Drawn and Quartered in France

Walking-eyeball tourism: staring long and hard at the completely obvious. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE

I’VE ADDED A NEW AND POTENT WEAPON to my travel arsenal: a pencil.

OK, maybe not so new, but plenty potent.

My buddy Vincent (Van Gogh) said it all, during his own walking-eyeball moment in Provence: “I’ll pick up my pencil that I put down in my great discouragement and I’ll get back to drawing, and from then on, it seems to me, everything has changed for me, everything has changed for me, and now I’m on my way and my pencil has become somewhat obedient and seems to become more so by the day.”

Cheer up, Vincent! You’ll get the hang of it!

I first encountered walking-eyeball tourism in San Antonio, when I came around a corner and discovered my sister-in-law Polly sitting in a picturesque little square, working from an adorable watercolor set and capturing the scene at that moment. Her head was cocked, her face contemplative, her hand active—she was claiming the scene by paying close attention to it. None of that take-a-quick-snap-and-forget-it stuff. She caressed the landscape onto the p…