Here are stunning images captured this week in Valvika, Nordland Fylke and Langfjordbotn, Finnmark Fylke, Norway:

Photo courtesy of Flickr user trondk.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user The-Dan.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user The-Dan.

If these images have piqued your interest, check out the details of our Scandinavian Sojourn trips headed north this summer!

For more information on the recent aurora borealis (and more stunning photos), visit “This Week’s Breathtaking Aurora Borealis” on Smithsonian.com.

Perú is a magical place. For most Smithsonian travelers the goal, the prize I should say, is to see Machu Picchu with one’s own eyes. My wife and I went to Machu Picchu in January 1980, when the means to get there, the accommodations, and other aspects of the infrastructure were far less than they are now. Machu Picchu was one of the first places we visited that turned out to be better than we had hoped it could be; it still is, though we must now contend with some 2,000-2,500 other visitors each day.

But there is a great deal more to Perú. Perú was the richest part of the world in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it was a very wealthy country in the 19th century. Perú is not a developing country, but one that has been at the apex in the past and will be again.

The cultures that eventuated in the Inca Empire of the 15th and 16th centuries stretch back 5000 years and more, and feature the magnificent Moche of the north and the enigmatic Nasca of the south. The Andean peoples who faced the European invaders in the 16th century have not disappeared, but rather have successfully resisted efforts to alter their lives for a half-millennium.

For me, Perú is fabulous archaeology, a testament to the ability of human beings to adapt to diverse ecological challenges. It is also the opportunity to walk around the courtyard of the National History Museum and speak to the portraits of the viceroys whose correspondence I read for my dissertation. Perú is wonderful Chinese food, eaten in a “Chifa,” the legacy of the Chinese immigrants who came to Perú to build the railways in the 19th century and stayed to work on the cotton plantations in the north. It is also home to Peruvian Fusion Cuisine, which is taking the culinary world by storm. Perú is the myriad faces one sees along the way, reflecting the peoples of South America, Europe, and Asia. Perú is discovering that Google is available in Quichua, the language of the Inca Empire!

But most of all, Perú is a wonderful 15-year-old girl in Ollantaytambo, whose hair I cut for the first time in her life in September 2001, just days after 9/11, and who – through that ceremony – became my god-daughter. The Smithsonian Associates on that Peruvian trip joined in the festivities, as we were all in need of something to take our minds off events in NYC. Hilary (she was named after Mrs. Clinton) now corresponds with me by e-mail, but we try to see one another in person as often as possible, usually in the shadow of the ruins of Ollantaytambo, where her ancestors were building a fabulous temple to the sun when the Europeans arrived.

Enjoy Perú in all its aspects.

I’ll leave you with the Quichua admonition, repeated daily: “Don’t Lie, Don’t Steal, and Don’t be Lazy.”

Learn more about our Perú tour and our study leader, Jeffrey Cole.

The beautiful landscape of Connemara.

As our Smithsonian group left Galway, I was struck again by the stunning contrasts of the Irish landscape. There are many types of beauty here, from the wild hills of Connemara which we saw yesterday to the elegant lake and parkland awaiting us in Killarney. We stopped briefly this morning at Dunguaire castle, which stands like a chess piece on the edge of Galway Bay. It was originally the fortress of a seventh-century king of Connacht, one who was among “the warriors of Erin” buried at Clonmacnoise.

Rebuilt in the sixteenth century, Dunguaire later served as a meeting place for the leading lights of the Irish literary renaissance. In the early morning mist, it was easy to imagine William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory and John Synge passing underneath the grey stone archway, a romantic setting for the Celtic Revival.

The landscape emptied as we headed south into County Clare, lovely still but growing desolate. A famine wall snaked up a mountain and disappeared down the other side.  Through famine and eviction, the population of Country Clare plunged from 286,000 in 1841 to 104,000 in 1911. The hills through which we drove looked abandoned against the sullen sky. On their slopes, we could see the vertical scars that mark abandoned potato fields.

