-Art is a powerful connector to the world we travel through.

It can stir emotion, spark curiosity, and bring together people who may not share a language but share a feeling.

For travelers, art isn't just something we see.

It lives in the spaces we wander through.

We take it in slowly, through color and movement, through texture and sound, through moments that stay with us long after we've moved on.

Together, travel and art create a fully immersive experience.

So let's lean in to that connection.

This "Places to Love" is all about art.

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.

Major funding of "Places to Love" provided by Oceania Cruises.

-Announcer: A journey aboard Oceania Cruises is designed to cultivate curiosity.

Evenings offer craft spirits, international wines, and dishes prepared by our master chefs.

That's the Oceania Cruises small ship experience.

-Announcer: Since 1975, we've inspired adults to learn and travel in the United States and in more than 100 countries.

From exploring our national parks to learning about art and culture in Italy, we've introduced adults to places, ideas, and friends.

We are Road Scholar.

We make the world our classroom.

♪ ♪ -Announcer: Ever wonder where your sense of wonder went?

Maybe it's winding its way along the banks of the Colorado River, or waiting in the shadows of giant canyons.

Or maybe it's revealed in all the moments in between.

Introducing Canyon Spirit, a rail experience between Denver, Moab, and Salt Lake City.

Canyon Spirit, proud sponsor of "Places to Love."

-Announcer: Railbookers helps you discover the world by train.

From bucket list dreams to iconic scenic journeys, a Railbookers itinerary includes trains, hotels, sightseeing, transfers, and more.

Railbookers offers guests a seamless way to explore the globe on vacation.

-Samantha: Berlin is easily the most excitingly diverse city in Germany, as well as a center of creativity for all of Europe.

It's easy to bike and explore, sampling its food scene that spills out onto the streets and shopping that remains hidden behind them.

But since the end of World War II, Berliners have interacted with their history in surprising and creative ways.

As I found out by visiting a relic of German history reimagined as a home for something ancient.

So, Désiré, you own a bunker.

How thick are these walls?

-The walls are two and a half meters thick, and the ceiling is three and a half meters thick.

-Samantha: And so then why did you think, "Yes, this is the home for my collection"?

-Désiré: The thing is, in this space, you really leave as a different person... -Mm-hm.

-...as you're entering.

-Ah.

-It has an impact.

And this was really planned for me from the very beginning.

♪ -Désiré, we are now inside the bunker.

-Désiré: It is a bunker, yes, but I turned the energy around.

I think it is a kind of monastery.

People come here now to meditate.

-Mm-hm.

The very beginning of the experiencing of your collection is being in a room with almost no light.

You're in complete darkness and you hear music.

♪ -It's a cleansing.

You have to stand still for a moment.

Listen only to three minutes.

Three minutes can be very long.

And then you're released.

♪ -Samantha: This is your own personal collection, and you've even placed all of the art.

You are responsible for making sure what table is where, what figure is there, and then you give up control.

-I thought I should make a statement how a museum can be and that you get the feeling instead of reading.

We have no labels, so you are not influenced by reading something.

You guided yourself or you feel the atmosphere.

You like a piece, you don't like it.

You go to the next.

importance, I think, is not always the historic thing.

It's what we feel.

And some people connect with something very different to me or to you.

♪ -Samantha: Why is furniture important to your collection?

-Désiré: Furniture is more than just a piece.

It's a world created by people or for people.

It's an ambiance.

I think about these pieces are sculptures.

The piece behind is a work by Adam Fuss.

It's printed on silver.

It's a very difficult technique.

Extremely difficult just to make it.

It's an absolute masterpiece.

When you look long in front of this table and you feel it in the room, and you look at this mattress by Adam Fuss.

It transports you really in something that are very similar energies.

-Samantha: There's still a lot of space left.

Is that reserved for more pieces of art to come in, or do you like the space?

-Désiré: No, [laughs] it is perfect how it is.

The most important is to see a piece, feel the piece, walk away and digest the piece.

You have few meters of peaceful nothing.

I think it's essential for me.

-Samantha: Walking around, I struggle to make sense of it.

