The wild Atlantic hurls angry chevaux blancs against Brittany’s rugged coast. I feel the breeze and warm September sunshine, smell Gallic ‘ozone’, and can taste the seafood we’ve just enjoyed in clifftop Restaurant Bar Le Vivier.

The scene’s soundtrack is a song we heard driving down the Quiberon Peninsula from Plouharnel and Carnac’s mystical standing stones, via sleepy Portivy harbour.

But this time, there’s just another pile of ironing in front of me and France Gall sings, not from car speakers, but our lounge stereo. We may be locked down, but that magical afternoon is evoked in exquisite detail by a stunning seascape on the wall.

Inspiration for travel-less times

More overseas travel may be nearer now than at any time since Coronavirus changed our lives. But for us, one of the greatest sources of joy and inspiration during a travel-less year was a painting commissioned from a photograph taken that afternoon in France.

Maybe you’re adept with paints and brushes and can craft your own artistic travel masterpiece? Or perhaps you’d rather someone else captured that image of Manhattan’s skyline, the Alps or a deserted Thailand beach that unfailingly fuels your wanderlust.

Unique travel memories with every glance

Photos are fine, but easily forgotten on hard drives or suffocated in digital photo frames. However, convert a moment into hand-painted oils, watercolours or acrylic, and unique travel memories are reborn with every glance – in ways photos can’t match. It perfectly complements ‘The Local Answer’ back issues, well-thumbed guidebooks, and small-screen inspiration from Richard Ayoade et al as we countdown to resumed globe-trotting.

The breathtaking Côte Sauvage

For years we couldn’t decide which of myriad seascape photos we’d ask Cheltenham artist Jilly Hamilton to interpret on canvas. Our favourite Shetland beach? Norway’s coast somewhere north of Hammerfest. Or the romantic world’s end bleakness of Patagonia’s Beagle Channel and Isla Navarino? As it happens, it was Brittany’s breathtaking Côte Sauvage that finally prompted our decision – just before the pandemic arrived – and helped keep us sane through lockdown.

The timing was perfect. Now, a year after ’keyworker’ and ‘social distancing’ entered our vocabulary, this image keeps reminding us that we will travel again. Lockdown or not, whether you do it yourself or commission travel-inspired art, unique paintings of favourite places really help when you’re stuck at home with a world to explore.