"I'll look up my own passage then and see if I can book for the same trip, and we'll call this simply auf wiedersehn." So they parted, he to return to Munich, which would seem sadly empty now, and they to go on to the delights of Italy.
At the hotel in Verona there was a glad meeting with their mutter, from whom they had been separated for all these weeks. There was so much to tell, that at first there was no desire to go out sightseeing, but the second day they began to wake up to the fact that the city held sights for them, and then they went forth to behold them.
"What is there to see here, Miss Helen?" Jo asked.
"A number of things. The Piazza delle Erbe, where used to be the old forum, is one of the most picturesque squares in Italy. You know that it was this city which received Dante after he was banished from Florence. You will see here many of the pictures of Pablo Caltari, the last really great master of the Venetian school; you all will know him better as Paul Veronese. And of course you know this was the home of Romeo and Juliet. A tomb is shown which is said to be Juliet's, though it is doubtful if it really is, and the house of her parents is pointed out."
"Were they real people? I never knew that," said Jo.
"The play is said to be founded on fact, and we are told that it was in the fourteenth century that the two lovers lived and died. It may not be absolutely true, but tradition says that there were actual happenings in Verona which resembled those of which Shakespeare wrote. I think we can spend a couple of days here very pleasantly, for it is a handsome city as well as an interesting one."
"And then for San Marco and the gondolas," cried Nan.
"Where shall we go in Venice, to a hotel or a pension?" Mary Lee asked.
"We are going to a pleasant place on the Riva degli Schiavoni where we shall have rooms and breakfast with whatever other meals we choose to have served. We shall sometimes be at too great a distance to get back promptly to meals, so we can always have our midday meal, at least, wherever we choose."