- [Narrator 1] Supported by the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission.

Make memories to last a lifetime on Virginia's natural coast.

Learn more at visitesva.com.

You'll love our nature and Virginia is for shore lovers.

[Narrator 2] Support comes from Blue Heron Realty, offering prime waterfront homes and building lots in Cape Charles in Virginia's beautiful Eastern Shore.

Visit us online at blueheronva.com to get our new catalog so you can start making your coastal dream come true.

- [Narrator 3] Visit Gloucester County, the place for history, for beauty, for fun.

Learn more at visitgloucesterva.org, or check us out on Instagram or Facebook at Visit Gloucester, VA. - [Narrator 4] The Virginia Institute of Marine Science at William and Mary providing science that impacts the Chesapeake Bay and the world.

Dedicated to sustaining and restoring our waters, marine life and coastal communities, more at vims.edu.

(seagulls squealing) (sea waves) (upbeat tropical music) - Hi everyone, I'm Dave Parker with Virginia Found.

Today we are exploring the lower Eastern Shore, especially the area around Cape Charles.

The Eastern Shore is truly one of the most unique areas in all of Virginia.

The waterman culture is a big part of the character here.

It still relies heavily on the seafood industry and it's a very rural region, but still there are more opportunities here for outdoor adventure.

There are more businesses here catering to the tourists and well that means more restaurants and more options for lodging.

But if you wanna feel like you are getting away from it all, you need to explore the Eastern Shore.

(country music) Before you explore the shore, you have to get there.

If you're coming from the north, the drive will take you you through Maryland then into Virginia down Highway 13, but it's from the south where the destination is really worth the journey.

Because that means you get to take the breathtaking Chesapeake Bay Bridge channel with three bridge spans and two tunnels.

It has been named one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world.

(upbeat violin music) So we're here at the Eastern Shore Welcome Center.

It's been one person after another.

I'm here with H.H Scott, he's one of the Welcome Center staff, which is the most popular question you get here?

- I would say, how long is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel?

- Do you ever change the answers?

- No.

- And it is how long?

- 17.6 miles.

(bell dings) - Thank you, sir.

- You're welcome.

(cheerful guitar music) - For my first night in Cape Charles, I'm staying in downtown Cape Charles at the traditionally classic Bay Haven Inn.

(lighthearted piano music) Wow.

What a beautiful, beautiful home.

(lighthearted piano music) The Bay Haven Inn of Cape Charles was built in 1906, which means as of today, it's about 113 years old.

It was initially given to these people as a wedding gift.

I think my wife and I got a gravy boat.

Depending on what city you're in in the world that might determine how you actually get around in that city.

Maybe it's by bicycle or a car, maybe taking public transportation, but in Cape Charles, Virginia, it's the golf cart.

Here's what you need to know about golf carts around Cape Charles.

First they're everywhere because they fit the size of the town.

There are almost as many golf carts as boats to rent or drive one you have to have a valid driver's license and they can only be operated on roads rated for up to 25 miles per hour.

As far as costs, it's going to be around 35 to $40 per day for a two-person cart.

A little more for a larger cart.

Expect to spend around 100 for a weekend rental and anywhere from 225 to 300 if you need it for your week-long stay.

There are a few different companies in town that offer rentals so you can compare prices.

Of course, since they're called golf carts, you can use them for golf in Cape Charles.

There are two spectacular courses, one is an Arnold Palmer Course, the other a Jack Nicklaus.

But due to conservation efforts, the Nicklaus Course has been trimmed down to nine holes for a total of 27 holes between the two courses, but still Golf Digest has named these courses among the best in the state of Virginia and Golf World ranked Bay Creek 12th in it's list of top golf resorts in America.

This whole area of Cape Charles around the golf courses, is like a different world from the rest of the lower Eastern Shore.

Literally back on the other side of the tracks for my first outing on the cart, I was headed to dinner at The Shanty.

Think we found it.

That's cool.

(footsteps thud) (crowd talks distantly) Thank you.

