The Woodmans spent another year together just outside of Florence from 1965-66. Betty had a Fulbright-Hays fellowship and George a faculty fellowship from the University of Colorado, while Charlie and Francesca attended the local public school. Of course they did not miss the opportunity to take breaks for traveling and exploring. Here they are wandering through Florence, nearby Fiesole, Pompeii and onward to Granada, Spain where they visited the Alhambra—one of the best-preserved palaces of Islamic architecture, with walls and floors covered in geometric mosaic tiles. George later described this trip as turning point for him as an artist, leading directly to his rich and varied use of pattern in paintings and tile installations made over nearly the next two decades:
"A trip to the Alhambra in 1966, while it was not used as a source for pattern, convinced me absolutely that an art of purely pattern could be important, complete, rich."

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