is brought to you by Swiss International Airlines, flying to over 70 worldwide locations.

Truly Swiss made, Swiss International Airlines.

And by the BMW European Delivery Program, a way to experience the roads that BMW was made to drive, BMW European Delivery Program.

And by the Cygnet Foundation, raising funds for those in need through art related initiatives, contributions to UNICEF and animal welfare organizations, the Cygnet Foundation.

Travels and Traditions with Bert Wolf is a classic travel journey.

A record of Burt's search for information about our world and how we fit into it.

Burt travels to the source of each story, trying to find the connections between our history and what is happening today.

What he discovers can improve our lives and our understanding of the world around us.

(bright music) - The Earth is surrounded by a mass of air we call the atmosphere.

Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and dozens of other compounds that make it possible for us to live on this planet.

The word atmosphere is also used to describe the physical and emotional environment of a particular place on the planet.

But in addition to the atmosphere, we are surrounded by the world's most intense biosphere.

The biosphere is made up of opportunities to buy stuff.

It's a place to see what you can get in exchange for money.

It invites us to reward ourselves for all the annoying little things that we put up with in life.

Sellers try to give special meaning to their products, a special meaning that makes you want to have that product as part of your life.

The biosphere welcomes us and offers us the opportunity to change our lives in exchange for money.

We're overwhelmed with variety, and of course, this is precisely what a democratic society is all about.

Our number one sovereign right, and I mean this in the most positive way, is our right to shop and to change our lives in the process.

Of course, you do end up with an invoice.

They don't call it the Bill of Rights for nothing.

Originally, people traveled because they were looking for something to eat or they were afraid that something might eat them.

The idea of traveling for pleasure is only about 200 years old, but from the very beginning, people were asking two questions, where should I eat and where should I shop?

And I decided I would explore the answers to both of those questions in the Palm Beaches of Florida.

My son Nicholas put together a half hour television program on where and what to eat in the Palm Beaches so I'm going to deal with the shopping.

(light music) In the beginning, there was no shopping, just hunting and gathering.

Men did most of the hunting, and women did most of the gathering, and they did things very differently.

Guys wanted to get what they were after and get home as fast as possible.

Researchers believed that men hunted only three times a week and each time lasted only 45 minutes.

Women were the gatherers.

They gathered in groups for long periods of time and they exchanged valuable information.

Skip the bananas when they're green, they'll give you a stomach ache.

Keep an eye on the bears, they'll show you where to find honey.

Most men shop the way their ancestors hunted.

They see shopping as something they need to do in order to get on to something else.

It's about meeting some immediate need.

They don't see shopping as a valuable activity that gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Women on the other hand tend to shop the way their ancestors gathered.

They see shopping as a serious activity that gives them a clear sense of achievement.

But there's also a biological explanation for the difference in the way men and women shop.

Men and women have very different brain structures.

Women have more brain per ounce of body weight than men.

In addition, the connections between the right side of their brain and the left side of their brain are more sophisticated than those of men.

As a result, women can take in more information, process it more effectively, and use it more effectively than guys.

The only place where men shop like women and women shop like men is on the internet.

The men wander into the internet like women into a department store.

They go from one department or screen to the next just looking.

Women shop the internet much more like men in a traditional store.

They check out what's available, determine that the price is appropriate, add it to their virtual cart and get out.

These days, most people wanna make as much money as they can and use almost all of it to buy things, but for most of human history, people had the opposite approach.

Almost everyone lived close to the land and survived on what they could grow or make themselves.

It wasn't that they didn't love things.

The problem was there were very few things that money could buy.

No one dreamed of a wallet filled with cash or a big balanced checking account.

They dreamed of having lots of land that they could farm and fish and hunt.

Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to be completely self-sufficient.

You needed money for taxes and things you couldn't make yourself so markets and trading fairs opened and you could trade the surplus from your land for money.

After a while, the Kings and the Dukes and the money men who ran the fairs decided that life would be more convenient if they all lived in the same neighborhood.

