Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance is one of the most special cities in the world and perhaps the most important  in Western art. Join us for our signature 5-day Yoga and Art Tour, as we study her riches, explore her secrets, and gloriously eat our way through the city. Each day will be grounded by an hour-long yoga practice to help integrate the gifts of our explorations, and keep our bodies strong and supple.

We will begin each day with an expertly guided morning art tour of a significant site, where our resident art historians will lead us through some of the best art in the world and give us the juicy gossip about the people involved.

The tour will end in time for lunch. Whether you just grab a slice of pizza or sit down for a long affair, it is sure to be spectacular.  The rest of the afternoon is yours to shop for shoes, take up an Italian lover, or stroll along the Arno river. 

We meet again at 5pm for yoga with Linda. These 1-hour yoga classes will cater to all levels and will help reset your body and will get you out in perfect time to enjoy the warm Florentine evening. Sip a glass of wine and people-watch fashionable locals zoom around on their scooters. We believe the perfect day should end with gelato but we won't force anyone.

Meet Linda

Linda is the founder and owner of YogaSource Los Gatos, Silicon Valley's premier yoga studio. She leads workshops, conferences and retreats in the US and internationally. 

Linda has trained in both the US and India in Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Power, Pilates, Yoga therapeutics, Yin and Vipassana meditation. She is a student of modern Buddhism, Jungian psychology and functional movement. Her yoga classes are a playful and masterful blend of precision, elegance, and breath. 

Meet your Art Historians

Sarah and Cheyanne have been best friends since the first day of their research graduate seminar in 2009 when they both exclaimed a love for researching the lives of women depicted in renaissance through modern art. Their daily conversations (typically during their drives to work) center around the salacious and scandalous gossip of the past 500 years. Cheyanne has always helped scheme and plan with Sarah for all of the past YogaSource art and yoga tours, and now she will join us in person! With these two, you can expect both the scandalous stories and also the close readings of artworks. 

Sarah Fullerton is a longtime YogaSource lover and a trained art historian who specializes in Italian Renaissance portraiture. After discovering a relatively unknown painted interior in Brescia, Italy in 2009 during a study abroad trip in graduate school, she ventured to do research at dozens of archives in northern and central Italy from 2010 to 2015 before publishing Marking the Condottiere's Interior: The Saletta delle Dame of the Martinengo Salvedego (https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/4584/). Sarah spent the equivalent of two years in Florence, Italy during graduate school and it remains her absolute favorite city in the world. 

Sarah has lectured at San Jose State University, UCLA, UCSD, the Renaissance Society of America, and was recently celebrated as a historian of honor at San Jose State University. Sarah formerly worked at the Institute of Contemporary Art before assuming her current role at UC Berkeley. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology, a Bachelor's Degree Art History and Visual Culture, and a Masters Degree in Art History. 

Cheyanne Cortez is assistant professor of art history at College of San Mateo. She specializes in 19th and 20th Century European and American Art and Design. Her research centers around the effects of industrialization and consumerism in the development of cultural aesthetics and female identities in the United States with an emphasis on the creation and promotion of the American Girl identity in the Ladies' Home Journal.

Cortez has contributed to numerous publications nationally and internationally. Most recently, Cortez’s essay, "The American Girl: Ideas of Nationalism and Sexuality as Promoted in the Ladies’ Home Journal during the early 20th Century," appears as a chapter in the book Women in Magazines: Research, Representation, Production and Consumption (Routledge 2016).

Similarly, her expertise in creating rich classroom experiences and constructing clear pathways to learning about art history has led Cortez to contribute to learning tools used for undergraduate education. Most notably, Cortez develops, edits, and consults on textbook material for Cengage’s Art History and Art Appreciation publications and online materials. 

ABOUT THE YOGA
Expect nothing less than a studio with a view of the dome of San Lorenzo while practicing. Through the glass ceiling you can in fact see the basilica and the sky. Centrally located at Via dei Conti 22R, it is a stone’s throw from the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella. (We strongly recommend that you book your accommodation near the studio.)

The classes will be all-levels 60-minute Vinyasa flow every day that will get your body feeling great and open your mind to the gifts of the day. Yoga is the practice of paying attention and we will carry this curiosity through our tour as we explore the art and wonders of the city, making our explorations more potent and keeping our bodies well tuned.  Some yoga experience will be helpful but not required.

ABOUT THE ART TOURS

Florence is the birthplace of contemporary life as we know it. At the dawn of the renaissance, Florence produced the artists - like Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo - and thinkers - like Petrarch, Dante and Galileo - that would change the world forever. Ending the gothic period and giving birth to humanism, scientific discovery, architectural ingenuity, and of course the most famous art in the world - all with the theatrical drama that you'd expect from such brilliance. 

Over the course of five days Sarah will weave you through the dramatic and rapid histories of the formation of Renaissance Florence, exposing you to the city and its visibly layered histories, the architecture, the art and artists, and the tumultuous rivalries and traditions that create our understanding of Italy today. 

BUT I DON'T HAVE ANYONE TO GO WITH; SHOULD I STILL GO?

Yes! That's exactly why we are doing this! Being a part of the yoga and art activities, you will meet fantastic people from day one. If you need a roommate, please say that at registration and we will connect all the singles. We will begin with an Orientation on the very first day so that everyone can get to know each other. Always in our trips, friendships arise in the most spontaneous way. 

PAYMENTS

Trip cost is $1495, due at registration. 

Refunds until Feb 29, 2024:

A $100 administrative fee will be deducted from refund. 

Refunds March 1 - July 1:

A $500 administrative fee will be deducted from refund. If documented medical emergency, the fee is reduced to $100.

No refunds after July 1st.

In the event of cancellation on our part, we will issue you a full refund.