Resort

There are no golf courses here. No row of high-rise hotels along the beach. No duty-free malls, no casinos, no Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is what there is: Two giant, jagged volcanic cones, providing as dramatic a sight as anywhere in the Caribbean. A clean, crescent-shaped, white-sand beach that steps down to a fabulous coral reef. A cluster of private, unobtrusive, octagonal-shape rooms perched along a palm-studded hillside. And a small, open-air restaurant, surrounded by tropical foliage, that serves Creole-style cooking.

BIALKA TATRZANSKA, Poland - Just a few years ago, winter was a dead season for the Kotelnica Mountain, quiet under a quilt of snow. Today, Kotelnica vibrates with activity from ski fans who flock to the new resort, one of Poland's trendiest. The transformation happened in just a decade and reflects the inventiveness and enterprise seen in Poland since a market economy arrived with democracy in 1990. People in this 17th-century village at the foot of the Tatra Mountains in southern Poland were making a modest living on farming and sheep breeding, with additional funds coming from relatives who had gone, in a long-standing tradition, to the United States for work.

A city on the Pacific Coast is reaching out to a Jersey Shore town with a similar name. Seaside, Ore., plans several fund-raising events to help finance a new town entrance for Seaside Heights, N.J., heavily damaged during Hurricane Sandy. Don Larson, the mayor of Seaside, told New Jersey 101.5 that he saw a lot of similarities with the New Jersey borough. Both are coastal towns with tourism-driven economies, Larson said, and both are acutely aware of the damage natural disasters mean for them.

Around the turn of the century, Philadelphia's smart set caught the cool summer breezes in a tranquil setting. And it wasn't Atlantic City. A closer vacation spot - a train ride away - had many of the same amenities as the Jersey Shore: posh hotels, a boardwalk, golf links, riding stables, tennis courts, spiffy downtown shops. It was Media. What is today Delaware County's seat of government and jurisprudence, the Borough of Media, was a resort area almost from the day it was incorporated in 1850.

In a 1940s snapshot, Detroiter Sunnie Wilson and his friend, boxing champ Joe Louis, stand side by side, marveling at the splendor of Idlewild and the calmness of Idlewild Lake. Back then, this resort community four hours northwest of Detroit was known as the Black Eden, the Apollo of the North, the Black Las Vegas. It was the place where blacks enjoyed recreation and culture away from racial hatred. And each year thousands of blacks from Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis and points beyond could hardly wait for Michigan's north to thaw so that they could escape to this all-black recreational haven.

If you've been waiting for another upscale championship resort course to play while vacationing at the Shore, it has arrived in Harbor Pines Country Club. Open only six weeks, Harbor Pines is the latest addition to daily-fee golf at the Shore, and, though not the second coming of Galloway National, it's a welcome addition. Weaving through mature pines and hardwoods, as well as around a nature preserve, Harbor Pines is a midlength course (6,478 yards from the blue tees) that challenges better golfers, yet it won't overwhelm mid- and even high-handicappers.

Around the turn of the century, John T. Dorrance, his pockets bulging with the money he had amassed from his invention of canned condensed soup, decided that it was time to spend summers on Mount Desert Island, Maine. His decision was not universally acclaimed. One summer resident who took a dim view was Mary Howard Sturgis, grandmother of Robert Montgomery Scott. "In effect," said Scott, president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "she said, 'There goes the neighborhood.

Along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, people take advantage of the traditional treats of summer, enthusiastically eating ice cream and ices and downing cold drinks. Although the temperature at the resort peaked at 85 yesterday, a southerly wind kept conditions pleasant.

Willie Scholl of Gulph Mills Golf Club and Rick Osberg of Waynesborough Country Club scored a 12-under-par 59 for the first-round lead in the Philadelphia PGA Memorial Hospital Tournament yesterday at Heritage Hill Country Club and Resort in York, Pa. The tournament concludes today with a better-ball competition, the scores of which will be added to yesterday's totals.

Buying a week of vacation time at a Florida resort can be a dream come true - or a nightmare. So how do you decide whether to take the plunge? One suggestion from people in the industry is: Don't look at a time-share as an investment. Choose an exciting resort in a desirable location because you want to spend your vacations there, not because you think you can sell the share for a profit. That means that the location should be practical. Are you willing to drive 18 hours to reach your Florida vacation spot?

