Hello from Newport Beach, California.
This is a very charming city in between L.A. and San Diego,
and it is so beautiful everywhere you look.
Look at this! And this is just the beginning.
I'm Renata.
And after many years traveling the world covering entertainment,
breaking news, or sports,
I decided it was time to share my own stories
together with my husband, Gordon.
- Vitamins of barley and hops
- Join us as we discover new places or visit our favorites, like California.
We already lived in California.
For how long did you live here?
- 16 years.
- Wow, and I lived here for six years.
In the last few videos, we showed you Los Angeles.
- Yeah!
Now, we're heading south.
The first stop is Newport Beach.
I like it.
[music]
Look at this. How fantastic.
A lot of people want to know how much do houses cost here, right?
- Yeah. - There's a real estate shop right here.
Normally, when you visit a new city,
you don't pay much attention to the name of the county
where it's located, right?
But here, I guarantee you, that you will.
This is Orange County.
Yes, the Orange County that got famous with a few TV shows,
like the OC, for example.
Orange County is famous for the beaches.
They are about 40 miles of coastline.
Everything is so beautiful like this.
Also, famous for the theme parks.
There are two Disney Parks in Anaheim.
There's Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park.
By the way, if you haven't watched my Disney video,
there's a link in the description.
We were just there.
- I'm scared of where they take us.
But actually what makes this place so special
is the lifestyle here,
together with the beautiful scenery, of course.
Here, for example, we are at Castaways Park.
You can come here to exercise,
there are hiking trails, or just come to see the view.
It's totally free, and there's free parking.
[music]
What's the plan for today? - Visit Newport Beach.
- Yes, we go downhill,
enjoy all the most famous areas in Newport Beach.
There's the pier, the peninsula, the island.
- Cool. - I'm going to show everything.
- And then we come up the hill to get the views.
- Exactly. But it's a different hill.
Different hill, over there, and much closer to the ocean.
It's amazing.
[music]
- It's a Secret Alley. Don't tell anyone.
- Secret. [laughs] - Don't tell.
- Okay. So we've got a lot of options here. Where do we go?
- We're on the water, waterfront?
- Yeah, or maybe food?
Thank you so much.
- Where did you say that we could eat again? Outside?
- So this tunnel area, and then that outside.
- Okay. Thank you very much.
We can't eat here.
We entered this really cool place that looked like a normal coffee shop,
but it was a workspace actually.
That was so cool, huh? - People working.
Yes, people working.
Well, that also meant that we couldn't sit there to enjoy our coffees
because you had to book a space over there.
But that is a really cool concept, right?
- We found a great place.
Look at the bay, the ships,
yacht, and a coffee.
- Yeah, a great way to start the day.
Cheers!
It's a waffle to go.
Very good, very tasty.
[music]
Here we are like 45 minutes from L.A.?
- Probably, about an hour from San Diego.
- Cool, right in the middle then. - Yes.
This is Lido Marina Village,
a very charming place, like a city center.
There are lots of restaurants, shops, too.
And when you come to the waterfront here, you got this amazing view.
[music]
We went directly to the waterfront,
but look at the other streets over here,
everything is so charming.
Look outside this shop here.
This is on the street. Look at this.
That is so lovely.
Relatively easy finding parking here, but we're early in the morning.
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We're now arriving here at the beach.
There's a square here with some shops,
surf shops, coffee shops.
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Here you can rent surfboards, umbrellas, chairs for the beach,
also bikes.
Buy two hours, get a third hour free.
Oh, but this guy here guarantees he has the lowest price in town.
A hundred feet that way.
Straight ahead is the pier, the beach is right over there.
Wow, look at this place here, Dory Fishing Fleet,
founded in 1891.
- Wow. - Probably the only thing here back then.
- That's old. - Yeah.
It was probably the only establishment here, right?
- Maybe. - How popular do you think
California was back then?
- There was gold in the hills way back. That's why they came to California.
California Gold Rush, remember that, people.
- When did the Gold Rush start? - 1891?
- [laughs]
- I don't know. I'm not Wikipedia.
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- This is Newport Pier.
It's one of the piers here in Newport Beach.
There's another one just over there. We're going to that later.
And the entrance here is totally free.
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- It's really shallow here.
- Yeah, very shallow.
- And you know what? - Hmm?
- Unlike Myrtle Beach, no sharks.
- Oh, my God! There's a shark!
So far. [laughs]
But there are sharks here, too.
