Heart Island lies in the Nistru River near Naslavcea, in the far north of Moldova.
It is around 230 – 240 km by road from Chișinău, so this is not somewhere you quickly visit between two other stops.
You need to go north and that is actually the part of it.
The road narrows, sometimes worn, sometimes uneven, the edges softening into grass, and it bends more often, rising and falling with the land instead of cutting through it.
You don’t decide to slow down, it just happens.
Through Ocnița there is still a sense of movement, but once you leave it behind and continue towards Otaci, things begin to change.
There are fewer houses, the fields become wider and the Nistru starts appearing between the trees.
Sometimes you only see it for a few seconds and then it disappears again.
After Otaci, the road follows the river and the landscape becomes more open, the hills and cliffs begin appearing around you and there are places where the Nistru lies below the road, wide and surprisingly calm.
This is where the drive starts taking longer than you originally planned. Not because of the distance but because you stop.
At first, you might not even see the heart.
That depends on where you are standing, walk a little, change your
position, look down towards the river again.
Then the shape begins to appear.
The island sits low in the Nistru, covered by trees, with the water running around both sides.It isn't a perfectly drawn heart.
Nature rarely bothers with rulers.
But from the right position, there isn't much doubt why people gave it
the name.
Sometimes there isn't even a proper reason to stop.
You see an opening between the trees, pull over where it is possible and get out.
Maybe for a photograph, maybe just to look.
Then ten minutes have gone and you drive another few kilometres and do exactly the same thing again.
Another bend, another view across the river, another place where you decide the schedule can wait.
By the time you are getting close to Naslavcea, you have probably stopped counting the stops you have made.
And you don't need to get onto the island and actually, seeing it from above is part of what makes the place work.
You have the island below, the Nistru around it and the Ukrainian side of the river beyond.
There may be wind through the grass and trees, a little sound from the water below, perhaps somebody else walking somewhere behind you.
Otherwise, not much.
It is quiet, but not empty.
Not because there is a place marked for it, but because it feels wrong not to.
You step out, and the air feels different, more open, the silence deeper, the space around you wider than you thought it would be.
You stand there longer than planned, looking out over the valley, and already knowing that whatever this feeling is, it will be difficult to explain later.
Heart Island itself is small, uninhabited and covered by vegetation.
There are no buildings waiting on it, no café, no ticket office and no attraction constructed around the shape.
It is simply an island in the river.
What makes it different is where it is placed and how you see it from the land above Naslavcea.
Perhaps that is enough.
When you finally turn back towards Chișinău, Heart Island will probably be one of the photographs you take home.
But the road north may stay with you, in your memory just as much.
Ocnița, Otaci. The Nistru appearing and disappearing beside you.
The stops that were never planned and that little island below Naslavcea
that, from one particular place, happens to look like a heart.
What stays is not just the image of it, but everything that led to it.
The road, the stops you didn’t plan, the silence, the way the landscape slowly opened and revealed itself.
It is not because the island looks more special than other places, but because of how everything comes together around it, how it is seen and felt at the same time, and how the feeling and experience has left its mark on you.
Unii spun că unele locuri nu pot fi descrise, doar trăite.
(Some say some places cannot be described, only experienced, and this is one of them.)
