You'll never take the great art masterpieces of Europe for granted when you know what

people had to do to protect them during World War II. The Mona Lisa was moved on

five separate occasions during the war. In a minute Robert Edsel reminds us of the men and women who risked their lives

to safeguard so many of the world's most important artistic and cultural treasures.

Fred Plutkins back with us to expand our search and maybe our waistlines for the culinary

highlights in four of Italy's lesser appreciated regions.

They show off their wines to its best advantage by creating food to go with the wine rather than the other way around.

While growing up on a farm in Belgium, Nina Derex remembers that lunch was the main meal of the day.

Usually they had soup.

Often pigeon soup, because Belgiumians particularly like pigeon racing and all the losers went

into the soup.

The comfort foods of Belgium, the treats of Beck Road Italy, and the debt we owe to saving the art we love.

It's just ahead on Travel with Rick Steves.

Italy has long been home to a magnificent variety of great foods and drinks,

the kind that gets you in touch with the season and the lands around you.

On today's travel with Rick Steve's Fred Plotkin tips us off on less traveled places in Italy,

or you can even indulge in some of the same kinds of treats the early Romans enjoyed,

or the cheese that brought Michelangelo down from his scaffolding for a lunch break.

And friends from Belgium tell us about the comfort foods

of their youth. We'll see how tasty the real home of French fries can get and how far our taste buds have come over the years.

Let's open the hour with a Veterans Day tribute to the men and women who protected

the great art of Europe from being plundered or destroyed during the Second World War.

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