Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775 in Steventon in England.
She died on July 18th, 1817 in Winchester.

She was a woman of letters, who was read and liked by very people.
Her books appeared in anonymity.
Her principals books are :
–    Sense and Sensibility  in 1811
–    Emma in 1816
–    Persuasion in 1818
Her biography was hard has to make because most of her lettres had been burned, censored by her sister Cassandra.
It's her brother, Henry who wrote her biography.
She was writing books, plays of theater, stories and novels. She speaks on love in her books.
Her father decided to move in Bath with his family.

Answer the questions
What is a woman of letters ?
In your opinion why did Cassandra burn and censor these letters ?

Written by Synderella

Food in Wales

Welsh food often looks like ours. For breakfast, they also eat cereals, toast, jam, butter and even chocolate spread. Their orange juice is pretty special because they add water and the taste is not the same.

They still have their typical fried breakfast (in restaurant ) where there are eggs, bacon, tea, beans and a slice of black pudding.

For lunch and dinner, English food is not so different from just things we eat in France, you would not eat beans so often, as with fries, apple pie, the little pasta with tomato sauce. In Cardiff we didn’t eat cheese or very rarely.

We ate fish and chips at a restaurant and for desert we had apple pie.
 







In the supermarket we find the same fruits and vegetables, even meats and most cakes. 

 

There are special products from Cardiff, for example: the laverbread, the Welsh cakes, eggs in pots.

Written by Juliette

listen

Visit Bath In the Footsteps of Jane Austen : Audioguide
http://visitbath.co.uk/janeausten/audio-tour
Click on the link above.

Click on: Download individual chapters.
Select chapter 11.

Download the mp3.
Answer the questions on your worksheet.


2) Another Welsh recipe

Click on the photo above, watch the video, then answer the questions on your worksheet.

SHOPPING IN CARDIFF

 

In Cardiff, there are numerous stores. Shopping malls as well as galleries and markets.

 Galleries are from the Victorian or Edwardian, times they are situated in the city center of Cardiff. In these arches quite typical stores are : candies, clothes, souvenirs...

For markets, the best-known is Cardiff Market. It is a big market hall which dates from Victorian times. It was opened in May, 1891. There, one can buy clothes, food...

Shopping malls are modern. There you can find more often clothes and souvenirs.

   Written by Laetitia

Big Pit

Big Pit is an old mine . You can visit this mine with a guide. To visit you need to put on your head a helmet and  a light because inside it is dark and we see nothing, and the ceiling is very low. The guides used to be miners, before the mines closed. The mine is deep. The old miners were very courageous because this job is very difficult. These people were on  a strike during one year. Formely the miners were very dirty because the coal is very dusty. Then baths were created in the mine for washing .
 

Wales: general information

The Welsh flag

    The symbol of Wales is a red dragon. English is the official language but Welsh is also spoken.
The principal cities are Cardiff, because Cardiff is the capital of Wales, Newport and Barry.
The celebrities of Wales are Tom Jones (an actor), Ryan Gigys (a football player) and Terry Jones (an actor, member of the Monthy Python).
The currency is the pound sterling.
There are three million inhabitants.

    The famous monuments are the castle of Cardiff, and the castle of Caernafon. The activities you can practise are Rugby, Golf and hiking. There is the river Conury, in the north of Wales.
The national holiday are different from France for exemple : in Wales, summer bank Holiday (the first monday of August)  and Valentine's day are holidays.  


1- What the official language ?
2- Where is the river Conury ?


Written by Pauline

Cardiff : an introduction

Panorama of Cardiff Bay

            
      Cardiff  has been the capital of Wales since 1955.  It is the largest city and in the most populous county of Wales. The Welsh National Assembly (Senedd) is in Cardiff Bay.

               The University of Cardiff is the largest in Wales. The main station is called Cardiff Central, which is located downtown, near the Millennium Stadium. Cardiff also has an international airport in Rhoose.
   
        Name in Welsh:  Caerdydd
        Nationality : Welsh  
        Population : 324800 people / inhabitants in 2008   

     The name of the river  in Cardiff is the River Taff
The sea next to Wales is the Atlantic Ocean. Wales is between England and Ireland. They speak two official languages : Welsh and English. There are 4 counties in Wales.

