Evenings with Experts

Out of challenging times, innovations are born. Thanks to hundreds of Connoisseurs travelers who have joined us for our Evenings with Experts series featuring leading scholars, professors, writers, gardeners, and other experts featured on past and future journeys. 

We’re excited to continue the programming of The Journey Begins Now with our Evenings with Experts. As part of a benefit of traveling on a Connoisseurs Journey, guests receive exclusive invitations to join presentations with featured experts prior to traveling with them. This is an opportunity to engage with the journey’s focus, history, and culture prior to departure.

Viewing Library

Connoisseurs members have exclusive access to our Evenings with Experts viewing library.

Join Julian Brown as he delves into the history, landscape, and cuisine of Provence, the sun-bathed and herb-filled part of France immortalized by generations of artists in search of its unique light. A perfumed potpourri of popes, painters, pastis, and béret-clad pétanque-players awaits us in this enchanting region. There will also be time for you to ask questions after the presentation.

Julian Brown was the featured expert on the C’est La Belle Vie: Rhône River Journey in September 2021.

About Julian Brown
Born in England, Julian Brown made his home in Paris over thirty years ago. He began leading tours around Europe in the early 1980s whilst studying French and Spanish at university and now spends much of each year conducting museum visits and historical walking tours in the French capital. He holds a PhD on ancient Vietnamese art history, and regularly leads tours through the French provinces, Italy, Spain and Southeast Asia. Books and classical music compete with travel, art and history as his main passions.

Join Tom Gallegos as he provides a rich introduction to the storied and ancient history of Santa Fe - from its time as an important Native American city to its role in Spanish colonialism.

Tom Gallegos was the featured expert on Sense of Place: A Journey to Taos and Santa Fe in June 2021.

About Tom Gallegos
Tom provides cultural and educational tours throughout northern New Mexico. He helps visitors experience Santa Fe, native Pueblos, Spanish villages, the beautiful outdoors and unique cuisine. He holds Master’s degrees from Arizona State University and the University of Kansas. Tom is a native of Taos and currently lives in Santa Fe.

Stede Bonnet's career as the "Gentleman Pirate" may represent the worst midlife crisis on record. In 1717, Bonnet, a retired British army major with a large sugar plantation in Barbados, abandoned his wife, children, land and fortune; bought a ship; and turned to piracy on the high seas. Though his crew and fellow pirates judged him to be an inept captain, Bonnet's adventures earned him the nickname "the Gentleman Pirate," and today his legend lingers in the annals of pirate history. But why did a man who seemed to have everything give it all up for a life of crime?

Dr. Jarvis is one of the featured experts joining us for the Barbados: George Washington, The American Colonies and the British Empire in the Caribbean journey in February 2022.

About Dr. Michael Jarvis
Dr. Michael Jarvis is an Associate Professor at the University of Rochester, where he researches and teaches early American, U.S., and Maritime Atlantic history. He earned both his MA and Ph.D. from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. In addition to his teaching, Dr. Jarvis has engaged in archaeological fieldwork for over 25 years. An expert on Caribbean and Atlantic trade, seafaring, slavery, architecture and social history, Jarvis has recently turned to the emerging fields of Digital History and Archaeology. Notable distinctions include the selection to deliver the inaugural address at The Drayton Hall Distinguished Speakers Series, guest lecturer at The General Society of Colonial Wars’ 2015 assembly in Bermuda, and receiving the James A. Rawley Atlantic History Prize from the American Historical Association for his book In the Eye of All Trade (2010) for its insights into intercolonial links and maritime slavery.

Emma Matthews, a London native, will virtually introduce us to the neighborhood of Chelsea, one of the most sought after areas. Its numerous specialty shops, elegant restaurants and unique fashion can all be found on the regal Kings Road. Just a short walk from Kensington Palace and the Royal Albert Hall, Chelsea is brimming with history and character. We’ll also discuss several important landmarks including the Royal Hospital and an overview of the famous Chelsea Flower Show.

Emma Matthews was one of the featured experts who joined us for the Friends of Sulgrave Manor: Journey to Sulgrave Manor journey.

