European Heritage Days 2018

European Year of Cultural Heritage

The European Heritage Days (EHDs), a joint initiative of the Council of Europe andthe European Commission, are the most widelycelebrated participatory cultural events shared by the citizens ofEurope. The pan-European nature of the events contributes tobringing citizens together and highlighting the European dimensionand the value of cultural heritage in the 50 signatory States of the

European Cultural Convention. Over 70 000 events are organised every year in orderto help raise awareness of Europe's common heritage and the continuous need for itsprotection, as well as to create shared cultural heritage experiences, promoteinclusiveness and foster creativity and imagination.

In this year’s edition of the #EHDs we are celebrating the European Year of Cultural Heritage:The Art of Sharing. The aim of the European Year of Cultural Heritage is to encourage more

people to discover and engage with Europe's cultural heritage, and toreinforce a sense of belonging to a common European space.

The European Heritage Days are proud to present 101 eventideas that you can bring to your local communities in orderto highlight a shared European heritage, show howEuropeans connect through different surroundings andhighlight the importance of shared cultural values ofEurope and its citizens.

European Heritage Days

Journées européennes du patrimoine

Apart from tours, talks and exhibitions here is a list of creative ideas that can help youmake your event engaging, interesting, inclusive and enlightening. Remember thatyour events should:

• Have the elements of learning, exploring and fun.

• Encompass, if possible, different forms of heritage: tangible, intangible anddigital.

• Target a broad spectrum of audiences – children, young and elderly people,vulnerable groups, locals, migrants and tourists.

• Engage the curiosity of people to find connections and links and to situatetheir own personal story of cultural heritage in the site they are visiting/enjoying. Curiosity and shared experience leads to learning more about thediversity all around us and differences stop being divisive, and instead theyunite us.

• Be rewarding in the sense that people will find out things they didn’t know, inplaces they didn’t expect and have ideas they wouldn’t have otherwise had.

These ideas offer a starting point for exploring thecultural ties that your country/region/communityhas with Europe, as for hundreds of years, therehas been a continuing exchange of ideas andinnovations among Europeans.

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1. Join the European Heritage Makers Weekfrom 18 April to 9 May. Encourage children andyoung people under 18 to play a game: exploretheir cultural surroundings and find the Europeandimension in it. They can then take a photo andsend it to EHD portal to be presented to the rest ofthe Europe. The selected young #HeritageMakerswill visit Strasbourg!

2. Are you an organiser of a project involvingEuropean cultural heritage, with a mission toshare your experience with the rest of Europe?Do you have an idea for a new project tofurther develop your story? In 2018, for thefirst time in the history of the #EHDs, andwithin the framework of the European Year of

Cultural Heritage, we are organising a“Call for European Heritage Stories”

open to EHD communities, EHL sitesand EU Prize for CulturalHeritage/Europa Nostra Awardwinners. The goal of the Call is to

empower communities and invitestorytellers to outline their own

vision of European Dimension. You cantell up to three stories of your heritagesite/work (deadline: 20 May 2018) and submitone project proposal with the potential toreceive a grant. A European Panel will select aminimum of 10 European Heritage Stories tobe awarded in 2018. For more details, visit theEHD Portal.

3. European Heritage Days (#EHDs) iscelebrated in 50 countries. Connect withheritage groups in other countries andsee if there is scope to work togetheron projects - from shared historyand traditions to common vision ofEuropean values represented inyour local cultural heritage.

4. Think about people in yourcommunity, town or village, especiallywomen, who deserve to be recognised andcelebrated. Celebrate their legacy of women by putting a spotlight on their stories.Connect with Bizkaia and England where they are focusing on extraordinary women for2018 #EHDs.

5. Dance your way through Europe! Partnerwith local dance clubs and schools to organisethemed dance nights of different traditionalEuropean dances.

6. Involve children in building their own visionof Europe by organising an exhibition of localbuildings made out of building bricks.Hashtag your masterpiece with #EHDs and#EuropeForCulture and join in on the “Art ofSharing”.

7. Nature doesn’t care much about borders(e.g. the migration-routes of birds and otheranimals). A wonderful way of working acrossborderlines with other countries is to organise guided routes through woods or other landscapes and explore how natureconnects us.

