Not until the train had halted in the station did it occur to me that we had made no plans.
Hotel porters were already fighting to get possession of our baggage.
“Where are you going to stay?” I asked.
“Wherever you like,” she said. “A good place is the Hotel D’Angleterre on the Riva degli Schiavoni.”
So she took it for granted that we should put up at the same hotel! We went aboard the steamer and traveled down the Grand Canal in prosaic fashion, with the nodding black swans of gondolas all about us.
The Hotel D’Angleterre stands facing the Canale di San Marco, looking across to San Maria della Salute. The angle is that from which so many of Canaletto’s Venetian masterpieces were painted.
The proprietor came out to greet us suave and smiling. “A room for Monsieur and Madame?”
“Two rooms,” I said shortly.
When we went upstairs to look at them, we found that they were next door to one another. Fiesole made no objection.
They were both front rooms and faced the Canal. One could hardly find fault with them on the ground that they were too near together.