While you wait: Read Hans Christian Andersen's Diary

Follow Hans Christian Andersen while he was in quarantine during his big trip abroad.

In 1841, a long, thin figure staggered around a small farm in the town of Orsova on the Danube. It was Hans Christian Andersen who was waiting to be allowed to cross into Austria-Hungary, but he was quarantined because he had travelled through countries ravaged by the plague.

Hans Christian Andersen was on his greatest foreign journey through Germany, Italy, Greece, all the way to the Ottoman Empire, where he visited the kingdom's capital Constantinople, a place not many Danes had visited at the time.

Hear research librarian Sonny Ankjær Sahl talk about the journey and the days in Orsova.

Excerpt from Hans Christian Andersen's diary from May 1841

Read about Hans Christian Andersen's experience of being in quarantine.

The extract is taken from the publication "The Diaries of Hans Christian Andersen 1825-1875"