Our Third Annual : Tours...

Every year, Ann H. Waigand, publisher of the Educated Traveler newsletter, assembles a directory of museum-sponsored tours for her subscribers. And for the last three years, Waigand has selected 10 favorites for The Times from the roughly 300 tours listed in each annual directory. Here are her top 10 for 1995--an eclectic list that stretches from Arizona to South Africa, and from Mexican butterflies to the underappreciated works of the Italian artist Sofonisba Anguissola.

The tours are arranged in chronological order. Travelers should note that prices are per person, presuming double occupancy, and are subject to change. Some prices include most meals and side trips; others don’t. Tours are subject to availability and organizers note that circumstances can force changes in, or cancellation of, itineraries. For more information, contact individual institutions at the numbers or addresses that follow.

(Subscriptions to the Educated Traveler are available at P.O. Box 220822, Chantilly, Va. 22022; telephone 800-648-5168. Cost is $39 for six issues per year, and Waigand expects her 1995 museum tour directory to be ready later this month.)

Butterflies and Flowers of Mexico. Feb. 20-25. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2021 N. Kinney, Tucson, Ariz. 85743; tel. (602) 883-3020. Itinerary includes Mexico City, Zitacuaro (in the state of Michoacan) and Toluca, and several days at monarch butterfly winter roosting areas. Guide: Gary Nabhan, author, science adviser to the museum and MacArthur Fellowship recipient. Guest interpreters on the tour will include Robert Bye Jr., director of the Botanical Garden of Mexico’s National University; Joel Delgadillo, sanctuary manager for the protected area for monarchs at El Rosario; Alison Deming, Pulitzer Prize nominee for poetry who has written a cycle of poems on monarchs, and Luis Eguiarte, a bat pollination expert from the Centro de Ecologie of Mexico’s National University. The trip begins with visits to Mexico City’s three finest ecological centers, and spends several days at monarch butterfly winter roosting areas near Zitacuaro. Cost: $1,500, excluding round-trip air fare to Mexico City.

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Easter Island with the British Museum. Nov. 21-Dec. 4. British Museum Tours, 46 Bloomsbury St., London WC1B 3QQ, England; from the United States, tel. 011-44-171-323-8895 or fax 011-44-171-580-8677. This tour is led by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, author of “Easter Island: Archeology, Ecology and Culture,” (she spent 12 years researching the Chilean island and its famous stone statues). The tour includes eight nights on the island and three nights in Santiago, Chile. Cost: about $4,500 from London, or about $3,700, excluding round-trip air fare to Santiago.

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Sicily: Wildflowers among the Ruins. March 2-15. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara, 93101; tel. (805) 963-4364, Ext. 336. An exploration of gardens, mosaics, dialects and cuisine. Led by SBMA Chief Curator Robert Henning, the tour travels to Syracuse, Agrigento, Palermo and Taormina, all in Sicily, and Rome. Private visits with marchesi and principessas included. Among the venues: the villa and gardens of Il Biviere (lunch); the wine estate of Marco de Bartoli (lunch); the Palazzo Gangi (cocktails) and the Regaleali wine estate (lunch). Cost: $3,995, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles.

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Arizona History and Architecture. March 25-April 1. Smithsonian Study Tours and Seminars, 1100 Jefferson Drive S.W., Room 3045, MRC 702, Washington, D.C. 20560; tel. (202) 357-4700. An exploration of the state’s cultural history, focused primarily on architecture. Lodgings are in Tucson and Phoenix, with visits to the 17th-Century Mission San Javier Del Bac (near Tucson), the Arizona Biltmore Hotel (Phoenix), Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West and Paolo Soleri’s still-fledgling “city of the future,” Arcosanti. Cost: $1,625, excluding transportation to Tucson.

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Istanbul to Damascus. April 19-May 4. American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, N.Y. 10024; tel. (212) 769-5700 or (800) 462-8687. Riding the rails on the privately chartered Anatolian Express, travelers pass through Istanbul, Ephesus,Konya, Cappadocia, Antioch, Hama, Palmyra, Maalula, and Damascus. Sites include the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace of Istanbul, the Turkish underground city of Kaymakli, the Syrian medieval citadel at Aleppo and the 8th-Century Omayyad Mosque of Damascus. Cost: $8,490, including air fare from New York.

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Italy, with the National Museum of Women in the Arts. April 25-May 7. National Museum of Women in the Arts, c / o tour operator International Seminar Design, Inc., 3803 Van Ness St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016; tel. (202) 244-1448. The focus of the program is Renaissance and Baroque periods of art in Italy, but with careful attention given to three women artists represented in the National Museum of Women in the Arts collection: Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana and Artemisia Gentileschi. Led by Nancy Lodge, professor of art history at American University, the tour visits Milan, Bergamo, Cremona, Mantua, Bologna, Ravenna, Florence, Ferrara, Padua and Venice. Cost: $3,550, excluding round-trip air fare to Milan.

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Paris and Prague: Renaissance Now and Again. May 2-16. UCLA Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center and UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, c / o tour operator, Crown International Travel Inc., 10801 National Blvd., Suite 510, Los Angeles, 90064-4243, (310) 475-5661 or (800) 421-9537. Led by Henry Hopkins, director of the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, and David Rodes, director of the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, the tour is built around the Paris showing of a traveling Grunwald Center exhibition, “The French Renaissance in Paris.” In Paris, there will be visits to galleries, studios and private collections ranging from Renaissance to contemporary art, with a special tour of Frank Gehry’s new American Center. In Prague, there will be in-studio visits with Prague artists and a private preview of the National Gallery (scheduled to open in September), all led by artist and curator Barbara Benish. Tour dates in Prague also coincide with the opening of the Prague Spring Festival, a respected classical music event. Cost: $6,400, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles.

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London Behind Closed Doors. June 8-16. The Art Institute of Chicago, Membership Programs, 111 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60603-6110; tel. (312) 443-3917 or, to reach tour operator Academic Travel Abroad Inc., (800) 556-7896. The emphasis here is on art and antiques. Itinerary includes a tour of Parliament with a member of the House of Lords, a meeting with a well-known art critic, attendance at the Grosvenor Antiques Fair, a curator-led tour of the Tate Gallery, afternoon tea in a private house and dinner at the Reform Club, former haunt of prime ministers Lord Henry John Temple Palmerston and Sir Winston Churchill. Cost: $3,650, including air fare from Chicago.

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South Africa, Botswana and Victoria Falls. Sept. 20-Oct. 4. National Geographic on Tour, P.O. Box 96097, Washington, D.C., 20090; tel. (202) 857-7500. A destination so far largely overlooked by other programs. This itinerary includes Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg and day trips to a private game park in South Africa; a ride on the Blue Train to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe; day tips in or near Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe and Chobe National Park in Botswana and a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. Cost: $7,950, including air fare from New York.

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Exotic India: Total Solar Eclipse. Oct. 15-26. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, 90007; tel. (213) 744-3350. Oct. 15-26. The eclipse is only total for a minute, but there’s plenty more to the trip. Stops include Delhi (bazaars, mosques, a medieval observatory), Agra (the Taj Mahal), Jaipur (camel-drawn carts and an 18th-Century observatory) and Sikar, where travelers will watch the eclipse from a private tented camp near the center of the eclipse path. Cost: $4,390, including air fare from Los Angeles.