Smart Travels With Rudy Maxa: Four Great Cities II / Europe Just ForFun / A Music Lover's Europe - DVD

Three episodes plus bonus clips Belgium is a hub for gourmets and connoisseurs. Treat yourselves to chocolate and first-rate beer. Indulge in folk music and Bruegel paintings, and investigate a passion for comic strips. Then drive to breathtaking Bruges, a medieval city suspended in time. Cruise canals, admire handmade lace and pay homage to a Michelangelo masterpiece. Netherlands inspired the Dutch masters and conquered the sea. Bicycle to Amsterdams great art museums to see the works of Van Gogh and Rembrandt. Climb to the attic where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. Prowl windmills and check out the infamous red-light district. Finally, peek at the delightful city of Delft and learn how the world-renowned China is made. * International Communicator Crystal Award Denmark Vikings plundered and Hans Christian Andersen spun childrens stories in the Kingdom of Denmark. In Copenhagen, we splurge on pastries, visit the Little Mermaid and dance at Tivoli Gardens. We check out three well-preserved Viking ships in Roskilde. Then stroll writer Karen Blixens gardens and storm the moat at Prince Hamlets Castle.

Two episodes plus bonus clips. Barcelona simmers with beautiful beaches, medieval mazes, eye popping art and hypnotic architecture. From tapas bars to surrealist art to Modernist structures, well feast on Barcelonas delights. Rambles along La Rambla, Gaudis treasures, a neighborhood festival, designer shopping and waterfront fun are highlights. For the best in beaches we head north to the coves of the Costa Brava. Madrid welcomes with grand plazas and sparkling fountains. Madrids pride is the Prado, one of Europes great museums and home to paintings by Goya, El Greco and Velzquez. After dark we sway to the rhythms of flamenco dancers and lose ourselves in pulsating nightlife. Then we day-trip to the imperial city of Toledo to roam the twisting streets and narrow alleyways of this historic center.

The musical tour starts in the Bernese Alps, which offer some of the finest scenery in Switzerland, with glaciers and snow-covered expanses, waterfalls, mountain lakes, and the towering Matterhorn. The Nymphenburg Palace and Park, in Munich, present a contrast, in their baroque elegance. The tour ends with glimpses of the Chiemsee, the largest of the Bavarian lakes, with it's three wooded islands, on one of which Wagner's patron, King Ludwig II, built his folly, the Schloss Herrenchiemsee. Music for the tour is taken from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, one of the best known of all romantic concertos. This is followed by his 'Souvenir d'un lieu Cher,' three pieces originally for violin and piano, but here orchestrated by the composer Glazunov.