(fantastical music) So a lot of restaurants like to brag about their ambiance, but look at this and you can't beat the view, huh?

It's absolutely gorgeous.

Sunset by the way, coming up here in just a couple hours.

This is Don from Charlottesville.

Don, why do you love coming to the Eastern Shore?

- Well, I'll tell you when you go across, come through that tunnel and come across the bridge, you're in another world.

You're in a wonderful place to be, it's like island time.

- [Dave] Right.

- There's no other town that's like it.

(slow music) - [Dave] So what do we got first?

- A'ight, we have the conch fritters from a local guy from Cheriton right across the highway, on the other side of town.

- [Dave] Okay.

- They are the conch fritters that he pulls the waters here, will not give us his recipe on how he makes these.

He will sell us the products, but he will not tell us how he does it.

And it is one of our best-selling appetizers on the menu.

- [Dave] I love it.

- Yeah.

- [Dave] Man, they look great.

- [Chris] Delicious.

- [Dave] Let's begin!

- [Chris] Oh yeah.

Get started.

- Now usually the trick with frying something, especially when it has a little density to it, is to be able to keep it nice and crispy and light on the outside and still done on the inside.

And that is exactly what they did with the conch fritters here at The Shanty.

Delicious!

All right, Chris is back.

- I am back - [Dave] Which is always a good thing.

- That's right, I'm bringing you softshell BLT.

You get the right angle there.

These things are incredible.

They come out of Parksley, about 30 minutes north of here.

They're pulled out the water in the morning.

They're here by the afternoon.

- [Dave] Wow.

- [Chris] This came out of the water today.

- [Dave] Awesome.

What is the sauce on top?

- [Chris] That is a sriracha aioli.

- [Dave] Okay.

- A little bit of heat, nothing to over the top but just another a little bit to bring it all together at that point.

- [Dave] All right, so some fries, the soft shell crab a little sriracha, we got the bacon.

- Lettuce, tomato, and bacon.

Good to go.

- Welcome Chris.

Thank you.

Well, I can't remember the last time I had a soft shell crab sandwich but I can tell you, it definitely did not have the bacon on it, which never hurts.

It's like pouring chocolate on something.

(crowd talks in the background) Better than as good as I remember.

It was great.

The bacon and the crispiness of that soft shell crab, fantastic.

Now, Chris didn't say this, but I can swear there's some old bay seasoning on this french fries.

Love it.

- What we're doing it to wrap your meal here at The Shanty is a piece of our homemade key lime pie.

Some of the best I've had, I want you to take the test and tell me what you think.

- [Dave] Okay.

- All right.

(distant crowd talks) - Put anything fried in a basket, you know it's gonna be a good night.

Here with Chris, who is the general manager here at The Shanty in Cape Charles.

Great dinner, by the way.

- Thank you.

Thank you very much.

- So, you know when people come here they're expecting fresh seafood when your restaurant is on the water.

- Yeah, that's right.

- For crying out loud.

So how do you make sure that everything is fresh?

- Well, you know and that's exactly what people want when they come here.

Like you said, they're coming to a place on the water.

They expect fresh seafood.

And it was the owner's concept, sustainable seafood and getting everything we can as locally as possible.

So it starts there, we get our fish locally before we branch out to a company at Virginia Beach that fishes off the Virginia Beach edge.

- Yeah.

- And then from there, greens are the same thing.

Any vegetables we get, we try to get sourced from local farms before we do anything else.

(soft guitar music) The sun has gone down over the Chesapeake Bay.

It's now after 8:30, it's also after Memorial Day.

Kids are out of school, this is the height of the tourist season.

And you're pretty much have the beach to yourself here in Cape Charles.

If you wanted to come down here and watch the sunset, and have some quiet time with you or somebody special, you just can't beat this.

(soft guitar music) (crickets chirping) (upbeat music) ♪ But your thoughts are slowly wondering ♪ ♪ Where they always do ♪ Every town in America seems to now have a brewery, and Cape Charles is no exception.

