Tradition tips

Markus Füchtner works the lathe in the workshop that doubles as his home—or maybe it’s his home that doubles as a workshop. The small, one-story building is set in the forested hills of Seiffen, near Germany’s border with Czechia, and has been used by his family of carpenters since 1786. It was here in the early 1870s that his great-great-great-grandfather, Wilhelm Füchtner, made his first nutcracker—and laid the foundation for a global Christmas icon.

Yodeling has been practiced probably for as long as humans have expressed themselves through song. But the singing style synonymous with Switzerland and its Alpine neighbors hasn’t always been a crowd-pleaser.

Earlier this month, Roseate Hotels and Resorts said it is buying yet another luxury hotel in the United Kingdom — this time, a five-star boutique called The Dunstane Houses located in Edinburgh, Scotland. As with the three other UK properties Roseate has acquired, the brand will attempt to keep the decor and service practices localized.

Maison Brummell Majorelle – an 8-room design-driven boutique hotel located in Marrakech – balances contemporary sculptural design with a traditional Moroccan undertone to stand out to design-minded travelers coming to Morocco.

This is part of Breaking Bread, a collection of stories that highlights how bread is made, eaten, and shared around the world. Read more here. 

Every year, a small suburban town called Twinsburg, Ohio hosts the Twins Days Festival — the largest gathering of twins in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.