The train pulled away from Zurich station as I pressed my face against the window, watching the city dissolve into rolling green hills dotted with chalets. Three months stretched ahead of me—a carefully planned journey that would take me from the snow-capped peaks of Switzerland to the volcanic islands of Portugal’s Azores. I thought I knew what I was looking for: inspiration for my art, adventure stories to tell back home, and maybe a few decent Instagram photos. What I found instead was something far more profound.
The Canvas of the Mountains
My first stop was a small artist residency in Grindelwald, nestled beneath the imposing face of the Eiger. For two weeks, I joined a group of painters, sculptors, and writers who had come to capture the Alpine landscape. Each morning, we’d hike to different vantage points, our easels strapped to our backs like modern-day pilgrims carrying wooden crosses.
It was here that I learned my first lesson about perspective—literally and figuratively. Standing before the same mountain vista, eight artists produced eight completely different interpretations. Maria, a watercolorist from Barcelona, saw delicate washes of blue and purple in the shadows I had painted as stark black. James, a sculptor from Edinburgh, talked about the negative spaces between peaks while I obsessed over their imposing presence.
“You’re painting what you think mountains should look like,” observed our instructor, Elena, as she studied my canvas. “But what do these mountains actually look like to you, right now, in this light, in this moment?”
That afternoon, I abandoned my preconceived notions about “majestic Alpine scenes” and simply painted what I saw: the way afternoon light turned snow into gold leaf, how clouds cast shadows that moved across the landscape like living things, the surprising warmth of a rock face that had been kissed by sun all morning. For the first time in years, I felt truly present in my work.
The Rhythm of the Road
From Switzerland, I made my way south through Italy, then west across France and into Spain. But this wasn’t the sterile efficiency of air travel or the isolation of driving alone. I had committed to slower forms of transportation—trains, buses, the occasional hitchhiked ride with a friendly local. This decision, born partly from budget constraints and partly from romantic notions about “authentic travel,” became one of the most transformative aspects of my journey.
On a delayed train from Florence to Barcelona, I found myself sharing a compartment with an elderly Italian man named Giuseppe who spoke no English, a young German backpacker named Klaus who spoke five languages but insisted on practicing his broken Spanish, and a middle-aged French woman named Celeste who was traveling to see her estranged sister after fifteen years of silence.
What started as polite nods evolved into an eight-hour cultural exchange conducted in a mixture of broken languages, animated gestures, and shared food. Giuseppe sketched portraits of each of us in a worn leather notebook. Klaus taught us a German drinking song that we sang (quietly, mindfully of other passengers) as we rolled through the Pyrenees. Celeste shared stories about her childhood in Provence that made us all laugh despite the language barriers.
When we finally reached Barcelona, we exchanged contact information with the solemnity of people who knew they had shared something special. Giuseppe pressed his sketch of me into my hands—I still have it, carefully tucked into my travel journal. In that drawing, I see someone more relaxed than the anxious artist who had left Zurich weeks earlier.
The Islands of Revelation
By the time I reached mainland Portugal, I thought I understood what this trip had taught me. I had filled three sketchbooks with drawings, taken hundreds of photographs, and collected enough stories to last years of dinner parties. I was ready to call it a successful adventure and head home. But a chance conversation with a hostel mate in Lisbon changed everything.
“The Azores,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “You haven’t been to the Azores? Oh, you have to. It’s like nowhere else on Earth.”
Three days later, I was on a plane to São Miguel, the largest island in this Portuguese archipelago scattered across the Atlantic. If the Alps had taught me about artistic perspective and the European mainland about human connection, the Azores would teach me about resilience and renewal.
The islands are volcanic, which I knew intellectually but didn’t truly comprehend until I stood at the rim of Sete Cidades crater, looking down at twin lakes—one green, one blue—nestled in what was once a catastrophically destructive explosion. Here was beauty born directly from destruction, life flourishing in the aftermath of violence.
