Samantha Brown's Places to Love

-I'm traveling through one of the most stunning stretches of earth and sea in the world, where the fury of the Pacific meets the curve of the cliffs and all the bountiful land in between, where the owners of a winery are the ones pouring the wine, where farm stands give lessons in history and hard work, and a famous road and family restaurant have been bringing people around the world together for over 60 years.

This is where a tenacious abundance of landscape, ocean, and people meet.

This is Big Sur and Monterey Bay, California.

I'm Samantha Brown, and I've traveled all over this world.

And I'm always looking to find the destinations, the experiences, and, most importantly, the people who make us feel like we're really a part of a place.

That's why I have a love of travel and why these are my places to love.

Samantha Brown's "Places to Love" is made possible by... -Europe is a treasure trove of fascinating history, rich culture, and renowned cities.

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-"Away"... ...is the smell of fresh pine.

It's a place where giants still live.

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Find your "away."

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-With its Pacific Coast Highway stretching 655 miles, California has one of the most epic road trips you can take, and I'll be traveling through a small but monumental part of it, starting just a few hours south of San Francisco and making my way to the incredible Big Sur.

But I begin my trip in the ocean.

I'm starting this trip at a place that gives us a window into another world -- the nonprofit institution Monterey Bay Aquarium, a pioneer in the preservation and protection of marine life.

-So, we're mesmerized by the sharks, the jellyfish, and the octopus.

But we love sea otters.

-And you're not in the minority because they look so cute.

I'm Maribel Andonian, and I'm a volunteer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

-Is that one otter or two?

-That's one.

That's one otter doing somersaults.

This is my favorite place in the world to visit, and it's also my favorite place to share with visitors.

The kelp forest was a big gamble for the aquarium.

This is what started everything.

The forefounders of the aquarium were all divers, and they wanted to be able to share their experience diving in the kelp forest with people who don't dive and planned an exhibit to look like what it is they they see when they went diving off the deck of the aquarium.

-So, you're saying that this was a difficult habitat to create?

-It was one that had never been created before.

-In the world?

-In the world.

Ever.

No one had ever tried to exhibit giant kelp.

So, in 1984 when the aquarium opened, this was the signature exhibit.

In the wild, it can be 90 feet tall... -What?

-...and it grows 18 inches a day, so it's the fastest-growing plant on earth, but it is a plant.

-And is it undulating, is it moving naturally?

Are you using the bay's own movement, or is there a machine?

-There is a machine, and it's creating a wave that's moving the water around.

It's also open to the air and to the sunlight because it's a plant, so it needs sunlight to photosynthesize.

-This is the magic of this aquarium, is that you don't know what is habitat and what is real.

I mean, you really could think that actually we're just peering outside right now into the water.

-We are.

Exactly.

That is exactly right.

-There's that illusion.

-Yes.

There is.

And I have been diving out there, and it looks exactly like this.

-That magic continues with the incredible "Open Sea" -- a 1-million-gallon exhibit with a 90-foot panoramic window that reveals the incredible intersection of the ocean's travelers, both fast and slow.

-These are open-water species that you would find in the ocean.

So, we've got some tunas, we've got sardines at the bottom, we've got mahimahis swimming around at the top.

-And you just see the fish swirling and moving and undulating.

It's just mesmerizing.

-It is.

This gives you insight into some of the animals that really need protection.

-And when visitors come to this aquarium, we're here for the enjoyment, for, of course, the education.

And that's why you're in an amazing aquarium.

But you're also an advocacy group.

-Absolutely.

-And your client is the ocean, really.

-Our client is the ocean, and the message is that we are all part of this huge ecosystem, and we need to preserve all of it for our own purposes.

-This sheephead is a dominant male.

-When people come to the aquarium, they have a chance to see what is under the water.

Most of the time, people can only see what's on top of the water, and all they see is pretty much a blank space.

Underneath the water is where all the action is.

-So, as you're driving down the road, you're just going past mile after mile of beautiful produce, and you're looking at the vegetables trying to judge from its leafy, green head what kind of vegetable it is, and it's just best to stop off at one of the farm stands because that tells you right away what's in those fields.

I was going past a field of artichokes.

I've never seen artichokes grow out of the land, and this is Pezzini Farms.

And look at that.