The ground grew stony as we approached the Burren, a name that literally means “a rocky place.” A different kind of beauty met us there, an eerie moonscape of eroded limestone. Cromwell’s surveyors famously reported that the Burren lacked enough water to drown a man, tree to hang him, or soil to bury him. But a microclimate mix of plants flourishes in this karst environment. They are strange neighbors — alpine, arctic and Mediterranean types combined with native species. But even stranger are the megalithic monuments that guard this landscape, “millenia deep in their own unmoving” as the Irish poet Seamus Heaney put it.

“Why here?” someone asked quietly as we walked across the craggy pavements to the Poulnabrone dolmen, one of the most striking of these structures. Its twelve foot capstone balanced carefully on the portal stones, Poulnabrone preserved the bones of some twenty people spanning five centuries, five thousand years ago. Today, it looks like a giant’s table, having lost the mound that once covered it, one of ninety megalithic tombs in the area. The question was repeated in expanded form, a little impatiently: “Why would people build monuments like this in such a barren place?”

The answer: it was not always like this. When the farmers arrived 6,000 years ago, pine and hazel woodland covered this land, and the growing season was long. Fire, axe and hoof cleared the trees and turf; without its cover, the soil slipped away with wind and rain, exposing the limestone skeleton. Ancient pollen attests these changes occurred gradually, and only recently — since the first millenium A.D. — was the bedrock laid bare. Like the once fertile land of Inismor which we also visited, where Aran farmers in recent times made soil out of sand and seaweed, the Burren is in large part a man-made landscape and a cautionary one as well.

Continuing south, we stopped next at the Cliffs of Moher, which drop vertically seven hundred feet into the Atlantic Ocean and inspire a different kind of awe. The new interpretive center offered a wealth of information about the geology, history and wildlife of the Cliffs, but nothing can compare with the sensation of being physically there, overlooking the Atlantic Edge. As we continued to Killarney later that day, the countryside grew softer and more gentle. A ferry ride across the Shannon River invited thoughts of Vikings traveling up those waters a thousand years ago, but the scene was peaceful and bucolic, all blues and greens and greys. We passed Saint Mary’s Cathedral on our way into Killarney, a lovely Gothic cathedral built in the nineteenth century. Even in this cheerful town, the hard times are remembered: a giant redwood tree in front of the church marks a mass grave of famine victims. After such a day of stark drama, the warmth and friendliness of the pub are welcome, but my thoughts this evening keep returning to the melancholy beauty of County Clare and the mystery of the Burren.

Packed yet? Click here to see our tours to Ireland or here for Cassandra’s next tour.

Vaulted Substructure of the Apollo Temple at Claros. Photo: Kevin Daly.

This trip to Turkey has been filled with both the familiar and the novel. It had been some time since I had seen sites like Troy and Ephesus, while the Lycian sites and a gulet passage are entirely new to me. The itinerary has brought views of cities both thriving and ruined. Nowhere was the contrast more vivid for me than what we saw in the bustling, modern city of Izmir and the isolated, ancient oracular site of Claros.

The "Ghost Village" of Kayaköy. Photo: Kevin Daly.

Claros was an addition to the schedule that our guide, Akyn, and I thought would add a lot to our itinerary. We had the shrine to ourselves, and as a group we were able to talk intensely and hands-on about ancient temple building, sacrifice, and inscriptions. While Akyn and I had seen Claros before, the fresh eyes and questions of our travelers helped us see it anew. Besides being a treat in itself, this quiet moment at a remote site helped prepare us for the awe-inspiring and busy site of Ephesus.

View back toward the gulets from St. Nicholas Monastery Island. Photo: Kevin Daly

While our trip was a healthy blend of the modern, the old, and the ancient, my own interests and the interests of the group tended to pull us toward all things archaeological. But daily life intervened regularly, and this intervention was extremely revelatory to us all. Of course in a very real sense daily life quickly enters the archaeological record: a coin is dropped, a house is demolished, or a pipe is laid.