The first and only in town is Cape Charles Brewing.

You'll find a full menu and a great beer selection.

And if you'd like to kick it up a notch, there's now Cape Charles Distillery downtown, whose products you can also find in ABC stores across Virginia.

- They're bubbling pretty good you know?

I would like to get a complex with these like a three cheese, which is sort of cool you know?

- This is Jim Holloway, he and his wife, Tammy own the Bay Haven Inn.

As with most bed and breakfast, the morning is usually one of the highlights.

For breakfast, it was an egg and sausage scramble served in a cast iron skillet.

Ham on homemade sweet potato biscuits and fresh fruit.

All well-prepared, well presented and enjoyed by all the other guests.

They were in the other room, by the way.

I promised not to put them on camera, but trust me, they loved it.

(tires rolling) After breakfast it was time for a tour around Cape Charles with Tammy, who moved here years ago from the much bigger and busier Northern Virginia.

What's your favorite thing about living down here?

- Oh my goodness.

My absolute favorite thing is the way of life.

The way of life Cape folks and Cape Charles are just so easy going.

It's like a kinder, gentler way of living.

People take the time to say hi, and we knew that.

- If you've got to meeting in the firehouses it's not bad, it's something important that the places.

- First stop a little chat with the mayor of Cape Charles.

Trying to economically grow an area, whether it's with jobs or infrastructure, tourism, all of the stuff that comes with growing an area economically.

How do you walk that line between economic growth and keeping the small town feel that people just love about Cape Charles?

- Well, I think it's, as you said, it's a very fine line.

I know the elected officials and town staff, is definitely well aware.

I think one of our biggest fears, is that we will cross that line before we've actually realized we've crossed that line.

- One of the fun things in life is a good coincidence.

So this morning, right before we met Smitty, the mayor, Tammy and I were talking about college.

I asked her where she went to college and she said, "I went to Radford."

I was like, I went to Radford.

We were there at the same time.

- (chuckles) I wondered why he looks up familiar.

- And then we found out that I actually knew Smitty's wife cause the two were there and were in the same sorority, Beth.

Again, what are the chances?

(slow music) Well, it's a beautiful Saturday in the summer here on the beach in Cape Charles.

Now the cars are lined all the way up and that may seem like a lot of people.

But I grew up in Virginia Beach on the other side of the water and I can tell you that on a Saturday, in the summer, you'd be driving all around, looking for an open meter or paying 20 to $25 to park a couple of blocks away from the beach.

This ain't nothing actually, this is great.

(slow music) It had been a while since I'd been to an ice cream shop before lunch.

But I had also never been to Brown Dog Ice Cream.

(dog barks) It's one of the top 10 ice cream shops in the entire country.

With flavors like brown dog milk chocolate, latte chip, barely there cookies and cream and something called happy birthday scout.

This was turning out to be a pretty good morning.

They were even making donuts and cinnamon rolls when I was there, but it's the ice cream they're famous for.

So it's a must eat when in Cape Charles.

Even though I had ice cream at 11 o'clock in the morning, it was time to find lunch.

That was going to be in Cheriton another one of the many small towns you'll find on the Eastern Shore.

So see that guy right there, walking away.

I talked to him down the road here in the town of Cheriton and I said, "Hey, I saw this food truck over here.

This Mexican food truck.

Is it any good?"

"Oh man.

It's fantastic.

You got to eat there."

That's what we're doing.

And I saw you ordering here.

Do you eat here very often?

- I have just started eating here, but I've eaten here quite a bit.

My friends and I love it.

- [Dave] And you live just crossed the street right?

- Yes it's excellent.

Very good food.

- So you order here, the gentleman with whom I spoke, he said get the state case sidea.

You order here and then you walk in and you pay inside this little mart.

(Mexican music) Can I get state case sidea.

- $6.

(door creaks) - Well unfortunately I'm gonna have to wait a little while before I eat my state case sideas that I had from that food truck back in Cheriton, because I have got to be at a kayak tour where we head up to vineyards.

