La viajera sentimental

The writings of Vernon Lee's travels through Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland in search of the spirit of the place are gathered here. Despite the fact that his childhood was divided into periods of six months between those four countries, Vernon Lee tells how his family did not travel, but simply moved between homes avoiding any tourist activity. The consequence was that his traveling passion was not born from visiting different places but from the childhood fascination produced by readings and conversations. The writer returns to places inhabited or imagined in her childhood, traveling down the Rhine to the heart of Germany, along the Italian roads to Portofino, by train through France to Montreuil, and through the Alps to Bern. Her traveling experience, almost always accompanied by a friend, is enriched by the aesthetic and cultural heritage of the author on legends, readings and literary characters that go as far as Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey. Vernon Lee does not intend to convey the images of what she sees but the emotions that all these places have provoked in her. Thus, through these pages, readers will discover in what they see, and guess in what they do not see, places and objects that will delight their hearts.