Describing sculptures

One of the most frequent compositions asked in Lengua Inglesa I exams for the second semester is perhaps describing a masterpiece, a building, etc. Here you are an exhibition on African art dealing with sculptures. By clicking each image, you could listen to a very detailled description of the image shown.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/kingdom_of_ife/multimedia_guide.aspx

Have a look and share your experience here using the comments option.

MORE ON CULTURAL TOURISM

Now you can tell us about your experiences on cultural tourism: special, funny, mysterious, unexpected, particular places you have been to.

For those who prefer to write about what they'd love lo visit, please do it!!!

Write a comment!!

Here's some help:

http://www.dcheritage.org/

http://www.culturaltourism.org/

www.nasaa-arts.org/artworks/ct_contents.shtml

http://www.culturaltourism.com.au/

http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36700&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://www.intute.ac.uk/cgi-bin/browse.pl?id=114470

http://www.art.cfa.cmu.edu/environment/galleries-and-cultural-life

Tower of Hercules (Spain) inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List alongside two Swiss watch-making towns

picture taken from: http://www.farodevigo.es/secciones/noticia.jsp?pRef=2009062700_8_342837__Sociedad-y-Cultura-Torre-Hercules-Patrimonio-Humanidad

Tower of Hercules (Spain) inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List alongside two Swiss watch-making towns
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The World Heritage Committee, chaired by María Jesús San Segundo, the Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO, has inscribed a Spanish lighthouse dating back to antiquity, The Tower of Hercules in La Coruña, on the World Heritage List alongside the watch-manufacturing towns of La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle watch-making town-planning (Switzerland).
The Tower of Hercules has served as a lighthouse and landmark at the entrance of La Coruña harbour in north-western Spain since the late 1st century A.D. when the Romans built the Farum Brigantium. The Tower, built on a 57 metre high rock, rises a further 55 meters. It is divided into three progressively smaller levels, the first of which corresponds to the Roman structure of the lighthouse. Immediately adjacent to the base of the Tower, is a small rectangular Roman building. The site also features a sculpture park, the Monte dos Bicos rock carvings from the Iron Age and a Muslim cemetery. The Roman foundations of the building were revealed in excavations conducted in the 1990s. Many legends from the Middle Ages to the 19th century surround the Tower of Hercules which is unique as it is the only lighthouse of Greco-Roman antiquity to have retained a measure of structural integrity and functional continuity.
The site of La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle watch-making town-planning consists of two towns situated close to one another in a remote environment in the Swiss Jura mountains, on land ill-suited to farming. Their planning and buildings reflect watch-makers’ need of rational organization. Planned in the early 19th century, after extensive fires, the towns owed their existence to this single industry. Their layout along an open-ended scheme of parallel strips on which residential housing and workshops are intermingled reflects the needs of the local watch-making culture that dates to the 17th century and is still alive today. The site presents outstanding examples of mono-industrial manufacturing-towns which are well preserved and still active. The urban planning of both towns has accommodated the transition from the artisanal production of a cottage industry to the more concentrated factory production of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The town of La Chaux-de-Fonds was described by Karl Marx as a “huge factory-town” in Das Kapital where he analyzed the division of labour in the watch-making industry of the Jura.
The World Heritage Committee will continue inscribing sites and examining the state of properties already included on the List over coming days. It remains in session until 30 June.

Photos: http://www.unesco.org/en/whc/photos

source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/532

Are you prepared for the new academic year?

You have been on holiday, and then after some exams, here we are, waiting for the next academic year to begin. At the beginning of a new course as well as the beginning of a new year people make lists of good intentions. Have you got one for this new course we are about to begin? Tell us about it.

Or you can tell us about your holidays. I've been to Italy and I have to say it's fantastic: the Roman ruins, the churches, the squares, the museums, and also the weather. Where have you been this summer?

Unit 5. Cultural tourism. Have you ever been to Santiago de Compostela?

Now that we have just finished our holidays, it's a good moment to talk about the places and monuments we have visited. If you have been to Santiago at Easter or in another occasion, I suppose you can identify this monument, can't you?

Imagine you are a tourist guide, could you tell anything about it? The style, the period, the history... Did you know that it's mentioned in "The Pillars of the Earth", the novel by Ken Follet.

If you have been to this cathedral, you will know that it has several facades and a beautiful inside. Can you tell anything about the interior of this monument?

Could you identify this photograph?

Tell us something about it, and at the same time you will be able to remember the wonderful time you spent watching it.

n7w: Vote

n7w: Vote

Do you want to see the Alhambra as one of the seven wonders? Click on that website, register and vote your seven wonders.It is free and quick!

Guess it Unit 1!

Two years ago, I went to visit with a friend of mine of of the most beautiful places in the world... Could you guess where I was???

- to answer try to give me reasons using the grammar and vocabulary seen during this unit (relatives, kinds of tourism, etc.)

- Click on the button "comments"

- Ask me to invite you to this blog in order to send your posts also.