A visit to the Nordic countries is a visit to Europe's most content corner, and for good reason. The head of UC Berkeley's Nordic Center explains what Americans can learn from the region's pragmatic approach to prosperity, sustainability, and security. And tour guides from Slovenia offer a tantalizing taste of the comfort foods you can savor in their country, where the culinary influences of neighboring lands add variety to the menu.

The director of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art tells us how a small city in Arkansas became home to a major art museum. Then author Rick Antonson describes how motoring west along the legendary Route 66 can reveal easily overlooked slices of Middle America. Plus, a Dutch tour guide discusses Amsterdam's reliance on bicycles — and what visitors should know before jumping into the bike lane.

At a time of year when, according to some cultures, the worlds of the living and the dead come a little closer together, a historian joins us to explain how vampire stories arose from eastern European legends of the "undead." Then Irish writer Fintan O'Toole describes the role of the supernatural in Celtic traditions and in more recent Irish literature. And listeners describe eerie encounters they've experienced while traveling in Europe.