We are used to the certainty of gallery spaces and museums, but I believe that was Désiré's point -- to let go.

And because of that, I honestly have not stopped thinking about this singular and unique experience.

♪ In the Northern Territory of Australia, known affectionately as the Top End, is the capital city of Darwin.

It's a gateway to this country's vast and iconic landscapes, water-fed pools, and jaw-dropping animals.

[ Water splashing ] It's a place that feels not of this world, but grounding one's experience here is learning from the people who have been at this spot on Earth for tens of thousands of years, and how their everyday items that have allowed them to flourish are works of art.

-The dilly bag, the mat.

The basket, the earrings.

This can be made for collecting water lilies, bush tuckers, whatever.

And this we can also use for collecting roots.

-Mm-hm.

Wow.

What are we making today?

-Maybe we should start with earrings, eh?

How's that?

-Maybe small.

-Very small.

-I'm at Laundry Gallery, part Aboriginal owned, it provides a space for more modern interpretations of indigenous art.

Located in an old laundromat, its aim is to give old stories a new spin, connecting ancient practices with modern life.

-Rose: So maybe if you start getting four of them.

-Samantha: Just four, okay.

-Rose: Four or five, yeah.

You get one string from there.

-Just one.

Okay.

-And then go over.

-Samantha: Go over.

-Rose: And bring it back out.

Oh, there you go.

-Samantha: Okay.

Alright.

Here we go.

How important is weaving to your identity?

-Rose: It is very important.

It's teaching you for your language, your land, your ceremony.

It's very, very important to us.

-Samantha: Mm-hm.

As I make all these artifacts, I sit down.

It relaxes my mind as I work.

And I say in my thoughts, "Thank you Mum, thank you Grandmother, for teaching me to do all these craftwork."

Because it teaches me who I am, really.

You know?

-Samantha: Mm.

-When you come, you sit with us and learn who we are and what we are.

-Mm-hm.

-Things like this is important.

So we, you know, you stop teaching us from A to Z. We've learned enough from all the alphabetical works.

-Samantha: Mm-hm.

-Yeah?

-Now you listen to us.

-Now you listen to us.

You sit down and do this work... -Mm-hm.

-...and start speaking our language.

-Mm-hm.

-It takes you back to your old people.

-Samantha: Mm-hm.

-Your own land speaks to you, and it teaches you for the wisdom and the knowledge.

It passes on, just like your forefathers have passed it on, yeah?

♪ -Samantha: The neon signs along Route 66 are calling cards of the past that helped shape American roadside culture.

Once practical advertising, neon signs are now considered and collected as works of art.

Route 66 runs right through Springfield, Illinois, and here you'll find the Ace Sign Company.

It's a combination manufacturing facility and museum, open and free to the public during the week.

The vintage signs hang here as shining pieces of art.

-My name is Dennis Bringuet.

I'm a retired president of the Ace Sign Company here in Springfield.

In 1940, my grandfather started the company in his garage in the backyard.

Now we're recreating some of that same neon that we did in my grandfather's era.

-Samantha: And his nephew, Cory Boatman, actually thought it was okay to teach me to tube bend.

And how long are you going to do this?

Is it something that you just start to see?

-You're going to start -- -'Cause I'm starting to see the bend.

-You're feeling it get wobbly.

Try to keep it straight.

Try to turn it over so it wobbles down.

Alright, now you can go to your table -Okay.

-And lay it down flat.

Go ahead and drop it flat.

-Yep.

-And then you're gonna bend.

-And this is where you get the name tube bender.

-Yes.

Yes.

Glass tube.

Yep, and literal bending.

Getting it to that liquid state so that you can change the shape of it.

You do have to use the blow hose and put air into the tube, because the tube wants to collapse when you get it hot.

-I feel like we always see glassblowers out demonstrating their craft, and what we've never seen are tube benders and we would be equally fascinated by what you do.

Is there a reason why?

-Well, there have been some guesstimates, some online polls of how many tube benders there are in the U.S.

And right now, the consensus seems to be about 350.

-Samantha: That's it?

