Is Travel Abroad Still Worth It?

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

We have just returned from teaching our week-long Watercolor Painting Holiday/Workshop in Tuscany, followed by a few days of relaxation and diversion in Venice. By any measure, we think that the trip was a great success for all. Tuscany literally rolled out the red carpet for us with bright fields of poppies filling the foreground of our painting sites each day. The weather was perfect, the landscape was an artist’s dream to paint, and our hotel/spa was extremely comfortable. We drove the students to a different painting spot or interesting medieval village to explore every day and ended each happy day of painting at a different restaurant or agriturismo where we had special custom-designed menus prepared for our large group of 21. This, to us, is the way to experience the real Tuscany—a slow and easy daily introduction to the landscape and friendly people who live there.

Behind the scenes, Ann and I were having to deal with a series of unfortunate inconveniences which we had not anti…