New Orleans, USA – Americans don’t have to travel very far to feel as though they’ve been transported to a French town. While the modern culture of New Orleans reflects many different influences (African, Cajun, Spanish, Creole, and French), there’s no denying the impact the French had on the development of the city when it was part of France’s “New France” colony in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries.

That influence is particularly apparent in the aptly named French Quarter, where trellised buildings built by early French settlers call to mind the streets of Paris. Many of the street signs are in French – 7% of the population speaks French – and French cafes line the streets. Creole and Cajun food both have their roots in French (and Spanish) cooking, and of course, the most famous of New Orleans’ pastries, the beignet, was created by the French

Quebec, Canada – The Canadian province of Quebec, home to the large cities of Montreal and Quebec City, is known as one of the most “European” places in North America. Though the land has long since transferred from French control to become part of Canada, French is still the official language of the province, and you don’t have to look far to see the culture reflected in the architecture, streets signs, and layout of the cities in it.

Montreal is the more modern of the two main cities, with a downtown full of towering skyscrapers. But what the commercial center may lack in “old-world” style, the section known as Vieux Montréal (Old Montreal) more than makes up for with its cobbled streets and centuries-old buildings.

Quebec City features even more French touches. It’s one of the few cities in North America to retain its original fortified walls and the center is dotted with postcard-perfect squares where tourists and residents gather to people-watch, sip a latte, and munch on crusty baguettes. Dining on a meal of hearty poutine while the sounds of the French language swirl around you, you’ll almost forget for a second that you are on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

Luang Prabang and Vientiane, Laos - At first glance, Laos looks like it couldn’t be more different from France, and in many respects that is true. A quick look around the towns of Luang Prabang and Vientiane will reveal lush green fields of rice, Asians zipping around on scooters and motorbikes, and monks in brightly-colored robes heading solemnly to gilded Buddhist temples. But a long history with France has left its mark on the oft-forgotten country.

You may not hear much French spoken here, and the culture is decidedly Lao, but it’s interesting to see the small ways that France is still present in the lives of the people, most notably in the cuisine, in the baguettes sold on every corner, in the occasional glimpse of European-style architecture, and in the faces of the many French ex-pats who still reside in the country.

Where else? See Katie’s full story for information on Morocco, French Polynesia, Saint Martin, and the Indian Ocean destinations of Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, and the Seychelles.

More important, and less quantifiable, than any of these practical factors was the pleasant aura that descends on Venice in winter. Cleared of tourists, it becomes vastly easier to explore, yet simultaneously more mysterious. The thousands of alleyways twist on without end, drawing you deeper into unknown territory, with no dim, distant roar of humankind to orient you.

Piazza San Marco was nearly deserted, its outdoor cafes’ having packed away their tables. The pigeons pecked about in ones and twos, like confused visitors expecting flocks. When Jean and I walked into St. Mark’s Basilica, it was as if I’d never visited before: without the crowds jostling me, I could relax enough to admire the stern biblical figures adorning the ceiling, and without feet obscuring the floor, I noticed the marvelous mosaics of animals — lions, birds, griffins — below. It felt, to my surprise, like a place I actually wanted to linger, rather than a requisite stop on a tourist itinerary.

In other words, winter gives you time to breathe, to experience Venice at an Italian pace.

On the small roads between Cantallops and Llançà – two names that were barely dots on our map of Catalonia in northeastern Spain – the lush mountain greenery turned quickly to farmland rolling out for miles around us and filled with sunflowers and bales of hay.

We were traveling from the interior mountains of this Spanish autonomous region to the Mediterranean. Again and again, rising up in the near distance, came fantastic, if dusty, terra-cotta-colored medieval hamlets and equally ancient churches and farmhouses. On the streets everywhere the lingua franca was Catalan, not Spanish, and amid all the tourists that descend from France and elsewhere, a local pride seemed to pervade the scene, against a backdrop that fell away suddenly, breathtakingly, into the sea.

