The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain. Part VII.

Published in 1869, The Innocents Abroad humorously chronicles what Twain called his "Great Pleasure Excursion" on board the chartered steamship Quaker City through Europe and the Holy Land with a group of American travelers in 1867. The five-month journey included numerous side trips on land.

The book, which sometimes appears with the subtitle The New Pilgrim's Progress, became the best-selling of Twain's works during his lifetime, as well as one of the best-selling travel books of all time.

The excursion was billed as a Holy Land expedition, with numerous stops and side trips along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, notably:

• train excursion from Marseille to Paris for the 1867 Paris Exhibition during the reign of Napoleon III and the Second French Empire
• journey through the Papal States to Rome
• side trip through the Black Sea to Odessa
• culminating excursion through the Holy Land

Twain reports the voyage covered over 20,000 miles of land and sea.

The book is full of Twain’s cutting wit and insight as he guides us along the bumpy and often dangerous journey.

No need to buckle up. Just take it slow, and steady... like the journey itself. (From Wikipedia.)