At the same time the present can help us recapture past days. While the Great Fire at Izmir/Smyrna forever altered the landscape of that city, we found echoes of what it must have been like in our strolls through the Old City of Antalya. Our gondola ride to the top of the site of Pergamon elicited questions concerning ancient travel, defense, and hydraulic engineering. The displacement of travel makes these interactions between new and old all the more intense. If Hartley was right in writing that “the past is a foreign country,” we have had a wonderful double journey every day.

Click here for Q&A with Kevin Daly and here to learn more about tour tours to Turkey.

New features to this new 13th edition include 30 city plans from major cities around the world; flags for every country; the new independent country of Kosovo; and major new place name updates in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, Afghanistan, and Iran. The detailed thematic information contains contributions from top experts. New topics discussed include migration, the global impact of recession, migration, and polar regions.

Use the Times Comprehensive Atlas to plan your next journey, or give it as a holiday gift to the travelers in your life. Click to see our current sales and specials on worldwide tours.

After a delightful three-day stay in Normandy at our 13th century farm house inn, La Ranconniere, we have one last breakfast buffet with its irresistible chaussons aux pommes (apple turnovers), a delightful complement to our tea or café au lait, and we set out in our comfortable tour bus for the final leg of our trip, with an early evening arrival in Paris before us. As if on schedule, and despite predictions of rain, the overcast sky begins to give way to rays of sunlight as we pull into our parking place near the charming port of Honfleur, from which Jacques Cartier and Samuel Champlain had left France in the 16th and 17th Centuries to discover a French New World in Canada along the St. Lawrence River and into the upper American Midwest.

The lively port of Honfleur.

Still a fishing village today, but more attractive to many tourists because of its picturesque Vieux Bassin, lined with pleasure boats and cafes along the Quai Sainte-Catherine, Honfleur has become a prime weekend and holiday destination for Parisians who are just a few hours’ drive away on the AutoRoute, and who love to stroll around the narrow streets of the old town, patronizing its many chic art galleries and high-end shops. Our group of travelers joins the Parisians, at least in window shopping, but also takes time to visit the unusual, all wood, Sainte Catherine Church, with its very beautiful sculpted frieze of musicians, and a separate clock tower designed to limit damage should one part of the church catch on fire. While others take the opportunity to wander around the little town for photo opportunities that await around each corner, some of the travelers go with our guide, Francoise, to visit the Boudin Museum, home to the works of Eugene Boudin, who was one of the first landscape artists to paint out of doors, and who was an early teacher of Claude Monet.

After picking up sandwiches to eat on the bus, or having a quick crepe and coffee along the quays of the old harbor, we continue to follow the Seine River toward Vernon and Giverny, the home of that most famous of the Impressionist painters, who had sketched, under Boudin’s influence, as a young man in Honfleur. Upon our arrival at Giverny, we go first to discover the famous lily pad pond with its Japanese bridge, covered in wisteria, that appear in so many of Claude Monet’s paintings. In mid-June the lily pads are in full bloom and the surrounding gardens are spectacular in shades of pink, red, orange, blue, and every imaginable combination. Reflections of the different flowers in the pond offer dozens of views that might be mistaken for Impressionist paintings, taken directly from the very nature that Monet so loved. After leaving the lily pad pond, we follow an underpass below the road which was a train track in Monet’s day, and arrive at the fantastic gardens which extend below the dramatic, pink -colored house with dark green shutters, which for forty years in the late 19th and early 20th century was home to Claude Monet and his large family.

