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| lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
| ARTICLE VIEW: | |
| Get pregnant at this hotel chain and they’ll throw you a party | |
| By Maureen O'Hare, CNN | |
| Updated: | |
| 6:00 AM EDT, Sat October 4, 2025 | |
| Source: CNN | |
| In this week’s roundup of travel news: an Italian town has introduced | |
| a tourist tax for dogs, a New Yorker who moved to Italy and met her | |
| future husband, plus a Polish hotelier who wants to boost his | |
| country’s birth rate by hosting celebrations for expectant couples. | |
| Spread the love | |
| Sometimes serious times require fun measures. | |
| In common with many countries around the world, including the , Poland | |
| is facing a declining fertility rate. In 2023, it recorded 1.2 live | |
| births per woman, down from 2.06 in 1990. | |
| In a bid to increase his nation’s number of rug rats, Władysław | |
| Grochowski, owner of one of Poland’s biggest hotel chains, has | |
| pledged to for every couple who conceives while staying at his | |
| properties. | |
| There are 23 Arche hotels across Poland, from Lublin to Wrocław, with | |
| more than 4,000 rooms in which babies may be made. | |
| Eligible couples will receive a complimentary family celebration in one | |
| of its event rooms or restaurants. The family of the first baby to be | |
| born through the program will also get a stroller and a welcome | |
| package. | |
| Don’t ditch the birth control just yet, though. Couples must also | |
| reside in Poland and at least one of the parents needs to be a Polish | |
| citizen. | |
| Arche isn’t the first hotel brand to offer perks for people planning | |
| a steamy night. | |
| In 2020, Canadian chain Hotel Zed offered free stays for couples who | |
| made , and in 2024, New York’s Walker Hotel Tribeca offered a for | |
| customers who took matters into their own hands. | |
| Community and connection | |
| New Yorker Caroline Chirichella moved in 2014 to a little village near | |
| Naples, Italy, in search of somewhere she “could live life to the | |
| fullest and become a part of a community.” Now she’s happily | |
| married to an Italian man and is a mom to two children. | |
| She created her own she tells CNN. | |
| Anesu Masebe found his own unexpected version of happiness just before | |
| Christmas 2017, when he flew home from Washington, DC, to Zimbabwe | |
| after receiving the devastating news that his mother had passed away. | |
| He spent the flight talking with seatmate Hannah Brown, who’d lost | |
| her own father at Christmas two years before. “She could relate to | |
| what I was going through,” says Masube. “It was such a moment I | |
| really needed, and didn’t even recognize that I needed at the | |
| time.” | |
| The pair got married in 2019. . | |
| Epic adventure | |
| Father-and-son duo George and Josh Kohler are . They’ve already made | |
| it to Thailand, after leaving their home in England in March this year. | |
| The Kohlers have their eye on achieving three Guinness World Records | |
| and have a personal goal of covering 60 miles a day. Josh tells CNN | |
| that they hope “to inspire everyone to do small adventures, big | |
| adventures; just get out of their comfort zone.” | |
| They aren’t the only multi-generational adventurers who’ve been | |
| making headlines recently. | |
| A father and daughter, 102-year-old Kokichi Akuzawa and 70-year-old | |
| Motoe, in August, along with family and friends. Akuzawa is now the | |
| oldest person to ever have climbed Japan’s tallest mountain, having | |
| broken his own record, which he previously set when he ascended Fuji at | |
| 96. | |
| House of wax | |
| The Beijing branch of the 190-year-old wax museum chain Madame Tussauds | |
| closed permanently this week. It follows the shuttering in recent years | |
| of the museum brand’s locations in San Francisco, Istanbul and | |
| Washington, DC. | |
| The audience for wax museums is melting away in the digital age, when | |
| posing with a static dummy has come to feel rather quaint. However, | |
| Beijing resident Joseph Ding remains a fan. He tells CNN, “Even | |
| though the wax statues were fake, it’s still a pity to lose the | |
| channel to communicate with them.” | |
| In case you missed it | |
| As the US federal government shutdown drags on, are working without | |
| getting paid. | |
| At the time of writing, the was likely to extend into next week. | |
| Two couples bumped into each other in a taxi line in the Bahamas. | |
| It kick-started a of 40 years. | |
| An Italian town has introduced a tourist tax for dogs. | |
| The is proving controversial. | |
| London to Sweden for the day. | |
| These travelers are embracing . | |
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