So they moved their homes to be near each other, and in the process, they ended up building the great power centers, London, Paris, Rome.

It was during this time that fashion became important not only for the nobility, but to the general public.

Small cities filled up with craftsmen, tailors, boot makers and jewelers who made great stuff.

Of course, they'd been making great stuff for hundreds of years, but they had always been making it inside someone's palace.

Most people never saw the great stuff.

Buying things became a public activity.

The next important development in the history of shopping was the introduction of small change.

It made it possible to purchase things that were low in price.

(bright music) For most of history, everything that was available for sale was made by hand, which was usually slow and expensive.

Suddenly, the industrial revolution that took place in England during the second half of the 1700s changed that.

Machines were producing things on a mass scale and at lower prices than ever before.

More people started making more money, more things and more money meant more shopping.

That's the history of shopping and here's how it's manifesting itself in the Palm Beaches of Florida.

During the 1950s, John Phipps, a man of considerable wealth, not like Elon, but still well off, commissioned the architect, John Volk, to build the Royal Poinciana Plaza.

Poinciana is the name of a flowering tree, by the way.

These days, the plaza is home to an impressive collection of shops and galleries.

There's Hermes, Oscar de la Renta, the Palm Beach Grill, Toojay's Gourmet Deli.

I'm curious, what makes a deli a gourmet deli as opposed to just a plain deli?

I'm gonna research that.

And there's Jimmy Choo.

When I'm working in Palm Beach, the Gardens Mall is where I do a lot of my shopping.

There's a William Sonoma shop, which holds many memories for me.

Chuck Williams and I worked together during the 1970s, researching a book on cooking equipment.

We spent two years testing every piece of equipment we could find in deciding which was the best.

We had a few people helping us like Julia Child, Jacque Papin, and James Beard.

The shops at the Gardens Mall also include Louis Vuitton, Gucci and my personal favorite, Shake Shack.

In 2001, Danny Meyers set up a hotdog stand in New York's Madison Square Park and called it Shake Shack.

It was an instant hit.

These days, there are over 350 Shake Shacks around the world.

Its menu includes fries, milkshakes, and hamburgers.

I would like to buy a hamburger!

I would like to buy a hamburger!

I would like to buy a hamburger!

The Church Mouse is a shop that sells things to raise funds for the Church of Bethesda by the sea.

Objects are donated to the shop, and the proceeds of their sale is used to support various charities within the community.

The store sells everything from top designer clothing, handbags and accessories to furniture, crystal and books.

I found a set of glasses from the restaurant where I took my wife on our first date.

Actually, it was a business lunch.

I fantasized that it was a date.

Worth Avenue in Palm Beach runs for four blocks.

It's named after General William Jenkins Worth who was an officer in the War of 1812.

The oldest store on the street is Casalli's.

These days, the street has about 250 establishments including a number of art galleries, clothing shops and restaurants.

There's Bottega Veneta.

Bottega Veneta originated in 1966 in Italy, and its primary product was leather goods.

Their advertising slogan was when your own initials are enough.

The brand established itself as an understated treasure.

During the 1980s, Bottega gained a great deal of recognition by famous artists and celebrities.

A regular patron, for example, was Andy Warhol.

He often stopped into the New York boutique and eventually went on to produce a short film for the brand.

And what would an upscale shopping area be without Tiffany and Company?

The company was founded in 1837 by a jeweler named Charles Lewis Tiffany.

It became famous at the beginning of the 20th century under the direction of his son, Louis Comfort Tiffany.

These days, it sells jewelry, stationary, fragrances, tableware, and strangely, water bottles.

Its most famous objects are diamonds.

♪ A kiss on the hand may be quite continental ♪ ♪ But diamonds are a girl's best friend ♪ Just down the street from Tiffany's is Akris, which is filled with the work of my friend Albert Kriemler.

Akris is a Swiss company that creates some of the world's most beautiful clothing for women.

