10.02.2012 / World Bulletin
Titanic’s resting place
Newfoundland. The name evokes rocky and deserted landscapes and a violent sea. Yet, there’s a lot to be discovered on this Canadian island jutting into the Atlantic with its dark and sharp volcanic rocky coast. Especially in Cape Race, a charming place with a wild beauty.
On the cape’s end, a solitary red-topped lighthouse keeps rotating its light from one of last century’s most crucial places in the world: Cape Race’s telegraph station, from which very important messages were exchanged between Europe and New York through a brilliant system of undersea cables.
It was here that the Morse code message announcing the imminent sinking of Titanic was received. Unfortunately, this episode is just the most famous of many others: the waters off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are so rough and dotted with icebergs that they earned the name of “graveyard of the Atlantic“.
But Cape Race is not just the emblem of a domineering and violent nature; the whole place is scattered with lakes, rivers, quiet hills shrouded in fog, fishermen villages with multicolored houses, old churches and winding paths. In a way, it resembles Ireland.
If you wish to explore these places, a good idea might be getting in touch with a local travel agency. Cape Race has some interesting vacation packages for an “eco-cultural” adventure on the Cape.
Not the classic guided tours, but a choice of walks an explorations that you experience independently with the help of a custom guidebook, driving your own van and sleeping in one of their cozy coastal houses.
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