About Emma Matthews
Emma Matthews was born and brought up in London. She went to Cambridge University to study History and Law then practiced as a Barrister at the Inner Temple, London. Afterwards, she joined the Government Legal Service handling human rights cases and later worked in the Court of Criminal Appeal. She left legal practice to bring up children George and Claudia and returned to work in 2007 founding a small art tours club. She took a degree in History of Art at Birkbeck College, London University specializing in British Art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She is also a qualified Blue Badge Guide for London, which qualifies her for many sites outside of London in the UK, especially heritage sites such as Canterbury and Bath or the famous Gloucestershire Cotswolds and the City of Oxford. While she has intimate knowledge of the major sites, she also knows the hidden nooks and crannies of London and the UK with its endless fascinating treasures for all “studious and curious” travelers.

War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin

A riveting Q&A with professor and multiple award-winning historian of Military and European History, Dr. John Morrow Jr. - this discussion is centered around the award-winning book and documentary "The War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin."

This Month in History, 1945: Crossing the Rhine, Q&A

In March 1945, British and American troops planned and executed crossings of the Rhine on their march to Berlin. The planned Rhine crossing near Wesel, on the northern part of the Rhine, was the largest amphibious and airborne operation mounted since D-Day. Late on March 23, two British and two US divisions (from the US Ninth Army) began to cross the river near Wesel. In this Q&A with award-winning professor and historian, Dr. John Morrow Jr., we discuss the events surrounding the Rhine river during this month 76 years ago.

Join Civil War Historian Jeff Miller for a lively presentation on the strategic, logistical and political factors that led up to Lee’s decision to take his army across the Potomac River in early September 1862.

Jeff Miller is the featured expert joining us for the Walking the Battlefields: Antietam, Harpers Ferry and Gettysburg journey.

About Jeff Miller
Jeffrey S. Miller is a lifelong student of the American Civil War. He holds degrees in history cum laude and theology and, prior to entering the ministry, worked for the National Park Service at several historic sites, including Antietam National Battlefield. Over the years he has taught courses on the Civil War and led numerous private tours of the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields. He is a member of Pi Gamma Mu (International Honor Society in Social Science), Phi Alpha Theta (International Honor Society in History) and the Fort Sumter Civil War Roundtable. He currently serves as the Rector of the historic St. Philip’s Church in Charleston, S.C.

Ladies of the Canyons is the true story of remarkable women who left the security and comforts of genteel Victorian society and journeyed to the American Southwest in search of a wider view of themselves and their world. Join Lesley Kempes as we gain insight into how these ladies imagined and created a new home territory, a new society, and a new identity for themselves and for the women who would follow them.

Lesley Kempes is one of the featured experts joining us for the Friends of Sulgrave Manor: Journey to Sulgrave Manor journey.

About Lesley Poling-Kempes
Lesley Poling-Kempes is the esteemed author of many award-winning books, including Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest. Lesley’s work has won the Reading the West Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, the WILLA Award for both Scholarly Nonfiction and Contemporary Fiction, the Tony Hillerman Award for Fiction, and has twice been among the WWA Spur Award finalists. Her book about the Harvey Girls and the Santa Fe Railway, based on 76 interviews Lesley conducted in the early 1980s, is considered the definitive work on the subject and era in women’s history. The Harvey Girls was given the Zia Award for Excellence by the New Mexico Press Women.

Gardening expert and London Telegraph weekly columnist, Helen Yemm, shares the genesis of her amazing book Gardening in Pyjamas and guides us on gardening projects and tips during these different circumstances we find ourselves in collectively.

Helen Yemm is one of the featured experts joining us for the Friends of Sulgrave Manor: Journey to Sulgrave Manor journey.

About Helen Yemm
Helen Yemm delights in demystifying the whole gardening process, and has been fielding readers' gardening problems through her weekly light-hearted but essentially practical Daily Telegraph page for more than a decade. She has hosted gardening television shows – Gardening From Scratch on BBC2, and another BBC daytime series, Gardening Week. Nowadays, as well as the weekly Thorny Problems page (an eclectic mix of musings and agony-aunt-style garden advice), Helen writes other features for The Telegraph and for various magazines.  Her previous books include Gardening in Your Nightie (2000) - revised and updated to become Gardening in Your Pyjamas - and RHS Grow Your Own Flowers (2011). From Helen, “I am really just a passionate muddy-gloves-and-wellies gardener blessed with the gift of the gab.”