On the last day of February , Jefferson set off from Paris on a trip into southern France. He extended the journey into what is now northern Italy, going as far as Turin, Milan, and Genoa before crossing the south of France, traveling north through Bordeaux to the port of Lorient and then back to Paris.
Jefferson made this journey in a private capacity. He left his assistant, William Short, in Paris to take care of official business. He also left behind his daughter Martha, who was 14 years old and attending a convent school, and all of his servants. His younger daughter, Maria, had not yet come to France. He lodged in inns and only a few times stopped to see someone he knew or who had been recommended to him. He had several reasons for making the journey.
He had injured his wrist and wanted to visit hot springs at Aix-en-Provence to see if they might be therapeutic. He stayed at Aix long enough to try the waters forty times, with no improvement to his wrist. Mostly, though, he wanted to spend some time away from Paris and see France. He made notes about agriculture, wines, architecture and antiquities, and social and economic conditions. He entered no information in his weather observation record for the first part of the journey, from 28 February through 19 March.
Yet by the time he got to Aix-en-Provence on 25 March, the world was awash in a quality of sunshine that enthralled him. Remy, Aix and Marseilles give me an average of More than once he noted snow visible on mountains, for example. He also heard anecdotes about significant past weather events. Because he was traveling in the spring, he observed the availability of some of his favorite foods, such as peas and strawberries. And he made note of nightingales, which were not birds he had known in America.
We have put these notations relating to seasons, weather, climate, and phenology at the locations to which they relate in our narrative map of the journey.