They've been family farmed since 1929.

And these are heirloom Green Globe artichokes from Italy.

The actual root came here from Italy, and they've grown all these from one mother root.

It is unbelievable.

It's pretty amazing to think of "heirloom."

You see that word a lot -- heirloom tomatoes.

And usually, they plant a seed that they find to bring it back, and yet your family has never lost it.

It's actually your heirloom that your family's been bringing up for close to 80 years?

-Right.

My great-grandpa Valentino, he brought it over from Italy with a couple of his brothers and some other Italian immigrants.

And they planted it here, and it's the same root system that's just been producing for years and years and passed down through the generations.

-How many harvests do you have?

Is it year-round?

-We harvest year-round, but spring is by far the main harvest.

-Oh, okay.

-And then these ones, they take about 9 months to actually form the artichoke so they have a lot of meat on them and it's very flavorful.

-So, the pictures here tell your family story beautifully.

So, who's that young gentleman right there?

-That's my grandpa Guido as a kid.

And then the picture to the right is his dad, the first-generation Valentino.

My dad Tony.

-Tony.

Yeah, and he's on the right over there.

And this picture over here is me and my brother.

I'm the one on the right and there's my brother.

-Have you ever thought about that?

That your great-grandfather bringing that one root with him over on a ship to the United States allowed you to set down roots?

-Yeah.

-Incredible.

-That's pretty neat.

And I think it'll, you know, generation after generation, it's gonna continue, too.

-Great-grandfather is Valentino.

Your grandfather's Guido.

Your dad is Tony.

How'd you get "Sean"?

-My name is Kim Solano.

I'm a restaurateur here in the heart of the Marine Sanctuary of Monterey Bay.

-Within that heart is the tiny town of Moss Landing, home to Kim's restaurant and gallery, The Haute Enchilada.

-These are halibut cheeks.

And this is Arroz Cataluna.

Here in my restaurant, I try to bring together my love of the ocean, the land, and love for the arts.

These are crusted in gluten-free panko and Parmesan cheese, and then it's got a nice beurre blanc sauce with a caper berry.

-So, you're not just Mexican.

You're -- -No, we're a Latin fusion.

We have Cuban dishes, we have some Brazilian dishes.

It really is a fusion.

-I'm joining Kim and her father, Ray, who's also a restaurateur.

In fact, her place is a direct spin-off of his -- the Whole Enchilada, a Moss Landing institution since 1979.

You have one restaurant, you have the other.

Your mission is very similar in that you want to be something even bigger than just a great meal along the way.

-Right.

-You want people to think about where their vegetables come from.

-Right.

-You want to think about the land that they're looking out on and the sea that they're looking out on.

You really want to connect the dots here.

-Right.

Mixing things together.

It's just like this world.

We have to learn how to work together, how to blend together, how to do this, and this comes through with food.

Because we're not only white, blue, or black.

We're gonna be a mix.

That is what we need to do in this world is make it better for all of us.

-Both father and daughter have a passion for food that goes beyond feeding hungry locals and travelers.

Moss Landing is a little town that you could easily miss.

-Mm-hmm.

-And that's exactly the kind of town you want to drive into when you're on a long trip, you know, up the coast.

It's perfect.

-Moss Landing is really a unique little area -- small, but beautiful, and it has a lot to offer.

-What I love about your restaurant is that it's this really vibrant blend of not only food, but art and landscape.

And whether you're outside or inside, you're just a part of this joy.

It's really lovely.

And a major factor of the appeal of Kim's restaurant is the signature art of her husband, Luis.

-The art gallery really originally was all about him, and now we represent over 65 other artists as well as his work.

-Wow.

I love the Marilyn Monroe.

-Yeah, that worked out really well.

She was our artichoke queen.

-The very first one, right?

-Yeah.

-You knew that there were a lot of people traveling through seeing the coast.

-Oh, yeah.

-So, you saw that as a way to... -Yeah.

-...to be a part of that journey.

-Right.

-Because you really are a part of people's journeys when they stop by.

-We have a highway here that goes from San Francisco to the Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur.

Especially the Big Sur -- that we have that such beautiful area there.

It brings people from all over the world.

-And I'll be making my way along that highway to Big Sur.

