TRAVEL Cool it in July With Exciting Travel

Forget the heat and humidity, and join Channel 13 for new, far-flung adventures in July! You can travel the historic highways of the world in the new, eight-part series Great Journeys, which airs Mondays at 8 p.m. beginning July 16 on 13. Writer Colin Thubron, author of Behind the Wall, leaves behind the traditional images of China-rice fields, Communism and Mao Zedong-to discover the farmers and traders who make the Silk Road work. Then escape to Russia’s Road West on July 23, where your tour guide is Norman Stone, Oxford University professor of modem history. Stone journeys from historic Leningrad, heading toward Estonia on a night train, where he exchanges vodka and views with his fellow passengers. On July 30, take The Burma Road with author and journalist Miles Kington, who sets out to find the old road that links Burma to China across a tortuous mountain road-but finding it isn’t as easy as he’d hoped. The Burmese want to deny the road’s existence, and the Chinese seem almost unaware of it.

Mark your calendars for an unforgettable trip to Paris with Clive James on the premiere of Postcards, which airs at 8 p.m. beginning July 19 on 13. You’ll meet novelist Francoise Sagan and Chanel model Ines de la Freffange. Visit the races with the aristocracy, and walk in the Arab quarter. Catch glimpses of avant-garde opera and architecture. Then, on July 26, hop a ride to Rio de Janeiro, an intoxicating city of sun, sand, music, careless wealth and tragic poverty. You’ll see plastic surgeons who devote their lives to preserving the beauty of the rich and, nearby, a generation of poor struggling to keep themselves and their families alive.

Also on Channel 13 this month, chart the oceans with Jacques Cousteau (above) and The Cousteau Odyssey Mondays at 7 p.m. Adventure, Thursdays at 7 p.m., takes you to Central America, the Himalayas, the Everglades and Japan. Sundays, at 8 p.m., beginning July 15. National Geographic Specials transport you to Africa, Australia and the forests of the Amazon. It’s all on Channel 13-and it’s all first-class travel!