- No, there aren't. - Yes, there are.
- No. - Along California? Yes, there are.
It's really nice.
I like that you can actually walk all this.
It's very calm, at least today.
Not a lot of waves, really good spot for summer.
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The next city going north is Huntington Beach,
then there's Long Beach.
And interesting because Huntington Beach is very famous for surfing.
It's considered like the surf capital of the United States.
Huntington Beach is even nicknamed Surf City USA.
I guess I kind of expected to see some surfing going on here, too,
some big waves, but, no, at least today.
And going south towards San Diego,
that's Laguna Beach.
We're going to have a video there, too.
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There's a boardwalk here connecting both piers.
Look at this. It is very charming.
You pass in front of a lot of really cute houses.
Many of them are vacation rentals.
Very charming [in Portuguese]
Look at how charming.
You see a lot of people here bike riding.
This is the beginning of Balboa Peninsula.
This is now Balboa Village.
- Look at this.
"Timeshares are not welcome in our neighborhood."
Ooh, meaning no Airbnbs.
- Oh, wow.
- This is spectacular.
- It's amazing.
Here is the end of Balboa Peninsula.
This is The Wedge here.
It's famous for surfing, bodyboarding,
when there are waves, which is not the case today.
And over there, Corona del Mar.
[music]
Back to Balboa Village.
We're coming to the next pier the lazy way.
We didn't come walking or biking. We drove here.
And one thing that was interesting, I didn't expect this,
we found a lot of free parking here.
- Yeah, during the weekday. - Yeah, and off season.
But in case you don't, there's paid parking on the Main Street
and parking lots everywhere.
Ah, look at the boardwalk here. It is wider.
So beautiful.
Balboa Village is located right at this center of the peninsula,
only four blocks to cross the peninsula here.
Once you are here, you can see both the ocean
and walk to the other side to get the ferry to Balboa Island.
The parking fees here seem to be the same,
everywhere we've been, and we've been checking,
$1.90 an hour or $29 for the day.
This is Balboa Pier.
And the advantage here is that you're right downtown.
Easy to walk everywhere.
There's Ruby's right here
by the end of the pier.
Really nice setting, actually.
I just saw what could be a sea lion or a dolphin, something like that here.
- Loch Ness monster? - No, no, no, no, it's a cute one.
I saw him doing like this, but he's not emerging right now.
Such a shame.
But did you know, anyways, that this area here,
this entire California coast here in the south
is very famous for whale watching.
- Oh, yeah. Yes. - Uh-hmm.
- Because they travel from Alaska to Cabo.
- To Mexico. - Sí.
- Yes, yes.
So there are a lot of whale watching tours
that you can do over here. - Yeah.
- He's not coming out of the water anymore. Oh.
Do you have a favorite pier now?
- The other one. - The other?
- Yeah. - Really? I prefer this one here.
Exactly because of the location.
Here is Main Street connecting Balboa Pier
to Balboa Pavilion.
1918, over one century ago.
Look at this.
How charming is that, huh? - Very charming.
- It would be nice if they'd kept the streetcar.
- Yeah. It adds a special charm here.
Now it is very quiet like this because we're totally out of season
In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon,
depending on when you come here, it's much, much busier.
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What are the chances? - What do you mean longest?
- I don't know, maybe several turns?
- But it's so small that the several turns equal one big one.
- One big one! - Like in Yokohama.
- This was the tallest Ferris Wheel in the whole world when it was built.
Look at how high it is here.
- I'm not so sure it's the longest.
- What if they keep going for like 10 minutes?
- That's one of Yokohama.
- [laughs]
Right on the other side of the peninsula,
this is the Balboa Fun Zone.
There's an old-school amusement park over here,
some restaurants and shops.
Wow, they show here how many whales and dolphins they saw.
Look at this, common dolphin,
that's amazing if you see all these in one day.
And that island over there is Balboa Island,
one of the most exclusive places in Newport Beach.
To get over there coming from this side, only by ferry.
So it's pretty simple.
The ferry arrives, three cars at a time,
and they unload right here.
Also, pretty cheap, $2.25 per car,
plus $1.25 per passenger.
Thank you.
We thought it would be very fun to come by car,
but we're a little concerned about the parking situation over there,
so better to just keep walking.
Payment is really old school here.
The person just comes charging and you pay cash
right inside the boat.
Hey. [laughs]
It is so quiet over here,
very calm these waters.
