How to travel from Koblenz (Germany) to Paris (France) in May 1805?
score:1
Self answer as more information has surfaced recently and I now have his full travel itinerary.
In 1834 my ancestor, who had eventually settled in The Netherlands, had a large farmhouse/estate build. My family still owns this house today and it is currently occupied by my aunt. In April 2021 we embarked on renovating the attic space to convert the attic from storage-area to a master-suite bedroom and add much needed roof insulation as well.
We knew that the gable-end wooden wall on one side was actually a false wall, behind which would be a very rickety old chimney.
So we took down that wall to remove that chimney altogether and gain an extra meter of floor-space.
As we took the wall down we discovered that the chimney was flanked on both sides by a build-in cupboard.
In one of those cupboards we found a large (woodworm riddled) travel-trunk containing a bunch of notebooks and assorted papers.
While most of the loose papers in the chest disintegrated into dust as soon as we touched them the notebooks turned out the be more sturdy.
We found they had been so-called day-books maintained by my ancestor and later his son.
Day-books are similar to diaries. They typically give account of important events (travel, new job, births/weddings/funerals in the family) in the life of the writer, but (unlike many diaries) they mainly stick to facts and add little personal information about the writer.
It took a while to decipher his handwriting but I managed to distill the following from the day-book entries in May 1805:
- May 17: Managed to reserve seats on tomorrows stage-coach to Clervaux via Nürburg
- undated: Arrived at Clervaux, onwards to Bastonge.
- undated: Bastonge at last, need to stay and wait for next coach to Sedan
- May 23: Leaving Bastogne to Sedan and then to Reims.
- May 26: Another layover in Reims.
- May 28: Paris. Finally.
From other reasearch I have established that on the Koblenz to Bastonge leg layovers at Clervaux, Prüm (halfway between Nürburg and Clervaux) or Nürburg were all possible.
From the undated entry for Clervaux I presume they stayed there for 1 day.
The layover at Bastonge was 1 day (else the dates wouldn't match up), but could have been 2 if there was no layover at all on the section from Koblenz to Bastogne.
More post
- 📝 What was wrong with carrying a bag on one's back in a town in the USA in the first decades of the 1900?
- 📝 How did Moldova and Romania become separate in the first place?
- 📝 During the Soviet era, were people charged with crimes able to hire lawyers of their own?
- 📝 How alcoholic were ancient Greek and Roman wines, before and after dilution?
- 📝 At what point was the Byzantine Empire's decline irreversible?
- 📝 When did the Great Purge start?
- 📝 Was it worthwhile for Britain to side with the USA in the Canada-Alaska border dispute?
- 📝 How many suicide attack (kamikaze) pilots died and how many of them successfully hit ships during World War II?
- 📝 Are there historical examples of countries using pandemics as an excuse for banning protests?
- 📝 Many Questions Regarding the Principality of Theodoros
- 📝 Why did the Germans build battle cruisers with a different profile than the British?
- 📝 What is "Mary's Part"?
- 📝 How could lower judges ignore the US Supreme Court?
- 📝 When were the 'last' pagans in northern Europe converted to christianity?
- 📝 Who were the first leaders of the Yahwistic sect?
- 📝 Why didn't the Greek language survive in Egypt?
- 📝 Is there any record of ancient Israelite contact with Indo-Europeans?
- 📝 Where can I find information about Spanish soldiers in Porto? 1596-1598
- 📝 Did other countries stop recognizing Austria, after the German annexation?
- 📝 When was the deadliest year in human history in absolute terms?
- 📝 What were the laws on suicide in the Third Reich?
- 📝 How is the oldest bank in Mongolia only 24 years old?
- 📝 How did the Druids learn the Greek language by the time of Caesar's campaign in Gaul?
- 📝 How important was currency inflation in Fall of Roman Empire?
- 📝 Was one of the main reasons Hitler attacked the Soviet Union due to oil?
- 📝 Which figure is this a statue of?
- 📝 Did the founding fathers think civil wars would be frequent?
- 📝 Did Imperial Japan persecute Slavic people, as European fascists did?
- 📝 Was there an East German counterpart to the Goethe-Institut?
- 📝 WWII - documents on turn around point in German Foreign strategy - "stop we are not going to pass Finland to USSR"
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How to travel from Koblenz (Germany) to Paris (France) in May 1805?
- 📝 How long would it take a Victorian to travel from central Germany to the UK?
- 📝 How would a family travel from Indiana to Texas in 1911?
- 📝 How were servants to the Kaiser of Imperial Germany treated and where may I find more information on them?
- 📝 How much did it cost to buy a ticket on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul in 1914?
- 📝 How long would it take to travel from England to western Africa in the late 1890's?
- 📝 Why and how were east Brandenburg, Pomerania and Silesia taken away from Germany after WW2?
- 📝 How long would it take to travel from the United Kingdom to America in 1890?
- 📝 How long would it take to travel from England to the colonies in the early 1700s?
- 📝 How long did it take approximately for a person to travel from Basel to Hanover (1753) by any means of transport?
- 📝 How dependent was Nazi Germany on iron ore from Sweden?
- 📝 How close did Germany come to interdicting Soviet oil shipments from the Caucasus in 1942?
- 📝 How would an American returning from international travel prove his citizenship before 1914?
- 📝 What were the major imports and exports of Germany and France from 1850-1915?
- 📝 How would an SS officer travel from Auschwitz to Berlin?
- 📝 How did laborers travel from China to Malaya in the early 19th century?
- 📝 How was Germany involved in the Russian Civil War after the Paris Peace Conference?
- 📝 How would emigrants travel the railway lines going from Grajewo to Bremerhaven in 1911 and from Grajewo to Rotterdam in 1917?
- 📝 How long would it take to travel from Missouri to South Africa in late 1890s?
- 📝 How would a musician travel from Venice to Dresden around 1700?
- 📝 How long to travel from Ireland or England in 1680 to Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony?
- 📝 Exactly how much of what did General Benjamin Butler seize from the Netherlands Consulate in New Orleans on May 10th, 1862?
- 📝 How do historians and linguists know how to pronounce the names from non-phonetic scripts?
- 📝 How would a 16-year-old girl from Cleopatra's era curse?
- 📝 How did people distinguish slaves from free people in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 Why didn't France and the UK invade Germany in September 1939?
- 📝 How did Nazi Germany finance itself during WW2?
- 📝 How was Germany able to hold itself together, while Austria-Hungary could not?
- 📝 How did Italy and Germany get rubber in WWII?
- 📝 How did Nazi Germany produce such an impressive portfolio of officers for WW2?