Answer the questions:

_What is the name of Cardiff in Welsh?
        _Caerdiff
        _ Caerdydd
        _  Cardiff


_ How many people  were living in Cardiff in 2008 ?
      _  32000
      _  800324
      _  324800

_ What is the name of the sea next to Wales ?
      _ the North sea
      _ the Arctic ocean
      _ the Atlantic ocean
                                               

Written by Chloé

    

A Famous Welsh Poet: Dylan Thomas

                                                                                                                                            Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English. He was  born on 27 October 1914 in the Uplands area of Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales. His father, David John Thomas, was an English master and his mother, was a dressmaker born in Swansea. Thomas had one sister, her name was  Nancy. In November 1934, he wrote and published his first collection of poems. He married Caitlin Macnamara in 1937 and they had 3 children.
        Later, he wrote many poems about the war. Dylan Thomas is a romantic poet. His best known poem is "And death shall have no dominion. Dylan Thomas drank a lot of alcohol. He died on November the 9th, 1953 in New york because he had a pneumonia. He died very young.




Example of poem:            Clown in the Moon

              My tears are like the quiet drift

              Of petals from some magic rose;

              And all my grief flows from the rift

              Of unremembered skies and snows.

                                   

              I think that if I touched the earth,

              It would crumble;

              It is so sad and beautiful,

              So tremulously like a dream.

Answer these 2 questions:

1/ When did he die ?
2/ Who was his wife ?






Written by Mathilde

The Fashion Museum in Bath

                                                        

The Fashion museum is a small museum in Bath.
In the Museum you can see garments, shoes and accessories. It's a collection of treasures from 1580  to the beginning of the 21st century.

There are some pieces by the world's most famous designers:
- Yves Saint-Laurent
- Christian Dior
- Versace
- John Galliano

 

 Among the most suprising:
- Ten pairs of shoes with bows in ten differents colours
- One of Queen Victoria's dress ( dark with black embroderies )
- An Evening dress by Christian Dior embroidered with diamonds.

You can try a corset and a crinolie, it's very FUNNY !   

Written by  Arielle and Elise.

BATH

   Bath is not in Wales, but we stopped there on our way back...

Bath Cathedral

The Royal Crescent

                               
                                Bath is a city of Somerset in the South West of England.
                                The population of the city is 84 million inhabitants.
                                The Romans built baths for Sulis in AD 43.
                                The city has many theatres, museums.




Roman Baths                                                             
The Roman baths were created in AD 43.
It’s a historical and touristic site.
There are the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple and the Roman Bath House.
This place was built by the Celt for their Goddess: Sulis.
The Romans took this place and created the Roman Baths.







                                                      Architecture of Bath

The dominant style of architecture in central Bath is Georgian; this evolved from the Palladian  style which became popular in the 18th century. The Camden Crescent was built by John Eveleigh in 1788. The Crescent and the adjective Royal was adopted at the end of the 18th century after the Prince Frederick, Duke of York  lived at numbers 1 and 16. The Crescent’s dimensions are 2,197m by 1,542m.

       
            Films in Bath:                                                                                                                      

 Many films and television series have been filmed in Bath, for example :

Thackeray's Vanity Fair (2004)
The Duchess (2008)
The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)


                                                                 Answer the questions:

                                                        When were the Roman Baths created?  
                      
                                1. AD 43             2.1043                3.BC 43

                       
                                                         How many people live in Bath?

                                1. 49 million       2. 84 million        3. 112 million

Written by Alexis

Sport in Wales

Rugby
In Wales the rugby is not a sport but it's a religion. The rugby players of the « Red Dragon »  team are considered as demigods because they embody the townspeople assertive, willing and courageous spirit.

Water sports

Wales is next to the sea (the Irish Sea) and the Atlantic Ocean. The sports that can do are surfing, fishing, swimming when it is hot…










Other sports
In Wales there is another famous sport apart from rugby it’s golf because in Wales there are wonderful plains to golf. In Wales there is Afan Forest Park, it’s the 10th best park for mountain bike in the world.









