Tunnels and fake ‘forests’: How to survive in the world’s harshest climates
By Maureen O’Hare, CNN
(CNN) — In our roundup of CNN Travel stories this week: five-star luxury in Turkey, a fairytale castle with an underground Nazi complex, plus a bikini problem on an Australian bus.
Extreme climates
Canadian winters are not for the unprepared.
Temperatures can drop as low as -4 F (-20 C) in Toronto and Montreal, so when the deep freeze hits, folks head where it’s warm: deep underground.
Toronto’s PATH and Montreal’s RÉSO are vast subterranean cities-within-cities where urbanites work, shop, commute and socialize, fully protected from the harsh weather above. Take a look here.
By contrast, in Qatar, where summer temperatures can hit 120 F (49 C), it’s extreme heat which locals work hard to avoid. Rather than sheltering indoors or in super-cooled shopping malls, however, people can now comfortably stroll outside thanks to a new innovation: an air-conditioned “forest” on Gewan Island.
The Crystal Walk promenade, stretching over about a third of a mile, or 450 meters, provides shade under artificial branches covered in 10 tons of crystals that give it its name. Here’s how it works.
Finally, the climate crisis is making winemaking an increasingly volatile business, but one winemaker in Namibia has worked out how to produce award-winning wines in one of the driest places in the world.
At Neuras Wine and Wildlife Estate, on the edge of the Namib Desert, grapes are grown under netting to keep off hungry baboons, meaning there’s plenty for us tipple-loving primates to enjoy. This is how they cracked the code.
Underground Poland
Here are two more stories of the subterranean, one sinister and one salty.
The first is for CNN subscribers. In Poland’s Owl Mountains, an underground Nazi complex lies underneath the fairytale Baroque architecture of Książ Castle. It’s tied to one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious construction projects and, legend has it, a lost train filled with stolen gold.
A four-hour drive away, just southeast of Krakow, lies the Wieliczka Salt Mine — part cathedral, part industrial relic, part theme park.
Every day, up to 9,000 visitors descend into the mine, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. There are more than 150 miles of tunnels across nine underground levels, and guests are encouraged to lick the walls.
Luxury living
With new openings in Italy, Poland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, Robert De Niro and his business partners are expanding Nobu’s hotel chain across Europe fast. CNN joined them at the opening of their new hotel-restaurant on Rome’s iconic Via Veneto. Watch here.
Paradise Bay, in Turkey’s Bodrum Peninsula, is a hotbed of exciting new five-star openings. Exclusive villas here can cost around $50,000 a night.
Villa Maçakızı, popular with A-list celebrities, is one of the best established. ”Whatever people want, whatever their wildest imagination,” the team can “put that together and make it happen,” says general manager Andrew Jacobs.
Dining on the Tube
Eating on the London Underground is usually frowned upon, but one of the city’s most unusual dining experiences lies at the northern end of the Victoria tube line inside a decommissioned train carriage. Supperclub.tube hosts up to 36 guests for multi-course tasting menus, served between moquette seats and polished chrome fittings.
In case you missed it
Bikinis have been banned on a Sydney bus after modesty complaints.
Locals say passengers in swimwear are “off-putting” and “confronting.”
Italy’s famous “Lovers’ Arch” collapsed on Valentine’s Day.
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Luck be a lady with Chinese sodiac predictions.
See what’s in store for 2026 as we enter the Year of the Fire Horse.
A civil rights icon. A massive avalanche. A royal scandal.
What do you remember from the week that was?
The-CNN-Wire
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