It was founded in 1922 and originally made simple aprons.

These days, the designs are created by Albert Kriemler, grandson of the founder.

I met Albert many years ago when I was filming a program about the Swiss city of St. Gallen where Akris is based.

Our local guide pointed out that Akris was famous in the fashion world and we should include a segment about it in our program.

Wasn't particularly interested in fashion.

However, as Albert explained how he designed a dress, I found it fascinating.

His drawings, the fittings, a room with thousands of buttons that he would review when designing something that needed a button.

The development of the runway presentation of the collection, all quite amazing.

Mizner Park is a high end shopping and entertainment district in downtown Boca Raton.

There are places to eat and places to shop.

My first visit to Sur La Table shop was in 1972 when I stopped into their original store in Seattle, Washington.

The shop carries over 12,000 items related to cooking.

Mizner Park also has an amphitheater.

An amphitheater is an open air space used for entertainment and sport.

The amphitheater in Rome would be a perfect example and the main attractions were the gladiators.

- Occupation?

- Gladiator.

- Did you kill last week?

- No.

- Did you try to kill last week?

- Yeah.

- Now listen, this is your last week of unemployment insurance.

Either you kill somebody next week or we're gonna have to change your status, you got it?

- Yeah.

- Sign here.

- There's also the Boca Raton Museum of Art.

The sculpture garden presents life-sized figurative works, large scale abstract monuments and one of Ricardo Ellie's favorite sculptures, a tower of coffee cups.

Before the latte, before the caramel frappuccino, before the macchiato, there was Starbuck, the first mate in the story of Moby Dick.

Unlike Captain Ahab, who was a nutcase, Starbuck was a simple, straightforward and responsible human being, the kind of person that would come in here and order a single espresso and be happy.

Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach is lined with royal palm trees and cobblestone walkways.

They also have some great places to shop.

The streets are filled with outdoor restaurants and outdoor restaurants and outdoor restaurants and they even have some outdoor restaurants.

At the end of Atlantic Avenue is the Seagate Hotel.

- So the Seagate Hotel and Spa is known as the luxury property in Delray Beach.

It was founded in the 1930s, reimagined in the fifties and then perfected in the 2000s.

The hotel's located on the avenue steps away from all the shopping and dining.

It provides the quintessential resort experience with the Gulf at the Seagate Country Club and a oceanside experience at the Seagate Beach Club along with boating over at the Seagate Yacht Club.

- It has an 8,000 foot spa in which you can relax and try and forget about everything that is annoying you, good luck.

The Seagate Hotel was originally developed by a relative of Henry Flagler.

Flagler was the guy who brought the railroads to Florida.

His magnificent home is now a museum with a great gift shop.

Lots of books, jewelry, Christmas tree decorations, reproduction of Flagler's cane and hats.

I come here just for the gift shop.

The West Palm Beach Green Market was the idea of Mayor Nancy Graham, who opened it in November 1995.

The vendors are chosen as part of a competitive process and the market is considered to be one of the best in the nation.

- We have everything from meats, cheeses, lots of baked goods, fish, coffee, it's anything that you would want and then we have gourmet foods that you can take home and prepare yourself.

So there's just a little bit of everything.

We got that breeze coming off the Intracoastal Waterway.

You can grab your goodies and you can bring your dog.

It's almost a little mini dog show.

You put them on the leash.

Make sure they're on the leash.

I know people that come here every Saturday with their neighbors, or they meet people they haven't seen that live sometimes in another county.

- One loaf of country bread.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, have a great day.

- Bread By Johnny is owned by Johnny Van Cora, who's been baking and selling bread door to door since he was 15 years old.

- Thank you so much, I hope you love it.

- He's at the market every weekend and he also has a store in Jupiter.

- I've been coming to the market since I was in high school.

I think there's an amazing community of vendors, an amazing community of customers, people who are really passionate about food on all ends.

Everything we make is with organic, freshly milled flour.

Everything is slow fermented and baked fresh every morning.

