After decades of reporting from Israel for NBC News, Martin Fletcher found that the summer break he took to walk the entire Mediterranean coastline of Israel

shined an entirely new light on the people and the history of the Middle East.

When you think of what happened, the events of the Bible, Alexander the Great, the Crusaders,

Saladine, the Ottoman Turks, Napoleon, Israel today of course, you know, there's no hundred miles in the world that

compares in fascination.

And the former Paris Bureau Chief for the New York Times reveals what she realized about the

French, that their lifelong dedication to flirting seems to enhance

their self-confidence.

It's the kind of place where men of all ages look at women of all ages, and we're not used

to that in America.

Today on Travel with Rick Steve's, two foreign correspondence

revealed the back stories on the culture they've been living in

to help us better understand contemporary tensions in Israel and how Parisians make playing the game of life so seductive.

It's Travel with Rick Steves.

Hi, I'm Rick Steves.

One summer, journalist Martin Fletcher took a hike and discovered the essence of the Middle East.

Coming up today on travel with Rick Steeves, he'll explain how his 100mile walk along the Mediterranean coast of Israel

taught him more about the people of that region than 30 years of reporting as an American

TV correspondent. He joins us a little later in the hour.

Elaine Schiolino is also an American journalist with a keen eye for detail.

When she moved to Paris, she quickly learned that her American approach to getting information doesn't always work in France.

She joined us by phone a while back from her Paris home to tell us about her favorite hidden

...