Monet’s gardens are resplendent with brightly colored flowers of every sort from roses and iris to purple garlic. Several pathways allow visitors to go up and down between the different beds to the delight of those horticulturalists along on the tour, as well as rank amateurs such as I am who can only repeat the word “gorgeous” at each newly discovered plant. Thanks to contemporary photographs from the period when Monet was at the height of his creative powers, his house has been restored with copies of all of his paintings hung in exactly the same location where he had placed them long ago. In addition to these copies of his own works, the originals of many of the now quite-valuable Japanese prints which he had collected are found on the second story along with Monet’s bedroom and that of his wife. Returning to the ground floor, we explore the dining room with its yellow ceiling and the spectacular kitchen, with copper pots hung on the blue walls, and featuring beautiful blue and white tiles above and around the large stove. Before exiting Monet’s property we browse through the gift shop, located in the studio especially built for his huge lily pad series of paintings that are now housed in the Orangerie in Paris. And just before leaving Giverny, we have time for a quick glance at the hill side behind and down the street from his house, where Monet created his famous series of haystacks, painted in all the different seasons. Today the field is covered with oats and poppies, and by closing one’s eyes, it is easy to imagine Monet sitting beside this field and painting one of his many works featuring bright red Coquelicots (poppies).

Boarding the bus one more time we take the AutoRoute that follows the path of the Seine River all the way to Paris. After about an hour and a half’s travel, near St. Cloud, a former royal palace, we emerge from an underground tunnel with a panoramic view of the Seine basin and catch our first view of the “old lady,” Paris’s Eiffel Tower, harbinger of still more exciting discoveries that await us tomorrow.

Packed yet? Click here to learn more about our France Through the Ages tour and here to learn more about Study Leader John Sweets.

Hughes begins by taking us to the Rome he first met at the tender age of twenty-one, fresh from Australia in 1959. From there, he journeys back more than two thousand years to the city’s foundation, steeped in mythology and superstition that sewed the seeds of Rome’s development.

Traveling through the centuries, Hughes investigates the modern era, from Mussolini to La Dolce Vita, to today’s age of technology and tourism.

Spend the weekend with Hughes in Rome, or journey there yourself on our tours to Italy.

Smithsonian Travelers at the Yaroslavl Chapel of St. Alexander Nevsky. Photo: Pamela Kachurin.

I made my first trip to Russia in the 1980s, and have returned multiple times over the last four decades. I have been able to witness the dramatic changes that have taken place, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

One need not look any further than simple transactions to track the changes since the end of the Soviet Union. In summer of 1994, barely three years after the Soviet Union collapsed, I wanted to buy a cake to bring to a party I was attending. The bakery door was open, but when I went inside and asked for a particular cake, the woman behind the counter refused to sell it to me. The reason? She was on her break. So she sat there, refusing to sell the cake to me, and explained to me that I would have to wait the 15 minutes until her break was over. Neither of us budged. I waited, and she waited. Finally, 15 minutes later, she sold me the cake.

But in summer 2011, I decided to purchase a watch in St. Petersburg. I found a lovely watch shop in St. Petersburg’s oldest mall, and the saleswoman was cheerfully helpful. “I need a watch, but something less expensive than what is on display” I said in Russian. She shooed away her friends that were blocking the case, and showed me several options, explained their pros and cons, and even gave me a discount. Then she wrapped up the watch, told me about the year guarantee (!) and sent me on my way. The whole transaction took 10 minutes. Progress…

Change in the countryside is harder to notice. Young people still search for mushrooms with their grandmothers; kitchen gardens still grow outside dachas, most of which have no electricity. Poverty is the norm, and human services are practically non-existent.

However, village children will learn English in secondary school, and carry cell phones by the time they reach 14. Churches, once abandoned or destroyed have been reclaimed and restored, and cater to young and old alike.

Traditional Russian homes, with their brightly painted yellow, red, and blue wooden trim, contrast with monochromatic newer homes. Cranes and bulldozers are as common as cars in this country that is most definitely “under construction.”

Russia is a nation on the move, a fact that becomes clear even after one visit. This massive country is dynamic, and its resilient population constantly strives to improve its own lives and the lives of others. Although most Russians hold their country’s history closely, their eyes are not on the past, but decidedly on the future.

