I love quotes, there’s a delightful wisdom in them, at least the ones I like. With just a few words they capture the essence of their subject matter. I often think of this one by Mark Twain after traveling.

Our last trip started in Athens, Greece and ended in Pisa, Italy. It has become our habit of starting off our European adventures in London because we can get a direct flight but after that wanderlust ensues.

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While Athens, Santorini, and Tuscany were on my bucket list Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia were not. In fact I would have had a hard time finding them on a map–another reason I fail at Jeopardy.

There so much to see and experience, it fills me with wonder and an appreciation for the different ways people live. That idea was particularly true in Santorini. The magical view of beautiful white and blue structures looking out onto the Aegean Sea had me thinking about was it was like to live there.

Interestingly enough, the houses are all whitewashed for two reasons. First, it helped with the hot temperatures, reflecting the heat but also it acted as a disinfectant. Cholera, and other infectious diseases plagued the Greek islands in the 20th century. The whitewash helped curtail the spread of disease.

Then there was Montenegro. The entrance to the harbor began the abundant stream of stunning views. It’s a tiny country of less than 650,000 people. The mountains dominate everything and provide a stunning backdrop no matter where you go.

All of this travel has led me to new inspiration for my painting. I’m going to focus on painting scenes from our travels. My latest is from the Italian Alps –

To see more of my latest paintings go here: https://barbarabusenbark.com/oil-paintings/.

It seems my creative energies are only sufficient enough to explore one outlet at a time. I continue to write but my time needs to be divided between painting and writing. I’m struggling with gaining balance with my various endeavors but I’ll get there someday.