12-16 June 2025
This beautiful summer retreat will be a special time to dive into your artmaking practice, soak in and notice the Genius Loci of the breathtaking Portuguese landscape and deepen your skill in capturing nature in your paintings, drawings and sketches.
Viola will show you how to approach landscape plein air painting and help you with your own intuitive art making. The final project will be to paint a landscape painting on location, that will be exhibited at the local restaurant during our final evening. Viola will share and showcase her tips for capturing landscape and how to stay connected to your daily art making practice in this busy world. Along with the art making, you will deepen your Portugal experience with amazing local cuisine, olive tasting, do yoga together, visit a local castle, enjoy a wine tasting, and the stunning views during the golden hour, go swimming in the lake and visit a local rug factory.
Together with Viola, you will discuss different ways of capturing and noticing landscape and how to incorporate your feelings into your final work. You will remind how to slow down and feel connected to nature and your own creativity.
12, 13, 14, 15, 16 June – 2025
(5 days and 4 nights)
Shared Room:
1.800€ PP (+vat 23%, only 6 rooms available) = total 2.214€
Single Room:
2.000€ PP (+vat 23%) = total 2.460€
(Paid 2 times: Reservations Until end December, and Final Payment 5th March 2025)
Paid 2 times:
Reservations:
1st Payment:
1107€ (shared room)
1230€ (single room)
2º payment until 5th March 2025:
2nd Payment:
1107€ (shared room)
1230€ (single room)
3 full day Art Classes with Viola Hortová
3 Dinners
3 Lunches
Yoga Class
Wine Tasting event
Visit to old rug factory
4 Nights Acommodation (with breakfast included)
Transport from Lisbon Airport to the Hotel (2 hours) and transport in the area.
• It is advisable to book the plane after the final confirmation that the retreat will happen, or sooner until we have 10 participants.
• If we cannot gather the minimum participants of 10, the event can be canceled and the payments refund to the participants, less 50€ for cancelation costs.
Viola Hortová is a mixed media artist and creative, who undertook her art education in Prague prior to relocating to the beautiful South West of England. She graduated from photography and graphic design before continuing her studies, reflecting on her love for landscapes, with architecture and landscape architecture and became a successful landscape architect, and artist.
She first found her love for painting landscapes and nature when she joined the National Gallery’s plein air painting retreats under the guidance of academic painter Milan Perić, amongst others. Here she learned the fundamental principles of capturing landscapes in her paintings, and her work was hand picked to be exhibited in a temporary plain-air display in the National Gallery in Prague. She also took part in exhibitions with her photography, photographic documentary books, and other artistic work. She runs art journaling workshops and livestreams and believes that intuitive art making and capturing nature around us can be not only beautiful and therapeutic, but also very transformative to our view on life.
THURSDAY, 12 June 2025
The bus will pick up the participants at Lisbon airport at 4 pm. It is advisable to arrive at Lisbon airport before 3.30 pm. The trip to Monsaraz, to the hotel at Telheiro, lasts 2 hours, so we will arrive at the hotel around 6 pm.
A light dinner will be served at the hotel upon arrival.
FRIDAY, 13 June 2025
After breakfast at the hotel, we will have a 15 minute walk to the retreat centre “Sofia In Monsaraz” with our teacher around 9am.
After the welcome session you will have your first painting class at 9.30 am. Viola would love to encourage people to work not just in their sketchbooks, but also make a painting during this stay. In the first class Viola would like to talk about how to capture landscapes, and for each student to make a little tool to help them with the process.
The lunch will be served at SIM. Then, in the afternoon after the visit to the rug factory and local pottery, we will travel back to the hotel where participants make their own dinner arrangements.
SATURDAY, 14 June 2025
On the second painting day, we will spend the day at Monsaraz, where you will paint the stunning landscape view. It would be a landscape session from this high location overlooking the scenery.
You will have lunch at a local restaurant, in the castle, and around 3 pm we will go to the lake, where you can swim or continue to paint the landscape. The day will end at SIM with a wine tasting and some tapas.
SUNDAY, 15 June 2025
After breakfast at the hotel, we will have a 15 minute walk to the retreat centre “Sofia In Monsaraz” with our teacher at around 9am.
After the final lunch in the garden, you will have an informal “mini group show” to appreciate and review the sketches and paintings done during the retreat and to discuss what we have learnt.
The day will end with dinner at a local restaurant, together with your new friends, while reliving the best moments of your retreat experience.
MONDAY, 16 June 2025
Everything is organised to detail so that nothing will prevent you from enjoying all the peace and quiet of the Alentejo.
All the rooms have air conditioning, full and private bathroom, shared or private balcony and outdoor access.
This accommodation is a 15-minute walk from the workshop venue (SIM) and passes by the Bulhoa menhir (National Monument) and the Alentejo plain, ideal for reflection before starting work.
Shared Room:
1.800€ PP (+vat 23%, only 6 rooms available) = total 2.214€
Single Room:
2.000€ PP (+vat 23%) = total 2.460€
Paid 2 times:
Reservations:
1st Payment:
1107€ (shared room)
1230€ (single room)
2º payment until 5th March 2025:
2nd Payment:
1107€ (shared room)
1230€ (single room)
If you would like to make a direct booking: info@sofiainmonsaraz.site
Internacional roundtrip airfare, transport to the place, alcoholic drinks, activities not included in the itinery, hotel incidentals including room service, expenses during free time, laundry service and hotel bar, food and beverages not included in the itinerary. COVID-19 test, if applicable.
We require all participantes to have a personal travel insurance that at minimum covers medical emergencies and cancellations. We do not provide travel insurance for the retreat and each participant is required to have their own individual travel insurance. The place, where the retreat happens, has an Insurance that covers accidents. Will not be responsible for refunding any lost trip funds if you have to miss your scheduled trip.
We cannot guarantee to accommodate vegan, gluten free or dairy/egg free, and some allergies. We are unable to accommodate participants with severe food allergies or food intolerances. Please contact us in advance of registering if you have any dietary questions
It will start when arriving at the hotel, Thursday evening and finish when you leave the hotel, by Monday morning. We are not responsible for any non-retreat activity that a participant decides to purchase outside of the retreat and such activity will not form part of the participant’s contract with us. The bus transport is insurance secure.
This retreat includes a walking tour where the ground may be uneven. You may be on your feet for several hours at a time and should be comfortable with walking.
The supplies list will be comunicated a few months before the event.
In this event we will accept up to 15 people. The event does not include spouses, partners or friends if they are not taking the workshop.Please contact us if you would like to bring a non-participant partner.
If we cannot gather the minimum participants of 10, the event can be cancelled, and the payments refunded to the participants.
Other questions about this retreat please contact: info@sofiainmonsaraz.site
For more info or questions please consult here our Terms & Conditions.
Rua do Chafariz, nº 6 Aldeia do Outeiro
7200-179 Reguengos de Monsaraz
(+351) 266 557 091
Sofia in Monsaraz Ⓒ 2023 – All rights reserved | Identity design by Jorge Silva | Video created by Janz Anton-Iago | Photos by Ana Paula Carvalho
We will contact you with the details for payment.
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