Click here to learn more about Dr. Kachurin and here for our Russian adventures.

Would you like to experience the food, wine, and history of the Dordogne region for yourself? Join us for our Sojourn in Dordogne, with departures in April and September, 2012.

For the last 40 years, his work has taken him around the world conducting field work and research. He has led tours for Smithsonian Journeys to most of the world’s greatest natural history destinations from Antarctica to Africa.

Working with co-editor and zoologist David Burnie, Wilson has created a giant reference to wildlife from every corner of the world. From the smallest insects to the largest mammals, this visual guide helps the reader understand and appreciate the fantastic variety of life our planet with vivid photos and interesting facts.

If you’re interested in traveling with Don Wilson, click here to see where he’ll be next.

In these later voyages, Columbus continued to try to prove that he could get to China, where he wanted to convert the people he met there to Christianity. These three later voyages, all to the Caribbean and nearby regions of the Atlantic, were more violent than his first and contribute to his controversial legacy.

Biographer Laurence Bergreen captures each voyage in rich detail, recreating these adventures and providing the context and perspective needed for each of us to draw our own understanding of what Columbus’ expeditions mean to the world at large.

If you’d like to sail some of the waters Columbus sailed, now’s a great time to book your adventure in the Caribbean with Smithsonian Journeys.

Driving over the ridge into Chobe National Park on the first afternoon of our arrival in Botswana, there is a collective intake of breath on the initial glimpse of the spectacle that was to capture us for next three days. Hundreds, and then thousands of elephants can be seen moving slowly towards the river, coming for their afternoon drink at the only water source for miles around.

On closer examination, we can also see many more slowly crossing the rivers, their trunks held up as oversize snorkels, as they slowly swim their way from bank to bank. Yet more, can be seen cooling themselves in the shallow mud, or spraying themselves with water and mud, providing a thick layer of primitive sunscreen to protect themselves from the radiating heat. Even from the comfort of a shaded landcruiser with a bottle of water in hand I must admit it looks like a good idea. Except of course… for the crocodiles.

The elephants, while the largest, are hardly the only animals to be gathering here at this point. Languid large crocodiles lounge on the river banks, their mouths held open to regulate their body temperature. Nile monitor lizards, move in slow undulations through the high reeds and slip back into the water almost unseen. They join rafts of enormous hippopatumus, that awkardly move from near invisibility in the water to intimidating grazers on river banks. There they are joined by the rare endemic antelopes, the puku, with splayed feet and an awkward gate that keeps them permanently constrained to the moist banks around this river.

In the next few days we will glimpse many, many more animals clustered at this most verdant of refuges – rare sable and roan antelopes, large creches of giraffes, dozens of brilliant kingfishers and elegant wading birds, and stuffed prides of lion trotting back from their hunting.

Here is a place where it is easy to forget that large wildlife no longer rule the world, that man now dominates much of the landscape. We have talked in many of our Smithsonian lectures about the historical and modern importance of large animals in ecosystems, and the value of intact ecological communities in preserving ecological function.

We have thought a lot about what the world might have been like in times of early man when large wildlife was so much more widespread. Here for a moment, we can stop imagining and just step back in time and watch in awe.

We’ve worked with our partner Longitude Books, to find some of the best books for families getting ready to travel together. Authors Laurie Krebs and Anne Wilson bring us the colorful We’re Sailing Down the Nile, taking readers young and old to the land of the Pharaohs, mummies and Great Pyramids.

If you’d like to take your family to Egypt, now is a great time to experience the country at a unique time in history. Click here to learn more about our Egyptian Family Odyssey. Our next departure is this December.

This week, take your own culinary journey with Goldstein’s newest book, The Gastronomica Reader. Designed both to entertain and to provoke, The Reader offers a sumptuous sampling from the journal’s pages — including essays, poetry, interviews, memoirs, and an outstanding selection of the artwork that has made the quarterly so distinctive. In words and images, it takes us around the globe, through time, and into a dazzling array of cultures.

