkow of the radical Young Germany group and heard Franz Liszt play at a concert.

On 9 November he paid a visit to the publisher Vieweg.

On 10 November he took his first train, covering the roughly 110 km to Leipzig between 7 and about 10.30 in the morning. In the chapter The Railway in A Poet's Bazaar he called the railway a masterpiece of the mind.

On 11 November he sought out Mendelssohn at a rehearsal of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony in the Gewandhaus, then dined with the Brockhaus family.

On 14 November he visited the bookseller Campe.

He stayed from 17 November to 1 December. On the 27th he visited the studio of the painter Kaulbach, who became a lifelong friend, and on the 29th he called on the philosopher Schelling.

He arrived on 12–13 December by way of Innsbruck, the Brenner, Verona and Bologna. The Metal Pig, included in A Poet's Bazaar, opens with the city's bronze boar fountain in front of a market, its snout polished by the people who drink from it.

He stayed from 19 December to 24 February, visited Thorvaldsen's studio and saw the carnival from 13 to 23 February. Much of the stay was spoiled by bad weather, toothache and bad news from home.

On 11–12 February he went with the poet H.P. Holst and the theologian Conrad Rothe to see the fountains by torchlight.

He arrived with Holst and Rothe on 28 February by way of Terracina and Mola di Gaeta, and left on 15 March aboard the steamship Leonidas, bound for Athens.

On 8 March he made an excursion from Naples to the excavated town.

The Leonidas brought him here on 17 March, and he sailed on towards Greece the next day.

Here he changed to the steamship Lykurg for Piraeus.

He was held in quarantine here before going up to Athens.

He arrived on 24 March and was shown around by the Hansen brothers, both architects; on the 26th Christian Hansen showed him his university building. On 6 April he watched the independence celebrations, and on the 14th attended an evening party given by King Otto.

On 22 April, aboard the steamship Rhamses from Syros to Smyrna, a storm raged so fiercely that he feared his last hour had come. His tale A Rose from Homer's Grave, included in A Poet's Bazaar, is set near Smyrna.

He came through the Dardanelles past Gallipoli and arrived on 25 April. On 5 May he left aboard the Ferdinand I, sailing up the Bosporus into the Black Sea.

Crossing the Black Sea he came to Küstendje, and on 7 May boarded the Danube boat Argo to start up the river.

Having passed Rustchuk (Ruse) on 8 May, the Argo went through the Iron Gate gorge on 11–12 May on the way to Orsova.

He stayed here until 24 May, then went on by carriage to Drenkova to board the steamship Galathea.

On the Galathea's run past Belgrade towards Budapest he made a stay at Semlin.

He spent 31 May to 2 June here, then left aboard the steamship Maria Anna for Vienna by way of Pressburg.

He arrived on 4 June. On the 11th he heard Johann Strauss the elder in the Volksgarten, and on the 11th and 22nd he called on the poet Grillparzer.

He arrived on 25 June and saw Nestroy act in one of his own folk comedies. On the 28th he set off for Dresden by the steamship Boehmia along the Elbe.

He arrived on 29 June and visited the painter J.C. Dahl. On 2 July the painter Vogel von Vogelstein drew him for the royal collection.

Leaving Hamburg on 12 July, he took the steamship from Kiel to Årøsund and went on via Assens to his home town, where he stayed from 14 to 17 July and visited the Hanck family among others.