But first, a stop near the lovely city of Santa Cruz, which is consistently cited as having some of the happiest residents in the United States.

-It's true a lot of people in Santa Cruz surf.

A lot of people around the world look at Santa Cruz as a community of surfers.

But we're so much more than that.

-You gonna start?

-Yeah.

I'm Marguerite Pizzano Nicholson.

-And I'm Brian Nicholson.

And we own a boutique winery in the Santa Cruz mountains.

I thought your middle name was Rose.

-That same fog that clears the way for the surfers of Santa Cruz ambles upwards to lay across its vineyards.

And how long have you had Nicholson Vineyards?

-Oh, we opened up in what?

2002?

-2002.

-Okay.

-About 15 years.

-All right.

-Yeah.

-And were the grapevines already here?

-No.

We planted all this.

In fact, this row, we planted with the headlights with our cars.

-Yeah?

-'Cause we had so many vines left over that we ran out of time and we had to put the headlights on this row.

And this is our best-producing row.

-Hi.

What would you like?

-Want to try the Chardonnay?

-Because agriculture is such a big part of our community, we truly have a great respect for the people who work the land.

-With three small blocks of grapes totaling four acres, Nicholson Vineyards is as personal a winery as you can visit.

You have a farming background?

-We both grew up with grandparents who owned ranches in the Santa Clara county and spent a lot of wonderful years running wild through cherry orchards and pear orchards.

And we wanted to have the opportunity to raise our family in that environment.

There's a lot of life lessons learned in a field.

-We though about Christmas trees.

-Yeah.

-Okay.

-And then we said, "Ehh, that's not it."

-They don't taste as good as wine.

-It's romantic, you know, so we did grapes, and we were selling grapes in the beginning, and then we won a gold medal as a home wine maker at the fair, and we said, "Maybe we should go commercial."

And we did, and she took over.

-We worked ourselves into a full-time responsibility.

Which we love.

But, you know, it's not just about the wine.

It's about sharing our love of the land.

It's about enjoying our little piece of heaven here.

It's about sharing our history.

That had a big part of motivating us to wanting to do this.

-Nicholson Winery has such an intimate production that the only way you can enjoy its wines are by ordering them online or making the trip.

That is wonderful, by the way.

-Oh, thank you.

-It has that crisp acidity that I love in a Chardonnay.

-Not too oaky.

-Right, it's not your typical California wine.

-No.

-DO you feel like you have to, like, re-educate people on what a California Chardonnay is?

-Every weekend.

-[ Laughs ] -Every weekend.

-So, why is this crisp?

Why is this fruity?

-You know, the history of the land is so rich with the fact that there were apples here for 100 years that we wanted to celebrate that.

We wanted to represent the land, and so it's very crisp, very citrusy, very clean, very refreshing, and it tells you a little story about the history of our land.

-This is your favorite?

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

Oh, that's perfect.

About an hour south from Santa Cruz is Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Yes, this is the town where Clint Eastwood was once mayor.

But there's a new kid in town, and he has created quite a buzz.

-My name is Jake Reisdorf, and my business is taking care of bees and making honey.

-So, you're 14 now.

-Mm-hmm.

-When did this all begin?

How old were you?

-So, around three to four years back, so I was 10, going on 11, and just kind of decided that this would be a cool thing to do.

My business started out as a homework assignment in the fifth grade.

I got an "A".

Not a "B".

[Chuckles] [ bee ] The assignment was -- there was kind of a real-world assignment where I got picked to be a website designer.

I was like, "Okay, but I have to have a topic to build my website off of."

I had taken a few beekeeping classes previously, and I decided, let's do it on bees.

So, I went out and got a hive, and I started, you know, keeping bees a little bit, and it just kind of grew and grew and grew.

I started selling honey to teachers and friends, and then we went to farmers' markets and just kind of worked our way up the ladder.

-You make it sound very easy, but you are keeping bees.

-Yes.

Thousands of stinging insects.

You have to be a little bit crazy to do that, I got to admit.

-What do you love most about bees?

Because you care for them.

-No bees, no food, no people.

Simple as that.

Yeah, I love the most about them is that they're kind of like their own encompassed city, basically.

They're able to survive on their own and, with a little bit of help from us, produce honey.

-Jake's family joined me in the tasting room at the back of the shop, where I learned that sampling honey is as precise as tasting wine.