Cuisine is a key part of travel, and many meals evoke a sense of place. What’s your favorite way to travel with your pallette? Please share!

 
Sadie McVicker: You have extensively researched and written on the subject of French-American relations in the twentieth century. Which aspect or historical turning point of French-American relations do you find most fascinating and why?

Kim Munholland: There are several moments in French-American relations that have caught my attention. Recently I have been working on the past two hundred years of this relationship, beginning with the French assistance during the American War for Independence, producing a “Lafayette syndrome” in which Americans often define a special relationship that has existed since Lafayette fought beside George Washington—and came to regard our first president as a father figure. Yet this positive image has often been challenged when American and French interests have diverged or been marked by tension. On the positive side, there is an American fascination with French culture from the country’s intellectual life to its enjoyment of everyday pleasures. This is seen in the lives of American exiles, who have sought a second home in France, particularly Paris. At the same time there have been official, more political differences between the two countries that too often behave as “hostile allies.” In this latter area there are several moments that can be seen as turning points over more than two centuries, but the most important was the relationship that developed after the French defeat of 1940 and wartime relations, particularly differences between Charles de Gaulle and Franklin Roosevelt. This conflict was a central concern of my book, Rock of Contention: Free French and Americans at War in New Caledonia, 1940-1945. These wartime differences established a pattern that has marked French-American disagreements and misunderstandings since then.

The fortified walls of medieval Carcassonne

SM: Another of your areas of expertise is how the wine industry was impacted by the Vichy regime. Can you please give a brief overview of how much the Vichy regime did effect the evolution of the French wine industry?

KM: Vichy’s policy of collaboration with Germany during WWII created serious problems for the French wine industry when the Germans insisted that a large amount of the great French wines, particularly Champagne, Bordeaux and Burgundy, be reserved for the German market, including the German armed forces. The French realized that they would have to sell their wines to the Germans, but to protect their most valuable wines French winemakers began hiding some of their best vintages so that they would have a supply to rebuild their trade after the war. German taste for French wines also meant that the great wine cellars, such as at the Tour d’Argent in Paris, were in danger of depletion. Demands of high-ranking German officials (Hitler was a teetotaler) such as Herman Goering, could have had disastrous consequences for these great cellars. Again, a process of hiding occurred in self-defense. Another impact was that German demands for copper for their war industries meant that French vintners lacked copper sulfate, which was used to protect the vines from mildew and other diseases. This meant a drop in wine production, making it even more difficult to meet German demands. Finally, to increase agricultural production, Vichy issued regulations requiring larger vineyards to tear up ten percent of their land planted in grapes in order to increase supplies of vegetables and fruits. Since the war, French wine industry has recovered, and we will be traveling through some of the great, if less well-known, wine regions from Languedoc to the Loire valley.

SM: The France through the Ages itinerary is comprised of one beautiful and historically significant site after another; which site visits are you most looking forward to visiting with Smithsonian travelers and why?

KM: There are many wonderful places to see on this trip, beginning in Carcassonne, but the one that I am looking forward to with great anticipation is Rocamadour. The site is absolutely sensational and made a lasting impression the first time that I visited it many years ago as a graduate student in French history. At that time we could visit the caves at Lascaux, to be closed shortly thereafter. Thus, it will be a visit filled with nostalgia for me. It also will enable me to rediscover an earlier interest in Medieval France since Rocamadour was a pilgrimage site. Equally interesting is the town of Albi. The Cathedral of Saint Cecile is one of the most interesting in all of France, very hard to categorize and should surprise everyone who has not seen it before. Albi has lent its name to one of the most bloody episodes of the Middle Ages, the Albigensian Crusade against the heretical Cathar sect that had its roots in the region and was supported by the powerful counts of Toulouse.

SM: For a city so renowned for its scientific and engineering industries (aerospace and high tech), Toulouse has a rich literary and artistic history as well, personified by Antoine St. Exupéry and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. What led Toulouse to excel in these areas?