In Llançà we stopped at Platja Grifeu, one of the village’s perfect beaches, with clear tropical-looking water to swim in. At the beachside restaurant, I ordered a tortilla española, the ubiquitous potato omelet of Spain. It was, improbably, the best tortilla I had ever tasted. I savored it, facing the sea and the local families sunning themselves, in this tiny village about 10 miles from the French-Spanish border on a road that looked like nothing more than a scribble on the map.

By some small miracle – and preservation efforts that have helped to control development in Catalonia – the Costa Brava has maintained an authenticity and a refreshing resistance to change that keeps this stretch of the Mediterranean radically different from the southern coasts of Spain. Fishing villages still feel like fishing villages, medieval mountain towns are still hushed at siesta, and artists still paint on the streets of Cadaqués.

After all, this wasn’t a metropolis with a well-established avant-garde tradition like Paris or Berlin, but dowdy old Lisbon, a small Catholic city that is best known for inexpensive seafood meals, throwback cable cars and faded colonial architecture from Portugal’s long-vanished international empire.

But on a balmy night in March, the throngs filing into the complex made it clear that the city was more than ready for a bit of progressive bohemia in their remote corner of the Continent. Looking like the assembled listenership of some Portuguese version of National Public Radio, a buzzing crowd of tweedy academics, tattooed cool kids, bourgeois couples and bespectacled grad-student types fanned out to sample Fábrica Braço de Prata’s typically diverse offerings: a jazz combo, a reggae outfit, a Leonard Cohen documentary and a 1 a.m. after-party featuring D.J.’s and alternative bands.

“It’s creative in all areas — theater, art, music, dance,” Mr. de Roubaix said of the venue’s appeal, clearly pleased by its unexpected success. “There’s a fast turnover of events and shows that keeps the place very dynamic.”

The same could be said for 21st-century Lisbon…

Portugal languished for much of the 20th century on Europe’s geographic and cultural margins. From the 1920s until the 1970s, a repressive dictatorship smothered the nation, sending the creative classes fleeing to London and Paris and severely stunting any potential arts scene. The economy also slumped. Once the center of a global trade empire, Portugal sunk into notoriety as Western Europe’s poorest nation.

As dust collected on Lisbon’s monuments — Roman theaters, Moorish edifices, Gothic churches, Baroque squares — the city became the Miss Havisham of Western Europe: a relic, forgotten and forlorn.

The last of the Western European capitals to experience a cultural bloom, Lisbon is avidly making up for lost time. All over the city, an upstart generation is laying waste to the sepia-toned stereotypes and gleefully constructing edgy and forward-looking ventures amid the time-worn monuments and quaint cobbled lanes.

This is a dark, fascinating and, unfortunately, forgotten country, an Iowa-sized Balkan beauty with snow-capped mountains and lush green fields. It is here that the undeniable forces of the New World order meet a stubborn Old World speed bump defined by donkey carts, shepherds, a sclerotic and often corrupt governing bureaucracy and an economy that, for the most part, lags behind its old Eastern Bloc brethren.

Don’t come to Bulgaria if you’re looking for some glossy European elegance interspersed with Starbucks and all those Western, touristy accouterments that make travel so comfortable and reassuring.

But do come if you’re up for something a little wild and pretty rough around the edges. Come if you’re interested in watching the noisy, tectonic shifts of a former communist satellite in awkward transition to wherever it is it’s going. Come if you’d like to see the Old World, before it’s gone.

They helped fleeing Romans evade Attila the Hun and held a glittering city aloft for more than 1,500 years. But the wooden pilings rising out of the Grand Canal in Venice are so decayed that as we clung to them one afternoon it wasn’t at all clear whether they would be sturdy enough to prevent us from capsizing into its murky waters.