So I guess I'll be eating my food in the parking lot before I'm given the kayak.

Okay.

I see water should be getting close to the kayak place and I see kayaks.

(sighs loudly) All right the kayak tour starts in just five minutes.

So I need to turn start to scarf down what looks to be delicious food from that food truck in Cheriton, like a state case sidea that's folded over.

It's got cheese and lettuce and tomato.

Hmm.

Everything looks fresh.

Comes with verde sauce, and just like the guy said it's absolutely delicious.

Make sure to check out the food truck in Cheriton.

Time to eat.

All right.

This is Rachel with SouthEast Expeditions.

How far are we gonna be kayaking?

- It's probably about a 45 minute track.

- Okay and we're gonna be going where?

- We're going to Chatham Vineyards.

It's a local winery.

- I heard the word vineyards.

- Oh yes.

- I heard the word vineyards and this body of water is what?

- This is what Akhana Creek so.

- All right.

That's great looking forward to it.

- Don't drink too much wine.

(chuckles) - What I ain't hearing, sorry what?

(upbeat music) Well, one of the interesting things we noted earlier is if this had been like Lake Gaston or Lake Anna Smith Mountain Lake, other big recreational lakes in Virginia, there would be dock after dock after dock, but here in this part of the Eastern Shore, thanks to conservation efforts.

You pretty much have the place to yourself.

(country music) Here with John Wehner, who is the only vendor I know on the Eastern Shore.

I know there are many more, but John is with Chatham Vineyards and they do Church Creek wines.

Now, John, you and I have talked about this a few minutes ago.

You know that most people don't think of the Eastern Shore as the hotbed of great wine, but what is it that you do to convince people otherwise?

- Right.

Well, it's farming first.

So we focus on farming the grapes because that is the raw material that goes into making a great wine.

And focus on making wine that's very expressive of Virginia's Eastern Shore.

(cool guitar music) - I usually don't like rosés, but it's so light, refreshing and special on a summer day.

It's good stuff.

(cool guitar music) Here with Dave with SouthEast Expeditions,.

Awesome day on the water, by the way.

- It's fantastic out there.

- That was great.

You know in Napa, they do bike tours to go to the vineyards here on the Eastern Shore, nothing bad kayak.

- First place in the world we ever did it.

- Really.

- Yeah.

We were the first kayak winery tour anywhere in the world, right here in the little (indistinct) Waters, Creek.

- Groundbreaking, but not really cause it's on the water.

Hey, people talk about navigating the waters, but you know what we had today out on these creeks, it's so much different because you're navigating crab pods and clam pods and all kinds of stuff.

It's really an interesting, eclectic way to see this part of the Eastern Shore isn't it?

- What's really so special is we're walking out of this this beautiful old wharf here in Bayford.

And this is a place where watermen have been actively fishing and crabbing and clamming and oystering for centuries.

- Yeah.

- And so while we're out there, like you said, you have these other guys work in the water, but this is a real working waterfront all day, every day.

So yeah, we've got crab pods, we've got oyster beds and you've got clam beds.

You've don't know kind of what's going on out there.

That keeps it interesting as a guide, really.

- Sure.

- Every trip's a little different.

- After a little wine on our minds.

It was time for a night very different from the one I had the night before.

Yow know, last night, we were at the Bay Haven Inn, super plush, great place, probably different tonight.

Tonight, we're gonna be tent camping at the Cherrystone Campground.

This is Cherrystone Campground.

It's about 15 minutes outside of Cape Charles spread over 300 acres with over 700 campsites, the place is just huge.

Park campground, park amusement park, 100% family entertainment.

Not only do you have access to a beach, but there's pools, miniature golf, shuffleboard, this humongous bouncy thing, lots of activities for the kids.

(piano music) And row after row of campers, tents, cabins and permanent sites.

(exciting music) Okay.

Tent is set up time to go to the bath house, get cleaned up, go get a load of dinner.

♪ You better pray to the Lord ♪ ♪ When you see those flying saucers ♪ ♪ It may be the coming of the judgment day ♪ Before I made it to dinner.