-So, just grab your spoon and one of the wine glasses.

-Mm-hmm.

-You can smell it, and you kind of want to just smear it around the outside.

-Okay.

-Then you can smell it a little bit better.

-Oh, sure.

-Mm-hmm.

And then you just want to get a little bit of it and then give it a little taste.

-Ooh.

Oh, that's lovely.

-Mm-hmm.

-And so you have the jars, you're producing the honey, you're going to the farmers' markets.

-Mm-hmm.

-Now you have a shop.

Most parents, when they have to help with a homework assignment, it's, like, creating a diorama, right?

Cutting out that shoe box.

-Getting crafty.

-You now own a business.

-We do.

-Yes.

I think we took it a little too far, a little too literally.

-So, this is really a family effort.

You couldn't have done it without your family.

-Yeah, definitely.

-What I love about your business is you also give back.

-Yes.

I give back a portion of my proceeds.

Whenever you buy a jar of our honey, it gives back to honeybee research education.

-How are bees beneficial to where you live?

-Yes.

-'Cause you live in an agricultural land.

-Exactly.

So, they pollinate one out of the three bites of food that you eat, no matter where you are.

They are so essential to survival as a human race.

Without bees, we would die off.

I mean, it just wouldn't happen.

We'd have huge food shortages, and it would just not work, so... -I love it.

We're, as you know, as adults in this world, we're always talking about the children and the younger generation taking over and making things better, and the younger generation is here.

-Yeah.

-Good job.

Now I'm on my way to Big Sur.

Just enjoying the California coastline, one beautiful curve at a time.

I'm gonna be making a stop Garrapata State Park, and this is where the unofficial beginning of now the Big Sur land.

It's when you start to see that the houses are few, the cellphone service is zero, and the views just get better and better.

I wanted to come down to this beach here at Garrapata State Park because even though I'm following all along the coastline, it's one of the few places you can actually get on the beach -- you have access to the beach.

And I just wanted to get closer to the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Coast Highway, or California's State Road 1, was started in 1934, and it's over 650 miles of beautiful landscape, running from Orange County, south of Los Angeles, north to San Francisco.

It has been designated as an all-American road.

So, for me, Big Sur has always been this elusive destination.

Like, how big is it?

Is it a town?

Is it a region?

Is it a state of mind?

It's really all of the above, but there's no doubt that where I'm standing right now is its epicenter, and when you look out, through the Bixby Bridge and out towards the Pacific Ocean, that is when you can say, "I have been to Big Sur."

Okay, back in the car.

[ Car door closes ] Next day, I'm up bright and early to explore the PCH on a kind of vehicle I have never used before.

So, these are electric bikes.

I've never been on an electric bike.

-Basically, you have a throttle here, like a scooter.

Have you ridden a Vespa or anything like that?

-Yeah.

Sure.

-So, same concept there.

And then when you pedal, it automatically senses and launches you along.

-Okay.

So I still pedal, even though it's electric?

-You'll still pedal.

You can do it with just the throttle, but you won't get the same range.

So, for us to make it to the waterfall and back, you're going to have to work a little bit.

-Okay.

-Just go real gently, and point it in a safe direction away from the cliffs.

-Away from the cliffs.

-Yes.

-Thank you.

Whoo!

[ Chuckles ] This stunning stretch of the highway I'm biking along was cut off on two sides by mudslides in the spring of 2017, but since this ride, the northern closure has already opened up, and the southern closure is scheduled to be cleared by the summer of 2018.

But right now, we've got one of the most famous stretches of road all to ourselves.

And without the noise of cars, we can hear other things.

[ Sea lions barking ] Oh, yeah!

Look at them!

[ Chuckles ] -There you go.

-So, what are those?

Are those sea lions?

-Those are sea lions.

Yeah, the ones barking like that.

-They make a lot of noise.

-Golly.

They are going crazy.

-Something's happening there.

There's a point where you realize there's nothing between you and a 500-foot drop to the ocean.

I'm pretty sure that these big, huge, massive boulders that were placed were actually to tell us to stay on the other side.

-You think so?

Oh.

-That's just me.

[ Both laugh ] And now the exclamation point of our trip -- the McWay Waterfall.

