While Captain Sandy Yawn is at the helm of a super yacht for months at a time, she relies on an everyday, tried-and-true method for keeping in touch with loved ones on land: FaceTime
08.09.2023 - 23:05 / nationalgeographic.com
Spring has reached central Romania. The little dwelling is half-hidden by pear blossom and lilac trees. A well can be seen in the garden, sunlight patches the long grass and the wolf-prowled hills beyond. The house has a neat timber balcony and a frieze of blue flowers at the eaves, but the plasterwork is crumbling. For over seven decades, this was the home of anti-communist activist Elisabeta Rizea, who died in 2003, aged 91. It now stands empty, looking out across the elder woods and hay meadows.
When a Soviet-installed government took over after the Second World War, Rizea, like many locals, gravitated to the resistance movement. She helped partisan fighters in the surrounding mountains, a role that twice saw her imprisoned. Despite being tortured, she remained true to her ideals, earning a visit to her hillside home from the long-exiled Romanian monarch, King Michael I, after communist rule was ended by an uprising in 1989. During the visit, Rizea told reporters, “They took everything from us ... Still, what they could not take was our soul.”
In many ways, Rizea’s values and beliefs reflect the soul of the region. Her cottage is found in Nucsoara, a remote village that still moves to older, quieter rhythms. The capital city, Bucharest, is a three-hour drive south east, but may as well be light years away. The slopes around the village swell out in sage-green folds and its houses come with cherry trees, log piles and hand-tied grapevines. Every so often, a pothole-dodging car or horse-drawn cart winds along the road, stirring dogs from their slumber. Women in headscarves tend the onion beds, the occasional curl of woodsmoke drifts from a chimney. Barely a minute passes without the call of a cuckoo.
The softly spoken local mayor, Ion Cojocaru, smiles as he stares across the valley. “When my friends and I were boys, these hills were our playground,” he says. We’re talking outside Nucsoara’s Orthodox church, its two pale domes luminous in the afternoon light. Two years ago, after his wife died suddenly, Ion found solace in daily woodland walks. On one of these strolls, an idea struck him, and a project was born. Ion went on to select 2,544 individual beech trees — one for every metre of height of nearby Moldoveanu, Romania’s highest mountain — to be adopted by visitors, whose details and, should they wish, life stories are embedded in QR codes fixed to the trunks. The trees (mossy beauties all) are between 50 and 350 years old. Ion hopes the money raised will fund new local hiking trails.
This sense of pride in the land, and through it a way of giving travellers reasons to come calling, is encountered a lot in the Southern Carpathians. I’m here as part of a week-long stay, hopping between the
While Captain Sandy Yawn is at the helm of a super yacht for months at a time, she relies on an everyday, tried-and-true method for keeping in touch with loved ones on land: FaceTime
Awe-inspiring backdrops, difficult yacht charter guests and cruise crew drama have fueled one of TV's most popular reality shows. Since "Below Deck" premiered on Bravo in 2013, it's spawned a number of spinoffs, beginning with the popular "Below Deck Mediterranean" series, which premiered in 2016.
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Would you wait hours in line at Disney World to meet a cartoon character?
Birch Selsdon, once an historic estate and golf course, covering 200 acres on the outskirts of London, is now a hip new hotel, a much anticipated followup to sister property Birch Cheshunt, which opened three years ago. It’s a great blend of classic and contemporary elements, providing a serene retreat, surrounded by natural beauty. Like the Cheshunt hotel, this peaceful escape from the city's hustle and bustle is a short drive or train journey from London but feels like the middle of the countryside once you arrive.
Soho House is a brand with bona fide British celebrity and royal bragging rights: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had their first date at one in London. Soho Farmhouse, the brand's countryside inn a two-hour drive outside London, has hosted everyone from former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to Princess Eugenie and (my personal favorite) top-selling U.K. band Girls Aloud.