I actually found of all things, a Ukulele Festival happening.

One, I didn't know they had Ukulele Festivals.

Two, it was one of the last things I expected to find in Cape Charles.

And three, it's a reminder that town officials work very hard to provide a great experience for both tourists and residents.

♪ Maybe they were sent down here from Mars ♪ ♪ If you just stop and think you'd realize what it means ♪ Back in downtown Cape Charles on a beautiful evening.

A few of the locals recommended that I try one of the new restaurants, Ambrogia.

This restaurant among others is another sign that Cape Charles is now catering to a bigger, more expecting crowd.

With owner chefs from Europe, Ambrogia might first remind you of the hip from upscale trendy spots you'd find in a much bigger city rather than the quaint Italian eatery on the Eastern Shore that it really is.

With a finessed dish of octopus carpaccio with a glass of something white and light, it was a great way to end my second day in Cape Charles.

Time for that cup of coffee, yesterday I was told to go to Tim's Place for breakfast.

And that's where we're going.

(cool jazz music) As much as I love grits, it's not really a standalone thing.

Grits are for mixing with your eggs, putting on your toast or dipping your bacon in.

(waves rushing) Last recreational stop for the weekend, Kiptopeke State Park.

It's about 15 minutes south of Cape Charles, which means it'll take you about 15 minutes once you get off the Bay Bridge Tunnel.

Kiptopeke State Park is the opposite of what I showed you at Cherrystone Campground.

There are no humongous bouncy things or pools or miniature golf, but there are over five miles of hiking and biking trails, sweeping views of the Chesapeake Bay, a large sparsely populated beach ,RV and tent camping, yurts for those of you not wanting to rough it too much.

In fact, they even have these six bedroom family lodges.

There's plenty of birdwatching, a boat lounge and educational programs like how to tie knots.

Spread over 500 acres, Kiptopeke exists to protect and give you the chance to explore the natural beauty that makes the Eastern Shore such a special place.

Well, my thanks to ranger Edney for the great tour today around Kiptopeke State Park.

Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

- Hey, people wanna get more information on Kiptopeke State Park.

How do they do that?

- You can find us online, just look up, Kiptopeke State Park or you can contact the park directly.

- Final meals stop for our weekend here on the lower Eastern Shore, we are in Eastville, which is several miles north of Cape Charles.

It is a local favorite, a local legend.

It is Yuk Yuk $ Joe's.

This is my kind of place, fish on the walls, an ample bar and plenty of cold beer and seafood.

Yuk Yuk & Joe's has been named one of the 25 hidden gems in coastal Virginia.

I had their seafood combo, which gives you a basic side salad, steamed local clams and shrimp.

While most of the restaurants and lodging and things to do on the lower Eastern Shore are near Cape Charles.

There are plenty of small towns all up and down Highway 13 for you to explore.

Now, keep in mind this is an area that is surrounded by water.

So if you have the chance, take an excursion, go to the beach, go fishing and try to enjoy the natural beauty that this area has to offer.

Have a great trip.

I'm Dave Parker for Virginia Found.

(slow music) - [Narrator 1] Supported by the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission.

Make memories to last a lifetime on Virginia's natural coast.

Learn more at visitesva.com.

You'll love our nature and Virginia is for shore lovers.

- [Narrator 2] Support comes from Blue Heron Realty, offering prime waterfront homes and building lofts in Cape Charles in Virginia's beautiful Eastern Shore.

Visit us online at blueheronva.com to get our new catalog, so you can start making your coastal dream come true.

- [Narrator 3] Visit Gloucester County, the place for history for beauty, for fun, learn more at visitgloucesterba.org, or check us out on Instagram or Facebook at Visit Gloucester, VA. - [Narrator 4] The Virginia Institute of Marine Science at William and Mary providing science that impacts the Chesapeake Bay and the world.

Dedicated to sustaining and restoring our waters, marine life and coastal communities.

More at vims.edu.