Many Ways to Summer, Chapter Three: Up and Out

By the end of August enthusiasm begins to falter and yearning for Fall begins. When the linen has been worn and the beach has been admired, the city pavement starts radiating heat back at us. Suddenly the season that once promised is the very thing to escape from, going up or going out.

Up into mountains where the temperature drops and towns appear between clouds. Or out into landscapes so empty that darkness, silence and distance become attractions in themselves. For the final chapter of Many Ways to Summer, we leave the coastline behind.

Sanatorium No More

Starting off with a recent history break. Before air-conditioning allowed people to pretend seasons were optional, those who couldn’t handle the heat had to escape the plains. The idea was to move altogether to another area, high above the ground, where it’s naturally cooler. Back then, doctors also prescribed rest, and there came the sanatorium. These places developed before the Soviet Union existed and even under British colonial rule as seasonal retreats, where people could recover. Eventually, the concept of a retreat became recreational as we now know it.

Sanatoriums were somewhere between a hotel, hospital and spa, based on the idea that rest and natural surroundings could help restore the health of working people. They were built beside the Black Sea, among the mineral springs of the Caucasus, in forests and mountain towns and in Indian high hills.

Summer Stars

Instead of climbing until the air cools, you can drive until the lights disappear. Deserts make strange summer destinations during the day for obvious reasons but at night, they make perfect sense. Stargazing in the desert is a blissfully tranquil summer night experience. The heat loosens its grip and distances become difficult to judge. And without the glow of cities competing with it, the sky becomes the escape.

Al Quaa Milky Way Spot in Abu Dhabi, is considered one of the darkest spots in the UAE. From this desert location, the Milky Way can be seen with the naked eye. In other places such as the Atacama, Chile and the Namib Desert in Africa, stargazing is increasingly sold as an experience in itself. There are observatories, desert camps and luxury lodges offering nights organised around looking upward. Some have even given the practice a suitably twenty-first-century wellness name: star-bathing.

And Then You Come Home

The first formal morning comes with the usual route to work, the usual coffee and the crowded inbox. The normal routine feels strange for a while. Holidays temporarily rearrange the scale of a life, in the way breakfast becomes an event and walking somewhere becomes an activity. We notice balconies, menus, street signs, the colour of the sky at 7 p.m. Then we return home and all the things we stopped noticing are waiting exactly where we left them.

The biggest post-vacation adjustment is learning to look at ordinary life again. Across the three chapters of Many Ways to Summer, we found countless ways to leave routine behind. But eventually, every form of escape contains a return.

And so, the final way to summer is not another destination at all, it's a way to appreciate everyday life. Realising that routine, after some distance from it, can itself be surprisingly pleasant.