In poor health, deprived of the company of husband and child, Sissi is in danger of losing the will to live as she travels to healthier climates on Madeira and Corfu.

Desperately needed psychosomatic therapy appears in the form of her indestructibly positive mother Ludovika, who lovingly nurses Sissi's illness and restores her zest for life by taking her on idyllic walks.

Finally, Sissi recovers and rejoins her husband on an official visit to Milan and Venice, Austria's remaining possessions in northern Italy.

Italian nationalists have prepared a hostile welcome for the Habsburg sovereigns; the Milanese nobility send their servants, dressed in noble clothing, to a royal command performance at La Scala, at which the orchestra begins with the melody of Joseph Haydn's "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" but smoothly transitions to Verdi's chorus "Va, pensiero" from Nabucco and the disguised servants in the audience sing it in protest against Austrian rule.

In Venice, crowds stand in hostile silence at the couple's procession by royal barge on the Grand Canal and as they pass, Italian nationalist flags are defiantly unfurled from behind shuttered windows.