KM: The emergence of Toulouse as a center for the aeronautic and high tech industries has its origins in France’s impressive economic recovery after World War II. Successive French governments were determined to modernize France, particularly in the area of aircraft production. Key to this program was government support and encouragement to the aeronautical engineer and entrepreneur, Marcel Dassault, whose company began to produce some of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world. This program successfully sought to reverse an image of France as the technological inferior of Germany, often cited as a cause for the country’s military defeat in 1940. The climate of Toulouse is well suited, perhaps similar to Los Angeles, to the development and testing of aircraft prototypes. The result was a spectacular growth of French aircraft development and production, leading to the location of the main assembly point for the Airbus. An advanced electronics sector developed alongside the aerospace industry of Toulouse. But it has not been all technology and modernity that gives Toulouse its claim to fame. Toulouse has long had a strong cultural tradition dating back to the time of the troubadours and the days of Raymond of Toulouse, who encouraged the arts in his capital city. In addition to its literary and artistic richness, Toulouse is home to a major symphony orchestra.

SM: You spent several years living in various areas of France. What aspects of la vie en France do you miss the most?

KM: There are many things to appreciate about France, its monuments, cathedrals, the beauty of Paris itself, the variety of its regions and countryside, but the one thing that I most miss is the grace of everyday life: the pleasures of mealtimes and conversation, exploring the bookstores and galleries of Paris and just the sounds and smells of Paris, transformed when one leaves Paris for the relative peace of Sunday in the countryside, moments of leisure and pleasure caught in the paintings of the impressionists. We will no doubt experience such enjoyment when we take meals during our travels through the spectacular French countryside. What better place to indulge and savor the sensory pleasures of the French countryside, though, than at Giverny, Claude Monet’s garden that was his home, studio, and site for the creation of his great masterpiece, Les Nymphéas (now restored in the Orangeries in Paris) during the last years of his life). Monet not only created a world of color in his garden and on his canvasses, but his home at Giverny with its kitchen, dining room and living space provides a strong sense of what middle-class leisure was like with many meals among friends at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. One can understand from a visit to this site how this way of life attracted an American colony of expatriate artists and writers to France, and it is this sense that, like many other Americans, I always feel when I come to France. Our visit to Giverny will provide this marvelous impression of a graceful and civilized way of life to be found in France.

SM: An especially poignant day of this program will be spent visiting the D-Day landing beaches, the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in Colleville, and Ste-Mere-Eglise, where the 82nd Airborne Division successfully parachuted on June 5, 1944. As an expert on Occupied France, please describe your first impressions when you visited these sites.

KM: Although I have visited the Normandy beaches, the cemetery and memorial to the Allied landings many times, each time I am as awe-struck as I was on the first visit several years ago. The site itself is dramatic, located above a now tranquil Omaha beach that was so bloody on June 6, 1944. There are many American cemeteries and memorials in France, dating back to the first world war, but this one captures in a deeply moving way the sacrifices of so many American soldiers who came to France to fight a just cause but never returned home. Recent improvements to the site in which one approaches the cemetery from the cliff above the beach gives added drama to the experience. In addition, we will have an opportunity to compare the invasion of 1944 with that of 1066 when we visit the Bayeux tapestry that narrates the Norman invasion of England in one of the great works of medieval art and another glory of French culture. Separated by nearly nine centuries, the museum at Omaha beach and the preserved tapestry both recount tales of bravery, sacrifice and determination. Miraculously, the Bayeux Cathedral was spared by the Allied bombings in preparation for the D-Day landings. Bayeux was not only the departure point for William the Conquerer in 1066, but it was the town that received General de Gaulle on his return to French soil, only one week after D-Day in 1944, to assert his authority and begin the process of restoring a democratic France after four years of occupation.

What part of France would you most like to visit? Please share!

Click here to travel to France with Smithsonian Journeys.