Do you wanna try my favorite bread?

- So this is our sesame whole wheat.

It's really delicious.

We use a freshly milled high extraction flour.

The thing that's interesting about it is that we toast the sesame seeds, we then soak those seeds in water overnight, use that soaking liquid to hydrate the bread dough, add the seeds into the dough and then crust it in more seeds.

So that really savory umami sesame flavor is prevalent throughout the whole loaf.

- Okay, it's time to open the sesame.

- Open it up, rip a piece off.

- Yeah, it's easy for you to say.

- Yeah, get in there, awesome.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- I like the way you have the seeds inside.

It's like open sesame.

I'm sorry, that's a terrible joke, I apologize.

Chef Luc French Baked goods is run by Chef Luc and his wife Catherine.

Chef Luc spent most of his career as the executive chef in the Parliament of Canada where he cooked for many dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth.

At the market, they offer fresh baked croissants, breads, and cookies.

- Wow, that's quite a breakfast.

So what's this one?

- This one is cinnamon.

It's all croissant dough.

- We have Belgium chocolate here and passion fruit and cheese.

- Ah, passion fruit, how could I resist?

It sounds passionate.

- I have to say the secret of these croissant, they are made with love, touch my heart each time I do this.

- He makes them with love.

Honestly, it's his absolute passion.

- How many calories are in love?

- I don't know, but I can say you have two table spoon of butter on each croissant.

I should never say that.

- Chik Monk Coffee is owned by Nandini and her husband David Bell.

- So he'll make your flat white with whole milk.

You okay with whole milk?

- Her family has been growing coffee in India for over four generations.

The coffee here at the Green Market has come all the way from family farms in India that use sustainable techniques.

- Most of Indian coffee goes to Europe, the far east like Korea and a little bit goes to Australia.

And no one in the United States knew that India has been growing coffee for a very long time.

So that's why we decided we wanted to brand it and share our story.

So Chikmagalur is the region where the coffee comes from and a monk from Africa back in the 16, 1700s took the beans and planted them in India.

So we wanted to work around Chikmagalur, but make it easier for the American audience to be able to pronounce it so we came up with Chik Monk.

But we made you a flat white, that's two shots of espresso with a little bit of foam and milk, steamed milk.

- Just the way my grandmother didn't make it.

- The La Gringuita cookie company is owned by Caroline McGinley who has been baking cookies for her friends and for sale since she was a young child.

Each weekend, she brings her freshly baked cookies to the Green Market.

- I've moved to South America actually when I was 23 to teach English in Uruguay.

My second year there, I ended up starting to sell my cookies on the side, but I decided to launch a business full-time with the name La Gringuita or like gringuita, because-- - What does that mean?

- It means little American girl in Spanish.

One of my best sellers and most popular is the churro.

So it's a snicker doodle stuffed with dulce de leche that I import from Argentina.

So when you bite into it, you get the creamy caramel filling.

So you kind of have to break into it so you can get the caramel filling.

- What you do is you go over to Chik Monk and get a cup of coffee and then to La Gringuita for some cookies.

How you shop can express who you are or who you wanna be, both as an individual and as a society.

Shopping can be the basis of your own evolution or your society's revolution for better or worse.

Well, that's shopping in the Palm Beaches of Florida.

I hope you will join us next time for Travels and Traditions right here on your local PBS station.

If you'd like to see this program again or any of the hundreds of programs we've made for our public broadcasting stations, visit burtwolf.com or the Burt Wolf YouTube channel.

(old time music) - [Narrator] Travels and Traditions with Burt Wolf is brought to you by Swiss International Airlines, flying to over 70 worldwide locations.

Truly Swiss made, Swiss International Airlines and by the BMW European Delivery Program, a way to experience the roads that BMW was made to drive, BMW European Delivery Program.

And by the Cygnet Foundation, raising funds for those in need through art-related initiatives, contributions to UNICEF and animal welfare organizations, the Cygnet Foundation.