-Cory: Yep.

-What is the most difficult shape to make as a tube bender?

-For me?

-Yeah.

-Stars.

Stars are the worst.

-Is this your practicing?

-Cory: Yeah, those are the hardest.

-Well, I'd give you a star for that.

-Thank you.

-Samantha: In Wiesbaden, Germany, its museum helps preserve history.

But it also played a phenomenal role in making it.

I'm in the very room that became a central collecting point for the legendary Monuments Men, who were tasked with recovering the world's cultural treasures, which had been looted from museums and collections and hidden.

-The Nazis, put in mines, in railway tunnels and castles outside Berlin, and the Monuments Men, 345 women and men... -Mm-hm.

-They started to figure out where were they hidden, and then they decided to have a central collecting point... -Mm-hm.

-...to gather all these items together.

-And we are here.

-And we are in the center, yes.

-The collection point.

-I mean... -Indeed.

Here we see some of the officers of the Monuments Men sitting here in the old library of the Museum Wiesbaden and you see the design, the shelves of the frames here of the room.

-Samantha: Sure.

-It's still here.

2,000 paintings from Berlin.

-Okay.

-I think 20,000 prints and drawings.

-Mm-hm.

-Andreas: Hundreds of crates with sculptures like the Nefertiti, for example.

-To realize that in a time of war, there was this belief, like, "we need to save art."

-Yes.

-And as an art historian, that must just warm your heart.

-Yes.

Indeed.

Well, we are all very, very grateful to the Monuments Men.

They really saved hundreds and thousands of artworks.

-Samantha: About four hours from Wiesbaden is the city of Leipzig.

I have spent a lot of time in Germany, and I am putting this under-touristed city on my list of favorite places.

Its place in history is secure, as Leipzig is the home of Johann Sebastian Bach.

And it's the people of Leipzig whose peaceful protests in 1989 helped bring down the Berlin Wall.

For an understated city, its history and art is anything but.

We're clearly in a factory site.

But what type of factory was it?

-Michael Ludwig: It was a cotton spinning mill, and it was once the biggest cotton spinning mill in continental Europe, maybe 4,000 workers.

-My gosh.

And so when did it stop being a cotton mill?

-1993.

-That's amazing.

And so then it's a sort of an artist enclave now.

When did the first artists move in?

-Around 1994.

-Right away.

-Yeah, yeah.

Now we have -- -So -- These buildings have never really been empty then.

-That's right.

-Samantha: This is Spinnerei, a thriving art community with every type of discipline from architecture, fine arts, dance companies, fashion designers, and more.

And the space is massive.

So if 4,000 people worked here, are these buildings full now?

-They are full now.

-Full?

-It's hard to get a studio here.

Everybody wants to be here.

Not only artists, everyone, actually.

-Samantha: For example, Spinnerei is the home base of the acclaimed ateliers of etching, Vlado and Maria Ondrej.

Their studios are right next to each other, filled with stunning examples of their work.

And it's here that they create etchings that range from compact, frameable prints to elaborate wall sized extravaganzas.

Wow.

Visitors are welcome to enjoy the galleries, and some artists have their studios open as well.

Germany is famous for its porcelain, but Claudia Biehne's take on it goes way beyond teacups.

-I do a lot of pieces in ceramic, especially in porcelain.

You only know porcelain from dishes, cups and what you have in the cupboard.

-Samantha: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

-Everybody knows, but my interests are what can you do especially with porcelain.

-The shapes that you're using.

What this looks like is a piece of coral that it's taken the ocean... -Yeah.

-...thousands of years to make over years.

-Maybe.

Maybe you can think on... Is it a flower?

Is it an animal?

What is it?

-Okay, yes.

-So you can see this tiny thing.

This is one roll and I stick them.

-How did you create that roll?

-I create it with a paper roll.

-Okay.

-And then I dip it into the porcelain slip.

[laughs] -Wow.

Okay.

-The porcelain sticks on the paper, and you put it into the kiln and it's gone.

The paper is gone.

All organic things are gone.

And in the end, the porcelain is all over.