From the broken concrete of Deemer's Beach, you can see north up the Delaware River toward Philadelphia, south down Delaware Bay toward the Atlantic, and east over two miles of sun-tipped waves to hazy New Jersey to get a sense of what people lost when they turned their backs on the waterfront. "There was the tidal bathing pool, and the trolley, and the baseball ground, and the roller rink, and the dance hall, and the arcade, and the 1,500-foot-pier, and the place where the Wilson Line ships used to dock," said Harold West, owner of the property since 1987.

ZAATARI, Jordan - Walk among the plastic tents in one corner of this sprawling, dust-swept desert camp packed with Syrian refugees, and a young woman in a white headscarf signals. "Come in, you'll have a good time," suggests Nada, 19, who escaped from the southern border town of Daraa into Jordan several months ago. Her father, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard and a traditional red-checkered headscarf, sits outside under the scorching sun, watching silently. Nada prices her body at $7, negotiable.

A city on the Pacific Coast is reaching out to a Jersey Shore town with a similar name. Seaside, Ore., plans several fund-raising events to help finance a new town entrance for Seaside Heights, N.J., heavily damaged during Hurricane Sandy. Don Larson, the mayor of Seaside, told New Jersey 101.5 that he saw a lot of similarities with the New Jersey borough. Both are coastal towns with tourism-driven economies, Larson said, and both are acutely aware of the damage natural disasters mean for them.

WILDWOOD - Wildwood, long one of New Jersey's most popular beaches in part because it's free, will remain that way. The city commissioners have rescinded a ballot question that would have asked voters whether Wildwood should start charging a beach fee, an idea opposed by businesses. Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. said Thursday that the city instead would start talks with Wildwood Crest and North Wildwood on the possibility of sharing services, including fire and police, lifeguarding, and beach maintenance.

SUMMER SEEMED so far away last month at the Jersey Shore, with ice inching across back bays and winds whipping sand across empty beaches. In the Shore towns hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy, mostly in Central Jersey, the sounds of bulldozers and circular saws echoed in the frozen landscape. But in resorts spared from Sandy's worst, particularly in Cape May County, real-estate agents say their phones are burning up with calls from people like Norman Noe looking for undamaged summer rentals.

As the temperature steams toward 60 this weekend, one thought doesn't immediately leap to mind: "Let's go skiing!" Resorts in the Poconos and elsewhere must be melting in the faux spring, the runs awash in mud, you say. Managers must be cursing the heavens, you say. But what do you know? "Ski season is going pretty well," said Ryan Werst of Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Macungie, south of Allentown and about 55 miles from Philadelphia. After less-than-frightful weather in early December forced a late start, most Pennsylvania ski areas report that business is not headed downhill - at least not yet. They credit nighttime temperatures that were cold enough (below freezing)

ROME - Rescue crews used boats and aircraft on Saturday to search for a small plane that disappeared in Venezuela carrying the CEO of Italy's Missoni fashion house and five other people. Twenty-four hours after the BN-2 Islander aircraft disappeared from radar screens on its flight of about 100 miles from Venezuela's resort island of Los Roques south to Caracas, the capital, no sign of the plane had been found, officials said. "We have no other news" about the plane carrying Vittorio Missoni, the head of the company; his wife, Maurizia Castiglioni; two of their Italian friends; and two Venezuelan crew members, said Paolo Marchetti, a Missoni SpA official.

With its big reveal slated for Memorial Day weekend, Resorts Casino Hotel has $60 million in renovations under way, including its Margarita-themed entertainment complex. In addition to the $35 million Jimmy Buffett-themed venue, the casino announced today that it is spending $25 million to renovate hotel rooms. It will also recarpet the entire casino floor, regut 259 bathrooms at the Ocean Tower, add a food court, redo the parking garage and the entrance onto the main floor from the parking garage.

THE GAP BETWEEN the 1 percent and 99 percent is also on the minds of Europeans, if the engrossing "Sister" is any measure of things. Ursula Meier's new movie introduces us to a poor and virtually orphaned French boy named Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) living in the Swiss alps, where he makes a daily trip from a shabby valley apartment to the alpine ski resort where he steals expensive equipment from the swells above the clouds. Little Simon is the kind of kid you intuitively like - a thief, yes, but a hardworking one, stealing equipment to order, remodeling the "merchandise" to give a lived-in look that makes the stuff more marketable to his cash-strapped friends.