-This is just obviously one of the most spectacular spots on the planet.

-Yeah.

And you were telling me that the Spanish conquistadors named Big Sur.

-It was inaccessible, so they skipped it.

They went through the Salinas Valley and all the way up around to Monterey, and they just called this "el pas grande del sur."

And it got slowly Anglicized into "Big Sur," so it was a Spanglish name.

-You know when the conquistadors can't get through something that it's pretty tough to get to.

What the conquistadors never knew was how worth it it would have been to stay.

And for Joaquin, El Pas Grande Del Sur will always be his home.

The Big Sur inhabitant is a different type of person.

You're a bit autonomous, I feel, here.

-Well, I think you need to be.

The road goes out, you get wildfires, the power goes out all the time.

-The people here, how would you describe them?

-Oh, you get a large variety.

My grandmother and all the old-timers -- they were hardworking rancher-types.

-Mm-hmm.

-And then in the '50s, well, you had the beatniks come in, and Henry Miller was, you know, one of those who sort of, I think, ushered in a different thing.

-Ushered in a different -- Henry Miller used to play ping pong?

-Yeah.

Maybe on this table.

-Henry Miller would show up and my grandfather and he would crack open a bottle of Courvoisier and play ping pong all night.

-That's it.

-Just have great tournaments.

-Oh!

Hopefully I don't take out two martinis when I do this.

If there's one destination that can harness the tenacity and beauty of Big Sur, it's the world-famous restaurant Nepenthe.

Your parents bought this property from Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles.

-Yes.

-Wow!

I wish every story began with that.

That's pretty nice.

-Yeah.

I'm Holly Facet.

I've lived in Big Sur all my life, and I run my family's restaurant.

-Was there nothing here?

Was there just a piece of land?

-Nothing.

Nothing.

Just the log cabin there and a big, grassy hillside.

"Nepenthe" is a Greek word meaning "no sorrow".

So, when you come here, you forget all your worldly cares and you just feel great.

-Was it for the purpose of opening up a restaurant?

Was that what your parents had in mind?

-My dad was thinking of opening up, like, a little hot-dog or hamburger stand on the highway, but even back then in 1947, the locals were like, "No.

No."

-When you walk in, it's just so clearly that this place is magic.

-People definitely feel that way.

-The effort that goes into magic, what is that like?

-I just want to do what my mom and dad had in mind and keep their vision going.

-Holly's son Kirk runs the restaurant and helps keep Nepenthe the destination that is it, and her daughter Erin helps keep their grandmother's vision going.

Erin is a Big Sur artist, and her own paintings hang in the Phoenix Shop next to the restaurant.

And the sweater she hand-knit is not for sale.

I asked.

-My grandmother's vision really began because traders from around the world would show up in her living room and put down beautiful Persian carpets and African pottery, and she would often buy all these things, and then the next thing you know, she had built this place.

Most of our guests are going back into a really stressful, busy, demanding life, and this is really a place where they can get away from that for a while and just rest their soul.

It's one of those places on earth where you can just breathe, you know?

A guest here should be able to sit down and just receive the beauty and just be restored.

-I believe that if you love what you encounter, you will protect it, and the area and then its inhabitants are definitely worth protecting because it is such a unique environment.

-We are so excited for our travelers to discover what we are crazy about.

We've got these beautiful beaches.

The local farm stands are a must.

-And you have the opportunity to visit not only a sea-based community or a mountain-based community, but you have the chance to experience an agricultural-based community, as well.

-You stop, and you'll be astounded.

-When traditions begun a half a century ago are still a part of the experience today, when we are dazzled by a life we rarely get to see, when we enjoy lessons in taste, history, and hard work, that is when we share a love of travel, and that is why Big Sur and Monterey Bay, California, are places to love.

-For more information about this and other episodes, extra scenes, or links to follow me on social media, log on to placestolove.com.

Samantha Brown's "Places to Love" was made possible by... -"Away"... ...is the smell of fresh pine.

It's a place where giants still live.

"Away" is where the farther down the road you go, the closer you get to the ones you love.

Find your "away."

GoRVing.com.

-Europe is a treasure trove of fascinating history, rich culture, and renowned cities.

AmaWaterways River Cruises offers a way to see all this wonder in person.

You can discover more at AmaWaterways.com.