Even if you get seasick, don't worry, look at this.
- Watch your steps, please, everybody.
- Thank you.
Welcome to Balboa Island.
Oh, there's some traffic here on this side to go back,
so I'm glad you came just walking.
Imagine living in a neighborhood this charming.
How lovely this one. Vacation rental.
There is only one commercial street here
on Balboa Island, and it is this street right here,
where all the shops are concentrated.
Also, a lot of really cool restaurants.
Here on Balboa Island is where you find
one of the most expensive real estate markets
in the entire North America, outside of Manhattan.
- I was going to say it. - Outside of Manhattan.
And a lot of people want to know how much then do houses cost here, right?
- Yeah. - There's a real estate shop right here.
$2.5 million,
$3.1,
$3.2.
- There's one there for $10 million. - Yep.
- How big is that? - Six beds, three baths.
- Oh, wow, just sold for $3.2 million.
Wow, and look at the house. It's not even that big.
Balboa Island is famous for very specific sweets,
frozen bananas and Balboa bars.
It's kind of an ice cream.
And the tradition started right here in 1945
with the frozen bananas.
Oh, wow!
- Over here.
- You can choose two toppings there.
I went with salted caramel and chocolate sprinkles.
How do you describe it?
- A banana, frozen,
with frozen chocolate, and some caramel.
- Oh, really?
You're a genius.
- I don't know about that.
Frozen banana becomes kind of an ice cream.
Ah! I really like it.
Now I can already make frozen banana at home.
Yeah. The recipe is right there, huh?
- It's not hard.
- Do you think all it takes is to freeze a banana?
- Uh-hmm.
- I'm really impressed with the consistency of the banana when it's frozen
because it really becomes like an ice cream.
- I would put... maybe sprinkle it with some raspberry, raspberry juice.
- Okay, chef, you can prepare at home when we're back.
- For me. - [laughs]
Fun fact: that place is super old and traditional,
but very modern when it comes to payment.
They don't take cash. - No?!
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It's very interesting how you don't find chain shops or restaurants here.
These are all small businesses.
After walking all over Balboa Island,
what is it that you don't see here?
- Police. - Yeah, police, too.
It's pretty safe, huh?
You don't see chain restaurants, right?
- No, McDonald's. - No McDonald's chain shops.
- You don't see that. - Right.
- But also there's one thing that is very, very interesting.
- What? - You don't see bars.
- That's the only bar in the entire island.
- Is it? - Yep.
- Oh.
- So interesting how a lot of these houses, they have their own piers.
their own private piers.
[music]
There's a really nice bayfront walk here around the entire island.
But unlike in the peninsula, where everyone is bike riding,
here you can't.
It takes about an hour to walk around the entire island.
Look at the other rules here.
Skateboards are also not allowed,
or scooters, smoking, or alcohol.
All of these are vacation rentals. Wow.
Today the island is all famous. Everybody wants to be here.
This was actually a swamp. -Oh, yeah.
- Yep. - Way back when.
- I think this would be good for sunset.
- Yeah, but I got other plans for sunset.
- Excellent.
- It's gonna be cold, though.
- Another frozen banana? - No.
- Thanks. - Thank you.
[music]
Welcome back to Balboa.
[music]
- Let's park here. - Yeah, park here.
Look at this, how fantastic.
This lookout point here is called Lookout Point.
[laughs]
Here we are in Corona del Mar, which is a neighborhood of Newport Beach.
They have this cliff here overlooking the beach down there.
Absolutely beautiful.
On one side you see Balboa Peninsula.
This right here, this is The Wedge,
that very end of Balboa Peninsula.
Over here you see Corona del Mar State Beach Park.
And this should be a very convenient beach for you to come.
Look at the amount of parking space.
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So beautiful.
Do you see someone lighting a fire over there?
One thing very cool about Newport Beach
is that there are community fireplaces here.
Just like there are community barbecue grills,
here they have community fire pits.
So you can come here and prepare s'mores at the beach.
You can even use it to warm yourself up a little, too.
The wind is so cold over here.
Today we saw Balboa Peninsula,
Balboa Village, Balboa Island.
Do you think of anything when you hear this name?
- Balboa Park.
- Balboa Park. That's in San Diego, not to be confused.
- Okay. - Doesn't this name ring anything?
- No. - Rocky Balboa.
- Oh, Rocky. - [laughs]
- Yeah. - I totally thought of that.
- It's a different city, Philadelphia - Yeah.