There are places in the world that are car free, where you can spend a holiday away from car horns and the smell of exhaust pipes.
The world will seem quieter, time will pass slower and nature will entice you with its wonderful smells. The hustle, noise and gas clogged air, polluted with all sorts of harmful things, is far away. You will be strolling through another world, a world that actually exists in real life and is waiting for you to visit it.
Nature warns us that people should get involved so the environment and our planet are not destroyed.
Located in the south-west English Channel, the island of Sark is part of the Channel Islands and is an area where no cars are driving around. The island is divided into 40 plots and has 600 inhabitants who simply call this place “home”.
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The residents are British citizens but Sark is not part of Britain. Here, the only vehicles allowed are bikes, tractors or the ones pulled by horses. You can find small electric vehicles or mopeds. Who wants to come here can do it only by ferry because the island has no airport and flights over the island are banned.
For 440 years, the fate of the island’s inhabitants was in the hands of a “seigneur” – a term from the Normand dialect which means gentleman – and 40 landlords which formed the feudal parliament. They have banned the purchase of cars and traffic lights. Vassals were obliged to seek permission to sell or buy a house and will had to pay a fee (a part of the total cost of the house) .
The feudal leadership established laws as unnecessary as they were ridiculous. The seigneur was the only one allowed to raise pigeons and could keep a dog that was not castrated. His only obligation was to pay the Crown 2 Euros per year to keep the island.
Residents can go to one of the two churches, in the evening they can go out to a pub and in their spare time they can volunteer for the police and firefighter departments.
There are over 600 species of flowers and thousands of butterflies, marine birds and Guernsey cows. The most interesting tourist attractions on the island are the marine caves from Gouliot Headland, Chalet La Marguerite or Venus Pool, a natural pool in which you can swim. While there are plenty of things to see during the day, the night offers you the opportunity to contemplate on one thing: the sky.
Island Sark was the last bastion of feudalism in Europe, and in 2008 held its first democratic elections. This beautiful island has been chosen as the “first island with dark sky” in the world by the International Dark-Sky Associacion (IDA) – The International Association for dark sky, located in Tucson (Arizona), aimed at protecting the night sky for present and future generations and also increase awareness of light pollution and its effects.
If you want to visit the island, remember to take a flashlight; a walk under the stars will become a special thing to remember.
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