By SIMON ROBINSON

NORTH AMERICA

ANDERSONVILLE
Built on the site of a notorious Civil War prison camp where 13,000 Union soldiers--almost one-third of the inmates--died of cold and hunger, the new National Prisoner of War Museum, 220 km south of Atlanta, Georgia, is a sobering reminder of the miseries endured by captured soldiers through the ages. The exhibits in the 900-sq-m barracks-style complex chronicle the depressingly similar experiences of the estimated 800,000 American pows from the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War through memorabilia, diaries and letters, contemporary film footage, taped interviews with former pows, and interactive simulations of wartime capture, camp life and the transition to freedom.

EUROPE

PARIS
With his bold use of line and color and his fondness for violent and macabre scenes, the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) provoked the scorn of contemporary critics--and the admiration of the Impressionists and Expressionists who came after him. To mark the 200th anniversary of his birth, Paris is hosting three concurrent exhibitions. "Delacroix: The Romantic Line," at Galeries Mansart and Mazarine, focuses on his engravings and lithographs; "Delacroix and Villot," at the Eugene Delacroix Museum, looks at the personal and artistic relationship between the master and his friend and copyist Frederic Villot; and "Delacroix: The Last Years," at the Grand Palais, brings together more than 100 paintings, drawings and watercolors from the 1850s. Other Delacroix exhibitions are planned this year in Bayonne, Chantilly, Paris, Rouen, Tours, Versailles and Charenton, the artist's birthplace.

GREAT BRITAIN
There's no Highway to Hell on the Rock and Pop Map of Britain, but there are enough real places with musical connections to keep an omnivorous enthusiast on the road for months--and fuel a dozen games of Trivial Pursuit. The map pinpoints locales that inspired famous songs (Paul Simon wrote Homeward Bound at Widnes railway station); stars' former workplaces, including the Birmingham slaughterhouse where Ozzy Osbourne "processed" carcases; and memorable meeting points such as TJ's nightclub in Newport, where Kurt Cobain proposed to Courtney Love. There are also concert venues and sites featured on album covers or in video clips. The free, pocket-sized map unfolds into a poster with a guitar- and amp-shaped Britain on one side and site information on the other. Contact British Tourist Authority offices.

WORLD

TOURISM
Tourists, voting with their feet, made France the world's most popular nation in 1997. According to the World Tourism Organization, 11% of the 620 million leisure trips made globally last year ended in the land of Citroens and croissants. Runners-up were the U.S., Spain, Italy, the U.K., China, Mexico, Poland, Hungary and Canada. In the East Asian Top 5, China, with 34 million arrivals (10 million in Hong Kong), was followed by Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.