The Best Urban Beaches
Who else is looking forward to the summer? Whether you call your summer break a ‘vacation’ or a ‘holiday’, there is a good chance that some of you are heading for the beach.
Did you know that around the world there are hundreds of artificial beaches. Some are near the coast, but others are miles away from the seaside – perfect for those who don’t or can’t travel far.
City beaches are sometimes called ‘urban beaches’ like the one above in Cologne, Germany. This can involve the delivery of hundreds of tonnes of sand, to a place where there is no sand.
Islands Brygge, Copenhagen, Denmark
There is no sand here, but it is an oasis of fun in the middle of the city. For many years, this area was run down and neglected, but after a regeneration project, new life is blossoming. Who wants to jump off this diving board?
Festival of Love Beach, South Bank, London UK
This beach is all about relaxing and digging your feet into the sand. No pool (and the chilly Thames is certainly no alternative!) but great views over London, and the South Bank centre often has great activities for kids on offer. Check out their website for details.
Paris Plage, France
The capital city of France can get really hot and muggy in the summer months, so what better way than to cool off at an urban beach? Check out the huge showers in the picture!
Bundek Lake, Zagreb, Croatia
In the south of the city of Zagreb, this park was brought back to life after many years of neglect. It is a popular spot for locals and tourists alike, hoping to cool off in the hot Croatian summers.
Baby Plage, Geneva, Switzerland
Baby Plage, Geneva
This might be the MOST fun urban beach for kids in the world. The huge trees are festooned with old tyres and bicycle tubes, knotted together to create ladders and swings.
San Alfonso del Mar, Chile
Ok, this is a bit of a cheat, cause it isn’t an urban beach, but it is the biggest swimming pool in the world, so we had to include it! It is 8 hectares, and holds 250 million liters of water. That is equivalent of 6,000 familiar 8m long pools! It is part of a privately owned complex in South America.
BONUS BEACHES
Now, don’t tell your parents that we showed you this, and don’t try it out at home, but how awesome does this look? We can’t help thinking that this would be VERY messy, but it looks so relaxing and fun!
The artist Justin Kemp created home sandbox for under his desk.
This was built in Japan in 1993 – an artificial beach with a retractable roof. It was not commercially successful and closed over 10 years ago. Which is a real shame, because it looks really amazing.
Featured Image – Cologne KM689 Beach Bar in Germany
Women You Should Know – Conductor Alice Farnham
The musician and conductor Alice Farnham spoke to us about being a conductor, and the new courses for young women that she is giving at Morley College in Great Britain.
The courses are designed to get more girls and women interested in conducting.
Where Does the Word Candidate Come From?
Today is election day in UK, when the citizens of the country choose their new government. You can read all about how the elections work here. You wouldn’t think that dress codes of ancient Rome would affect the elections of today, but they do! Millie Slavidou explains.
Today is a good day to think about the word ‘candidate’. I rather like the etymology of this one.
It comes from Latin candidus, which is the past participle* of candidare, which meant ‘to make white, to make bright’.
Not because of whitewashing whatever the candidates might have said or done! It was because in ancient Rome candidates who wanted to be elected either to the Senate or any other office wore white robes.
If we take it one step further back, to a root meaning ‘white, shining’, we find that ‘candle’ is a cognate.**
*Past Particle
The past particle is the past form of the verb that can also be used as an adjective, like “a fallen tree”. In the case above, the adjective is like saying ‘whitened’ in English. Other examples of past particles are:
verb: bite
past particle: bitten
example: a bitten apple
verb: choose
past particle: chosen
example: aa chosen present
verb: crash
past particle: crashed
example: a crashed bicycle
**Cognates
A cognate is a distant relative, a word ultimately from the same root. Like a third cousin. Here are some examples of cognates.
Book is related to beech. Well, actually, book means beech! Both come from Germanic word meaning beech tree, Buche.
Germanic runes were originally inscribed on tablets made of beech wood. Modern German for book is Buch!
WOOL and FLANNEL are distant cognates. Today, fashion stores often describe plaid shirts as ‘flannel’, but it is actually a soft woven fabric, originally made of wool, but now often cotton or synthetic. You might have a flannel pyjamas, which are lovely and cosy in the winter!The word wool is from a Proto Indo European root *wele meaning ‘wool’.
In Welsh, the word gwlanen, means ‘wool’ and is from the same root. The word flannel comes from the woollen vests that were made, presumably by Welsh traders from Welsh sheep – Gwlanen became fwlanen, and then flannel. So wool and flannel are distant cousins!
Today’s featured image is Marasmiellus candidus, a type of mushroom. You will often find the word ‘candidus’ used in botany or biology to describe something that is white, such as crocus candidus or the white woodpecker Melanerpes Candidus. There is even a white monkey called Propithecus candidus.
Tomboys and Girly Girls
The mother of eight year old Isabella wrote about buying toys without glitter, and searching for ‘girl’ clothes in colours other than pink, which got us thinking about the term ‘tomboy’.
What do you call a girl who isn’t a girly-girl? Some people would say, ‘a tomboy’, but does that imply that the girl isn’t a real girl, and do we need a label for this anyway?
Perhaps we should let toys be toys, as this campaign demands, and sell clothes without ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ labels. What do you think?