It was rush hour in Venice, so the canal’s usual tumult of crosscurrents and tides was churning with the wake of water taxis, ferries and delivery boats. Each volley of waves slapped against the side of the inflatable kayak we were using to cross Italy’s most storied waterway; the pilings were our best chance to avoid being immersed in it.

This probably wasn’t quite what my girlfriend, Audrey Lynn Gray, had in mind when we first started thinking about a trip to Venice…But as novice canoers, we were intrigued by the thought of exploring the waterways ourselves…

And for a traveler seeking a sense of place, there is little to compare with the sensation of drifting through the same waters as Renaissance princes, past 17th-century palazzi with mollusks embedded along the waterline, while a parade of delivery boats putt by and gondoliers shout “Oye!” as they approach a blind turn to warn other boaters they’re tilting around the corner.

Spain and Portugal are like fresh sangria and old port. They are different tastes. And while the euro has helped make each prosperous in unimagined ways, the two are like neighbors who roll their eyes at the shouts and spicy smells that drift from next door.

Here is his impression of Madrid:

Spain’s capital and biggest city, Madrid doesn’t change its accent for a tourist. It stays up until dawn, then dissolves into a scramble of avenue stores, clinking cafe spoons and traffic sounds…

Set smack in the center of the country on a 2,100-foot-high plateau, the only thing that Madrid doesn’t have is coastline. It doesn’t need it. It’s as crazy and cosmopolitan as New York; it’s a Paris that’s been placed up high on a plinth and spun around by shot after shot of mountain air.

And Lisbon:

Lisbon is not about the evening. It lives for its light. The city is stretched out along the water and you can smell it even when you are a mile from shore. Fog and clouds sail in, but the ocean keeps it one of Europe’s mildest cities. Instead of Madrid’s scouring winds, there are long, easy days—sometimes weeks—of sun…

The country’s nautical history has brought in a mix of backgrounds, building styles and foods, and there are times when you are walking in cobbled streets when you forget where you are. A trolley rumbles past and you think Boston. San Francisco. Then an insistent sun pushes out from behind clouds, and you remember. Lisbon.

And the different palates of the two cultures:

The Portuguese-Americans on my street eat fish. Good fish, fresh fish. Fish that comes in cans. So when I get to Lisbon I am amazed that locals are obsessed with sweets instead: custards, powdered sugars, delicate cakes.

“Pasteis” is the name here for the pastries and “doces conventuais” (convent desserts) that are laid out in bakery cases all over town…According to Samantha Martins, a hotel clerk I talk to, “Lisbon’s pastries are better than in Paris.” How come? “They are more sweet.” …

Madrid doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth. But this is the birthplace of tapas, those savory, appetizer-sized special dishes that have conquered the world. You can’t get dinner here until after 10 p.m. since tapas bars slow down the clock. Locals take their time over wine and over little plates. When I try some slices of a special Iberian ham called “Jabugo,” I decide that I don’t blame them…

I start eating more. There are anchovies and crushed tomato spread on bread. There are “mariscos” (plates of shrimp and calamari) and “chirrosa,” miniature sausages that are fried in oil tinged with wine or cider.

For more of the author’s delightful comparison of the two cities, check out the entire story.

The Irish have become prosperous and, of all things, European. I decided a food safari was in order to smell what was cooking. Here is a chronicle of some meals during my recent visit: a sampling of the new and old.

Clancy experienced the new diversity of Ireland at Italian and Indian restaurants, but he also enjoyed a good amount of traditional Irish fare, such as this breakfast:

The next morning, at Darry Ryan’s B&B in the heart of town, the old advice is true; we could eat this breakfast all day. Eggs over easy fried in bacon fat, two small mild sausages, a grilled half-tomato garnished with fried mushrooms, white toast in a rack, brown bread, strong tea.

There’s also black pudding, which I eyeball carefully. You can’t have a proper Irish breakfast without black pudding, a sort of sausage that uses pig’s blood as its dominant ingredient. Added to the blood are oatmeal, milk and bread. It’s baked and then cut in thick circles and fried. The texture is dense; ditto the taste, heavy and unpleasant. I drown it with tea.