-Samantha: Watching Claudia work reminds me that we often think of artists as working with their hands.

But there are some artists that are famous for what their feet can do.

♪ And I know most people will be surprised to find out that Albuquerque, New Mexico, is the North American capital of flamenco.

-Woman: Olé!

-Samantha: And all because of this woman.

-My name is Eva Enciñias, and I'm the founding director of the National Institute of Flamenco.

So we're gonna come in with that slow, quick, quick, right?

-Samantha: Eva is teaching me at Tablao Flamenco Albuquerque.

A tablao is a distinct performance space originating in Spain for the institution of flamenco.

-Eva: I started dancing with my mother at three, four years old.

So I've done it all my life, and I have realized the power of being able to share this art form with all ages.

-Olé!

♪ -Eva: There are three main elements in traditional flamenco -- the flamenco guitar, the singing, which is the cante, and the baile, or the dance.

Of course, you can see flamenco on theater stages.

It's much more choreographed, more highly produced.

In a tablao, we don't need to have that, because we are able to spontaneously respond to each other's performance to allow for a collaborative experience that is incredibly powerful to see.

And that's what makes Tablao so very, very special.

♪ New Mexico has a very distinct and unique way of interpreting the art form, because we also have other influences in New Mexico the Native American influence, the Anglo influence, and all of these things certainly has an impact on us as human beings and consequently, the way that we interpret our art form.

So we're very fortunate that that has been able to take place here in Albuquerque, and we'll continue to do our work because there's much work still to be done.

Olé!

and you're finished.

Ya.

-Samantha: Switzerland has a lot going for it.

Its mountains are magnificent.

It's national dog, adorable.

And don't forget the fondue.

Just about everything this country is known for is enjoyed outside.

[ Water splashes ] But it's the Museum Kunsthaus in Zürich that brings the magic indoors.

♪ Kunsthaus is home to one of Switzerland's largest, most important art collections and where you can see the life's work of artist Alberto Giacometti.

-These are two paintings by Alberto Giacometti's father, Giovanni.

He grew up in a very artistic family.

He lived with his family in a very remote, very beautiful Italian speaking valley in the south of Switzerland.

-Samantha: I have to tell you, Priska, I am so embarrassed.

I didn't know before I came here that Giacometti was Swiss.

-Oh, really?

-I just assumed he was Italian.

Italian, because of the name.

-Because of the name.

The Swiss sculptor and painter lived from 1901 to 1966.

And this 300 piece collection spans all periods of his artistic life.

From this self-portrait as a young man, while still living in Switzerland, to moving to Paris, where he introduced sculpture into the surrealist movement.

And so it was after World War II that we start to see his most defining work, how we all know Giacometti, which is these sculptures.

Emaciated, gaunt human forms, really.

-Priska: Yes.

During the Second World War, Giacometti had a crisis.

He left Paris and got obsessed with the depiction of humans.

And looking at another form.

-Samantha: The human figures convey the hardships and alienation of World War II and its aftermath.

-Priska: It's the standing women.

They are upright.

They have the energy of life and the walking men always in motion, going towards maybe an unknown destination or goal.

-Samantha: Why do you think it's important for a museum to be able to show the whole spectrum of an artist's work?

-It's kind of a journey through his life.

And you see where he started and you kind of grow with him until you're at the end of his life and his last works.

And for a museum here in Switzerland to have this collection is a very big privilege and joy.

-Samantha: The Black Hills of South Dakota are home to some of America's most iconic scenery that has long inspired art rooted in the land and the people who call it home.

But this region also holds something entirely unexpected -- an artist who doesn't just capture the world as we see it, but reshapes how we experience it.

This is Dick Termes, and his spinning three dimensional Termespheres are painted in a six point perspective so rare and immersive there's truly nothing else like them.

I have never heard of spherical art, and come to find out, it's because you're the only one who may be doing this.

Correct?

-Pretty much.

Pretty much.

Yep.

-I can't even imagine, as an artist, how you begin to paint something like Saint Marks Square.

-Yeah.

-Right?

-Uh-huh.

