Mark Twain

On 8 June the Quaker City sailed with about seventy-five excursionists. The next day's New York Times printed the planned route by Marseilles, Naples, Constantinople and Alexandria.

The ship was meant to call at São Miguel but ran for the nearest island, Fayal, in a storm, anchoring off Horta early on 21 June. Twain spent the day ashore and began a letter home that evening.

The ship anchored on the morning of 29 June. With companions he rode donkeys and mules up the steep streets and entered the galleries the British had blasted out of the rock.

On 30 June he crossed the strait by small steamer with six other passengers and stayed at the Royal Victoria Hotel. He bought Moorish costumes in the bazaars and wore one at a masquerade dance on deck after returning to the ship.

Arriving on the evening of 4 July, he took a room at the Grand Hôtel du Louvre et de la Paix, the largest hotel in the city, and left for Paris by train the next evening.

From 6 to 12 July he stayed at the 700-room Grand Hôtel du Louvre on the Rue de Rivoli. In the book he wrote about the Exposition, Napoleon III and the Sultan of Turkey at a military review, and Notre-Dame.

The ship arrived on the morning of 14 July. He wrote home that he had tired himself out in this "curious old city of palaces" and sat until ten at night in a gas-lit public garden crowded with people drinking wine.

He arrived by train on the evening of 16 July. In the book he described The Last Supper as battered, scarred and discoloured, with the disciples' legs kicked off by Napoleon's horses.

One of the cities where he stopped for a day or two on the rail journey from Genoa. The book gives two chapters to the gondolas and the Square of St Mark.

He saw Galileo's tomb and Dante's tomb in Santa Croce. In the book he wrote that he got lost in the narrow streets at nine one night and wandered until nearly three in the morning.

He stopped here around 25 July on the way back to the ship at Leghorn and climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower. He wrote that he saw, in the Baptistery, the lamp said to have suggested the pendulum to Galileo.

On 26 July, to avoid quarantine, he left Leghorn on a French steamer for Civitavecchia and went on to Rome by train. The book describes St Peter's and the ruined Colosseum.

He arrived about 1 August and took rooms in the city while the ship sat out its quarantine. On 9 August he went to see the king's palace and wrote home that he had accepted a post as a senator's secretary in Washington.

Late on the evening of 9 August he set out for the mountain with a party of four men and four women. The book describes reaching the summit and the crater.

On 14 August the ship was refused landing at Piraeus because of cholera quarantine. Twain and three companions slipped ashore at night, got into the Acropolis, and in his notebook he described Athens spread out below the Parthenon by moonlight.

The ship anchored at the mouth of the Golden Horn at daylight on 17 August. He visited Hagia Sophia but wrote in his notebook that he found nothing there to go into ecstasies over.

On 21 August he toured the ruins left by the siege of 1854–1855. The commandant and townspeople came aboard and urged the party to sail on to Yalta, where the emperor was staying.

The ship anchored on 23 August, and officials held the passports before letting anyone ashore. His notebook records broad paved streets and solid stone houses, and in the book he wrote that wherever they looked they saw only America.

On 26 August the party was received by Tsar Alexander II and his family at his summer palace. Twain wrote the address to the tsar alone, though a committee of five had been named for it, and the US consul at Odessa read it aloud.

The ship arrived on 5 September. In letters to the Alta he noted that one of the seven churches of Revelation had stood here and reported three veins of oyster shells in a cliff five hundred feet above the sea.

On 6 September all hands took the train some 45 miles to the ruins of ancient Ephesus. The book describes the procession of tourists on donkeys and the legend of the Seven Sleepers.

Arriving on 10 September, he and seven others hired a dragoman for a three-week journey through the Holy Land with horses and tents. They set out on the afternoon of 11 September.

The party reached the ruins at 11 a.m. on 13 September and spent three or four hours among the temples and quarries before riding seven hours on to camp.

He was taken ill at 4 a.m. on 15 September and spent the day in bed. He wrote in his notebook that he had seen enough of Damascus and left the city about noon on the 16th.

He reached the Sea of Galilee on 19 September and rode by Capernaum and Magdala to Tiberias. On the 20th he bathed in the lake before breakfast.

He arrived at noon on 23 September and took a room at the Mediterranean Hotel. The next day he toured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other sites, and ordered a Bible for his mother inscribed "Mount Calvary, Sept 24, 1867".

On 25 September he rode from Jerusalem to ancient Jericho and the Fountain of Elisha, noting mosaics in the pool. The same excursion went on to the Jordan and the Dead Sea.

On 26 September he rose at 3 a.m. at Mar Saba, rode over the mountains, and visited the Milk Grotto and the Church of the Nativity, noting the birthplace and the manger before lunching and returning to Jerusalem.

The ship arrived on 2 October and Twain landed on the 3rd. His notebook lists the catacombs, Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needles.

He went to Cairo by rail on 4 October and on the 5th rode donkeys across the Nile to Giza. He climbed the Pyramid of Cheops, went inside it, and saw the Sphinx.

On 17 October he went ashore under guard with the captain to wait for permission to anchor. Strict quarantine on ships from Egypt meant the ship was turned away, and with it his hope of seeing the Alhambra at Granada.

Travelling from Gibraltar by horse, calèche and train, he arrived about midnight on 19 October. On his first morning he saw the Alcázar and wrote that its courts and gardens would always be a hasheesh delusion in his memory.

He came by train from Seville on 22 October and spent a night at an old-fashioned Spanish hotel. In a later manuscript he wrote that townspeople, unused to foreigners, followed the party through the streets.

He reached Cádiz on 24 October after a stop at Jerez, and wrote a short letter home saying the ship would call for them there the next day.

The ship arrived on the morning of 11 November and was due to leave on the 14th, but a gale on the 13th delayed departure to the 15th. Twain wrote home that it was fortunate they had been in Bermuda through the storm.