And this pub fare for lunch:

In the town of Clifden, set above an estuary leading to the sea, a place where hikers and cyclists make base camp, lunch is at E.J. Kings, a pub of stone-flagged floors and food either simple or full of flair.

The Guinness is creamy, and an open-faced crab sandwich on brown bread, with no mayonnaise but just oil, gives a straightforward tang of the sea. Just as good is a BLT, with crispy rashers (bacon), sun-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions and a sharp farmhouse cheese making every bite satisfyingly complex. But the star is the chowder, based in rich stock, laced with sherry, cream, onions, potatoes and salmon that adds a touch of pink to the creamy whiteness.

“Russia is now resurgent”

I had come to the Russian countryside, though, to get beyond proverbs — and beyond Moscow — in search of what Russians like to call the National Idea. It’s often said that Russia is truly in trouble when it can’t articulate what it stands for. The Soviet National Idea of exporting revolution, conquering space and winning Olympic medals was a strange mix, but at least it was steady. By 1995, the last time I lived there, Russia had disintegrated into a rudderless mess…

Russia is now resurgent…To find Russia’s current big idea, I traced the path of a long-dead St. Petersburg customs official named Alexander Radischev. In 1790, the 28th year of Catherine the Great’s reign, the middle-aged father of four wrote a book called A Journey from Petersburg to Moscow…

With plenty of detours, I visited hospitals, farmsteads, nightclubs and monasteries. At nearly every stop, I heard something that isn’t yet a fully formed National Idea but is perhaps more of a slogan: “Everything is coming back.” This meant a lot of things. Some were talking about rising salaries, others about how Russia had re-emerged as a counterweight to America. But more than anything, they were talking about a return to Russia’s prerevolutionary sense of itself, strong and traditionbound, rooted in religion and autocracy but with a full bank account and a sleek new weapon in oil.

“Do Russians really want to be free?”

Russians are turning inward at the very moment that the Kremlin is mounting a brazen power grab. Governors are no longer elected, just appointed by the President. Opposition leaders are harassed with new antiterrorism laws. Putin’s United Russia Party won a grossly uncompetitive election on Dec. 2. By and large, the Russian people offer little protest.

This raises an old question: Do Russians really want to be free? Russians are, after all, the people who actually begged Ivan the Terrible to return to rule them after he threatened to abdicate. As Radischev put it, Russians “come to love their bonds.”

These bonds — and their modern equivalent, Putin’s paper-thin democracy — are increasingly seen as not only tolerable but also intrinsically, uniquely, gloriously Russian. The Kremlin and its backers use new catchphrases like sovereign democracy to intone that they have their unique form of freedom. The West just wouldn’t understand…Russians are still looking for greatness, on their terms.

We had come to Cinque Terre to hike the Blue Trail that hugs the cliffs and rocks along the Mediterranean just north of La Spezia and south of Genoa. The trails were created hundreds of years ago by hardy peasants who trudged from one remote town to another to work the vineyards or trade their wares. Ten years ago the five small towns of the Cinque Terre and the trails that link them were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site…

We set off with two bottles of water and a couple of bananas and chocolate bars in a backpack. We took the twisting cobblestoned streets that led to the sea and a glorious flat section of graveled trail along the cliff edge leading to the town of Corniglia. The most heart-stopping moment along this stretch was a short suspension bridge. I hesitated only a moment before clutching its swaying railings and plunging across with eyes closed. An hour later we stared up at the 365 steps that led from the trail abutting Corniglia’s railroad station to the village above where we would pick up the trail toward the next town of Vernazza.

I’ve hiked the same trail, by the way, and while it is certainly a workout, I don’t remember it as being quite as frightening or heart-stopping as she describes. The views, on the other hand, are that spectacular and will take your breath away.