-Samantha: So this is -- we're now in Venice.

-Dick: Right.

-Samantha: And I've got the tourists and they're feeding the pigeons, which we know they should not be doing that.

-That's right.

[ Laughter ] How are you painting that?

I don't like, perspective wise.

Because you have to know, you know, it's like the size of the hand has to be relative to the head size.

But if you're on a sphere, that totally changes.

-Yeah, there's some warpage that happens on it.

Here's the best way to explain it, to me, or the simplest way.

So let's just put a globe on your head.

-Mm-hm.

-Okay, and it freezes.

But you can move around, and you can -- you can spin inside that.

-Samantha: I gotta be honest, it was a little mind-bending, what he was describing, but I was still amazed watching how his mind works and seeing a world I don't.

And isn't that what artists are for?

Oh, wow.

So it seems like you play with realism, but also geometric figures, fantasy.

-Dick: The only limits are that it has to be a spherical idea.

It has to be something that you want to be inside that world.

When you work on a sphere, you have to let the sphere have control of what you're gonna do and make sure it's in agreement with you.

-Samantha: Okay.

-Dick: You know, that's how we have to think in the arts.

We have to work -- -Samantha: Together with your medium.

-Dick: With the medium, yeah.

And not try and force it to do stuff that it wasn't meant to do.

-I guess you paint directly onto the sphere, right?

You're not painting on a flat surface that can be turned and kind of pasted onto a sphere.

-No, I start with the sphere.

-Like this right here.

This is incredible.

So you're seeing -- you're seeing the faces on the inside.

and then it's as if we're behind them and they're really moving around.

And so we're just seeing a part of a painting we would never get to see.

-Yeah.

-Samantha: So how did you paint the inside of the sphere?

-The technique for it is you paint the front of the people on the outside first.

-Samantha: Okay.

-Okay, and then you paint over that with white.

Once you get all the color and everything done, paint over it with white.

And then you can paint the back of the people on that white piece.

That way you get the full dimension without having to crawl inside the ball.

[laughs] -Samantha: What do you hope for the person who's seeing your artwork for the first time?

Is it to inhabit another world, or is it to really understand and be happy with the one that we're in?

-What I would really like to have come out of it is for people to be aware of total visual space around them all the time.

Every second of the day, there's a total scene around you, and all we really look at is one direction.

And if you start turning, I would feel good if you just started spinning around going, "Wow, this is really cool, isn't it?"

You know, that kind of thing.

It's also the design work of the sphere is related to the Earth itself.

And so it maybe helped people be aware that the, the bigger picture is to see the whole picture, you know, and see what's the right thing for the future and how it all fits together.

So I'm hoping that it relates that way also.

♪ -Samantha: Art changes how we experience the world as we travel through it.

It connects us to people, process, and place.

And that's why art will always lead us to Places To Love.

For more information about this and other episodes, destination guides, or links to follow me on social media, log on to PlacesToLove.com -Announcer: Major funding of "Places to Love" provided by Oceania Cruises.

-Announcer: A journey aboard Oceania Cruises is designed to cultivate curiosity.

Evenings offer craft spirits, international wines, and dishes prepared by our master chefs.

That's the Oceania Cruises small ship experience.

-Announcer: Since 1975, we've inspired adults to learn and travel in the United States and in more than 100 countries.

From exploring our national parks to learning about art and culture in Italy, we've introduced adults to places, ideas, and friends.

We are Road Scholar.

We make the world our classroom.

♪ -Announcer: Ever wonder where your sense of wonder went?

Maybe it's winding its way along the banks of the Colorado River, or waiting in the shadows of giant canyons.

Or maybe it's revealed in all the moments in between.

Introducing Canyon Spirit, a rail experience between Denver, Moab, and Salt Lake City.

Canyon Spirit, proud sponsor of "Places to Love."

-Announcer: Railbookers helps you discover the world by train.

From bucket list dreams to iconic scenic journeys, a Railbookers itinerary includes trains, hotels, sightseeing, transfers, and more.

Railbookers offers guests a seamless way to explore the globe on vacation.

♪ ♪ ♪