Questions:
1)    What are famous sports in Wales?
2)    What is  called the park for mountain biking?


Written by Florian

The National Museum of Cardiff

a rock from the moon

 A fossil of shell

A small fossil

    The National Museum of Cardiff (in Welsh : Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd) is a museum and an art gallery in Cardiff. Entry is kept free by a grant from the Welsh Assembly Government. It was built in 1907.. A new building was started in Cathays Park in 1912 but the First World War began and the work stopped. It opened to the public in 1927. The museum has collections of archaeology, art, geology and zoology.

The art gallery has works of a lot of Welsh artists, like Richard Wilson, Thomas Jones, Augustus and Gwen John. The favorite sculptor of Queen Victoria, John Gibson, has a lot of works in this museum. The most famous painting is La Parisienne by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It's one of Europe's best collections of Impressionist works.

You can see the artefacts of our ancestor in Origins : in search of early Wales. A lot of stones, jar, coins, every days objects or piece of jewellery are preserved here.

In Evolution of Wales, you can learn what has happened from the Big-Bang to the present day. You can see dinausors' skeletons, sea monsters and a lot of (strange) fossils. A reconstitution of little dinosaurs and a big mammoth are in this room. Stones from the space are under your eyes !

A herbivorous dinosaur

A reconstitution of small dinosaurs

2 very dangerous dinosaurs

A giant sea monster

A lot of events are organized inside the museum every year, and new exibitions are open every month. In 2009, 373 191 people visited the National Museum of Cardiff.

This lively mammoth scared a lot of people

a skeleton of elk

Questions:

1/ How many people visited the Museum in 2009 ?
2/ What event stopped the construction of the museum ?
Written by Emilien

Wales: History of Cardiff

   

The city was founded in 55AD by the Romans. The castle was built in the 11th century, by  Robert Fitzhamon, Lord of Gloucester  and it still is at the center of the city. Cardiff was a small town until the year 1800.
    After the discovery of coal, Cardiff became an important port. It was the main coal port in the world in the early twentieth century. The Marquis of Bute  financed the development of the docks. Its population grew rapidly.

 Before the Second World War, the industry declined in importance and Cardiff entered a difficult period in its history. In the 1980’s, Cardiff was a deserted, abandoned port.
    The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation has built a dam (a barrage) to create a large and beautiful bay (Cardiff Bay previously called Tiger Bay). You can see the Senned, the Norwegian Church, Cardiff Bay barrage and  Wales Millenium Centre in Cardiff Bay.
In 1999, the city hosted the World Cup Rugby, in the new stadium, the Millenium Stadium.

The Pierhead in Cardiff bay

The Senned, inside 

Answer these 3 questions: 


• Who founded Cardiff ?
    _ the Celts
    _ the Romans
    _ the Vikings

• When did Cardiff host the World Cup Rugby ?
    _ 1999
    _ 2002
    _ 1800

• What can you see in Cardiff Bay ?
    _ Senned
    _ Big Ben
    _ the Fashion museum
    _ the Norwegian Church   
 
Written by Marie

Wales: The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff

    The Millennium Stadium is a national stadium situated in Cardiff, in Wales. The construction of the stadium came to an end in 1999. It cost 126, 000 pounds. The first meeting which happened in this stadium was a rugby match between the Welsh team and South Africa and it was the only match which the Welsh won against South Africa, the twenty-sixth in 1999. The victory was 29 to19. In the stadium, there can be  74 500 peoples. There are meetings of the  Welsh team of football and rugby XV. There are also events of the United-Kingdom Rally car race and several concerts like Tina Turner, Madonna, U2 or Paul McCartney.
The architects are inspired by it to build  new stadiumS in the world. There is a natural removeable lawn and the surface of the ground is105 by 68 meters.

Written by Léa



After reading the article, can you answer those questions ?:

When was the stadium built ?
 * In 1995   * In 1990   *In 1999

How many people can go in the stadium ?
* 74,000   *74,500   *75,000