Le Monastère offers the highest value painters’ retreats for groups or individuals anywhere. These vacations run for two weeks and include accommodation at Le Monastère, all breakfasts and 12 suppers, the use of easels and camp stools, pickup and dropoff at Toulouse international airport, transportation to locations for on site work; free anytime use of our professionally designed studio and, of course, wine tastings. In addition, the hotel is completely closed off for the group of painters during their stay.
Groups are limited to 11 artists. Some are groups of experienced artists, and others have a teacher. An individual can be fitted into a teaching period and the tuition is very reasonable. You will paint several days in and around the picturesque village of Limoux, with its medieval bridges and churches, colourful narrow streets, animated market days and surrounding vineyards. On other days your hosts will take you to quiet villages in the region, not too far from Limoux. The sites have been chosen on the advice of the many artists and art teachers who have come to Le Monastère over the years. Each site offers a wide range of subjects from unique and intriguing architecture to typical southern French landscapes: wildflowers, sunflower fields, vineyards, forested hillsides, seaside marshes with exotic birds or waves crashing against rocks surrounding fishing villages, the Pyrenees mountain range on the horizon and much more. In addition the sites have been chosen for comfort. On two or three days you will be taken on a longer excursion to some exotic site such as the high Pyrenees or a Catalan village or one of our famous medieval castles.
Because of the high number of quality sites we have researched, we aren’t tied down to a fixed itinerary. We go where the weather is best. On the few days where it may not be comfortable to sit for long periods, we often go sketching here and there and return to the studio at the hotel to work.