I spent my mornings painting the dramatic coastlines where black volcanic cliffs meet impossibly blue ocean, and my afternoons exploring the island’s interior, where hot springs bubble up through the earth and farmers cook meals by burying pots in naturally heated ground. But it was the people who made the deepest impression.
The Azoreans I met carried their history lightly but proudly. They spoke matter-of-factly about earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the constant threat of Atlantic storms, but also about community resilience, family traditions that stretched back centuries, and an unshakeable optimism about the future. Maria Fernanda, who ran the small guesthouse where I stayed, had lived through three major earthquakes. “The earth moves,” she told me with a shrug as we sat on her terrace watching the sunset. “But we rebuild. We always rebuild. What else is there to do?”
The Art of Transformation
On my last night in the Azores, I climbed to a high point overlooking the village where I’d been staying. The sun was setting over the Atlantic, painting the sky in shades I’d never thought to mix on my palette—salmon pink bleeding into deep purple, gold edges on clouds that looked like they’d been dusted with fairy tale magic.
As I sketched the scene, I realized that the landscapes in my most recent drawings looked nothing like the careful, controlled work I’d been producing for years back home. These new pieces were looser, more confident, more alive. They captured not just what things looked like, but how they felt—the weight of ancient stone, the energy of crashing waves, the peaceful melancholy of twilight in a place where people have watched the same sunset for generations.
But the change wasn’t just in my art. I thought about the anxious, somewhat rigid person who had left home three months earlier—someone who planned every detail, who felt uncomfortable with uncertainty, who saw foreign languages and unfamiliar customs as obstacles rather than opportunities. That person seemed like a stranger now.
Coming Home to a New Perspective
The flight home from the Azores gave me time to process what had happened during those three months. I had expected to return with a portfolio of travel sketches and some good stories. Instead, I was bringing home a fundamentally altered way of seeing the world—and my place in it.
The Alps had taught me that there are infinite ways to see the same thing, and that my perspective is just one of many valid viewpoints. The roads and railways of Europe had shown me that the journey between destinations can be more meaningful than the destinations themselves, and that authentic connection with other people transcends language and cultural barriers. The Azores had demonstrated that beauty and strength can emerge from the most challenging circumstances, and that resilience is built through community and acceptance rather than individual struggle.
Back in my studio, I found myself approaching familiar subjects with fresh eyes. The oak tree outside my window that I’d painted dozens of times suddenly revealed new possibilities—not just as an object to be rendered, but as a living testament to growth, endurance, and seasonal change. My portraits of friends and family became more interested in capturing their essential humanity than achieving photographic likeness.
But perhaps most importantly, I found myself more comfortable with uncertainty, more open to unexpected opportunities, more willing to say yes to invitations and experiences that the old me might have declined as too risky or too far outside my comfort zone.
The Continuing Journey
Six months after returning home, I still think about that summer almost daily. Giuseppe sends me postcards from his travels around Italy—he turned out to be quite the wanderer despite his age. Klaus visited last month on his way through the United States, and we spent hours looking through my travel sketches and planning a potential reunion with Celeste in France next year. Maria Fernanda emails occasionally with photos of the Azores, always ending her messages with her trademark phrase: “The earth moves, but we rebuild.”
The art from that summer now hangs throughout my home and studio, serving as daily reminders of the lessons I learned. But more than that, those three months established a new rhythm in my life. I take more trains and fewer planes. I say yes to conversations with strangers. I approach each new painting not with a predetermined outcome in mind, but with curiosity about what might emerge.
The summer that took me from the Alps to the Azores didn’t just change my perspective—it taught me that perspective itself is fluid, multiple, and constantly evolving. The mountains look different depending on where you stand, what time of day it is, and what you bring to the viewing. The same is true for everything else in life.
As I write this, I’m already planning my next journey—this time through the American Southwest, following Georgia O’Keeffe’s footsteps through New Mexico. But I’m planning differently now, leaving more room for spontaneity, more openness to detours and delays and unexpected encounters. Because I’ve learned that the best discoveries happen not when you’re rushing toward a predetermined destination, but when you’re present enough to notice what’s already in front of you.
The view from here is pretty good.
