Week 1: Oxford, England

Oxford, "that sweet City with her dreaming spires,"’ is a jewel in the heritage of Great Britain and one of the most famous cities in Europe. Since AD 1200 it has been the home of Britain’s oldest university and, over the course of eight centuries, the birthplace of no less than 39 official Colleges and seven Permanent Private Halls, all of which have established Oxford as one of the world's leading centers of learning and magnificent architecture.

Whether it’s at the University’s Bodleian Library, Radcliffe Camera, Sheldonian Theatre, University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Examination Schools or the colleges themselves, with their beautiful chapels and gardens, history and beauty come together here in remarkable and breathtaking ways. History abounds at the Ashmolean Museum, Carfax Tower, Cornmarket Street and C.S. Lewis' beloved home, The Kilns. And nature is to be reveled in the parks, meadows, and Botanic Garden.

Week 2: Cambridge, England

Cambridge is famous for the excellence of its university and renowned for the magnificence of King’s College Chapel, whose Christmas Eve Services of “Lessons and Carols” are broadcast worldwide. It is celebrated too for the beauty of its colleges, which for seven centuries have had wealth and skill lavished on them, a succession of distinguished architects having contributed to one of the finest collections of buildings in Europe.

The willow-lined River Cam winds along the backs of the ancient colleges, providing an unrivaled setting for them. Punting along the river is a particularly enjoyable way to experience the extraordinary combination of rural tranquility and architectural beauty – a combination reflecting the harmonious variety of Cambridge.

It is a city of contrasts and changing vistas, with narrow alleys that suddenly open into wide dignified courts, bustling streets alongside venerable college buildings – and where cattle graze only a few hundred yards from the marketplace.

Notwithstanding its fame and the magnificence of its buildings, the center of Cambridge is quite small, with the charm of a market town. It is an ideal place for strolling. Wander through the streets and colleges, peep in through Tudor gatehouses, look up at exuberant clusters of pinnacles and remember that Erasmus, Newton, Darwin, Milton, Pepys, Stephen Hawking, and, yes, C.S. Lewis are just a few among the many illustrious scholars who have called Cambridge home.