Pelotome –
around Lithuania on a bicycle.
“My Polish friend, who seemed known to the customs-house officials and railway employés at both Wirballen [Virbalis, Lithuania] and Eydtkuhnen [Chernyshevskoye, Kaliningrad], kindly gave me his valuable assistance in introducing my bicycle in Prussia, and in the examination of my passport on leaving Russia ; in both which matters, at the outset, there appeared delaying difficulties.”
~ Eydtkuhnen to Langenweddingen by Bicycle – W.S. Yorke Shuttleworth (1879).
My Life and Times
by Jerome K. Jerome
From £4,75
Oct 1876 – published in Jan 1879.
Eydtkuhnen to Langenweddingen by Bicycle.
A 24 page account of “an attempt to ride from the Russian frontier to Calais” in winter, from Eydtkuhnen – the village on the East Prussian (German) side of the border (today the settlement of Eitkūnai in Chernyshevskoe, Kaliningrad, on the border with Kybartai, Lithuania) – to Calais, France.
After passing through modern day Kaliningrad (a Russian enclave) and Poland (then Prussia in the newly formed German Empire), the author abandoned his journey, due to thick snow, at Langenweddingen, near Magdeburg, Germany, over 600 miles (877 km) into his journey.
The book contained “a miniature map and views photographed by the Woodbury Company, from pen and ink sketches by the traveller,” which he made over his 26 day journey, twelve of which were spent at various towns due to injury or bad weather.
The 32 year old author made a book reading at the Drill Hall, Bromley, Kent, England, on January 25th 1879.
- by W.S. Yorke Shuttleworth.
- Published by John Snow & Co., London.
FROM EYDTKUHNEN TO LANGENWEDDINGEN BY BICYCLE.
“At the recommendation of a fellow [railway] passenger, a Polish gentleman who was a Russian subject residing at Eydtkuhnen [Chernyshevskoye, Kaliningrad] on the Prussian frontier, I alighted there, and slept at the Hôtel de Russie, as at Wirballen [Virbalis], on the adjoining Russian territory [now Lithuania], there was no accommodation.”
~ W.S. Yorke Shuttleworth ~ “Eydtkuhnen to Langenweddingen by Bicycle“, 1879.