Step inside one of the strangest, most beautiful buildings in Paris: the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Frank Gehry’s glass-sailed art museum on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. In this episode of Walking Tour of France, we trace the building’s origin story – from a fateful visit to the Guggenheim Bilbao, through a decade-long legal fight over a public footpath, to the robot-molded concrete and hand-curved glass that finally brought Gehry’s sketch of a fleet of sails to life in 2014.

The tour walks you from the mirrored water garden out front, through an intimate underground gallery, up past a glowing fish-shaped sculpture, and out onto rooftop terraces with sweeping views toward the Eiffel Tower and La Défense. Along the way, you’ll pick up practical tips on timed tickets, the best light for photos, and a quieter terrace most visitors miss.

We also cover where to eat nearby – the Michelin-trained kitchen at Le Frank inside the museum, and the relaxed garden terrace of La Terrasse du Jardin next door – plus nearby sites worth adding to your day, including the Jardin d’Acclimatation amusement park, the rose gardens of the Parc de Bagatelle, and the Impressionist masterpieces of the Musée Marmottan Monet.

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Step inside one of Paris's most remarkable and underappreciated museums - the Musee de Cluny, France's National Museum of the Middle Ages, tucked into the Latin Quarter at the intersection of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Boulevard Saint-Michel. In this episode, we explore a building that is actually three places layered on top of each other: a Roman bath complex built around 200 AD, a stunning flamboyant Gothic mansion constructed by the Abbot of Cluny between 1484 and 1510, and one of the world's finest collections of medieval art. We walk through the ancient frigidarium - the cold room of the baths - with its fourteen-meter vaulted ceiling, and spend time with the extraordinary Pillar of the Boatmen, the oldest carved monument in Paris. We visit the gallery of the decapitated Kings of Judah, whose stone heads were lost during the French Revolution and not recovered until 1977. We move through galleries of Visigothic gold crowns, Limoges enamelwork, medieval stained glass from the Sainte-Chapelle, and rich tapestries. And we arrive at the heart of the museum: the circular room where six mysterious tapestries known as the Lady and the Unicorn hang in low light, their meaning still debated after five centuries. For food, we recommend Maison Cluny, the Michelin-listed bistro directly across from the museum garden serving classic French fare, and Le Reminet, a charming small restaurant near the Seine with inventive cooking in an intimate room.

Nearby sites to add to your visit include Notre-Dame Cathedral - now fully restored - the Sainte-Chapelle with its extraordinary floor-to-ceiling stained glass, the Pantheon with its burial vaults of France's greatest figures, and Shakespeare and Company, the iconic English-language bookshop on the Left Bank.

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In this episode of Walking Tour of France, we climb the Eternal Hill of Vézelay in Burgundy to explore the Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene - one of the greatest Romanesque churches in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We trace the basilica's origins from a 9th-century Benedictine monastery to its peak as one of medieval Christianity's most important pilgrimage destinations, a starting point for the route to Santiago de Compostela and the site where crusades were launched. Along the way, we examine the extraordinary tympanum sculpture above the central portal of the narthex, walk the striped Romanesque nave with its hundred carved capitals, and step into the Gothic choir where the light transforms the space entirely. We explore the deliberate solar design that creates a path of light along the nave floor at the summer solstice, and recount the 19th-century restoration that saved the building from collapse - work carried out by a young architect who would go on to restore Notre-Dame de Paris. For dining, we cover Restaurant la Terrasse for terrace meals with a basilica view, Le Cheval Blanc for traditional Burgundian cuisine, Le Relais du Morvan for grilled meats and regional warmth, and Le P'tit V for local wines and cheese. We also highlight nearby destinations including the Gothic church and Roman baths in the village of Saint-Pere, the medieval fortified town of Avallon, the Morvan Regional Natural Park, and the Cistercian abbey of Fontenay.

Visit NorthStarTravelers.com to explore our other podcast shows and browse gear recommendations for wherever your next journey takes you.