8. Focus on the diversity of differentrituals such as greeting and eating,

birthday and wedding traditions indifferent European countries.Invite people to bring alongphotos to share in a memorycafé.

9. Do you live near a EuropeanHeritage Label site? There are

now 38 in Europe, each one with arich historical background - and a

unique story to tell about European ideals,values, history and integration.

10. Use the #EHDs to transform Europeancitizens into guides to theirstories of Europe. Organisea ‘Be a European TourGuide Day’ andencourage people tocome up with theirown guided tours.

11. Explore thedesigns and patternsof traditional dress andcostumes. Try to find out ifsimilar costumes exist inneighbouring countries and comparethem.

12. How about organising a fashion show? Acatwalk with models wearing a piece of clothesfrom the past added to a wardrobe of today’smen and women may be just what we need!

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13. Some historical building materials havetravelled a long way before they were used inyour local monuments (e.g. Italian marble,Norwegian or German wood and lumber etc.).Draw a map of their journey andshow it to the world via#EHDs.

14. Find buildings inyour country and othercountries where the samematerials are used andorganise a ‘Spot thesimilarities/differencesgame’.

15. Be like Germany and discover whatconnects us during the #EuropeForCultureedition of #EHDs.

16. Lights! Camera! Action! Check out the listof award-winning Eurimages-funded filmsand celebrate cinema by holding a Europeanfilm festival in your local theatre.

17. Is Europe hiding in your local museum?Invite communities, children and tourists todiscuss which object in the collectionsrepresents the most interesting in terms ofEuropean values.

18. Discover local history by visiting culturalhistorical monuments and tell your story aboutthem with a selfie and hashtags #EHDs.Romania has already done it – check out theexample on the EHD Portal.

19. Organise workshops where people areable to exchange crafted objects instead ofbuying them with money. It’s called bartering,and it is actually in Europe that this traditioncame to an end.

20. Invite local crafters to organise workshopsin schools to pass on their skills to youngergenerations, alongside the story of theirtradition.

21. Let’s play! Organise a day for all ages tocome together to share and play games.Discuss what kind of games children playtoday. What has changed? Why?

22. Partner with your local art school andmake replicas of the most famous buildingsaround you. Involve the students in creating acity of replicas of famous European heritage(Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, Saint Basil’sCathedral, La Sagrada Familia, theColosseum, Belém Tower,Hagia Sophia, DucalCastle).

23. Take part increating a large‘European herbarium’.Discover gardeningcultures around culturalheritage sites i.e. monasteryherb gardens, landscape parks,home gardening and vegetable growing. Shareyour local plant map to the rest of Europe bytagging #EHDs.

24. Have you heard Beethoven’s ‘EuropeanAnthem’? Did you know it is the official anthemof the Council of Europe and the EuropeanUnion, and that it has been recorded in severaldifferent versions, including techno, trance andhip-hop? Placido Domingo, President of EuropaNostra, has invited us to join in the #Ode2JoyChallenge and “perform the original score orcreate your own version and do this at aheritage site that matters to you.”

25. Visit your nearestEuropean Cultural Route.There are now 31recognised routes tochoose from stretchingacross the wholecontinent, from Iceland toAzerbaijan.

26. Explore different dialectsin your language and search for theirroots through a language exchange evening.

27. Get people to join drop-in languagesessions, explore fun dictionaries or word treesto trace the roots of words and phrases. Howmany of them originate in Europe?

28. Engage local students who can speak asecond language in organising a guided tour ofthe town. Let them focus on the parts of theculture that are connected with that language.Don’t forget about the Art of Sharing and postphotos from the tours with the hashtags #EHDs#EuropeForCulture.

29. Organise a recital of European music witha local orchestra or group, to celebratebeautiful music created in Europe. Considerperforming it in retirement homes or specialcare units. Art has been proven to havetherapeutic effects.

30. Organise a heritage-themedphotography or art contest. Montenegro isorganising one to celebrate #EuropeForCulture,and France is planning an internationalphotographic experience this September!

31. Explore the history of a famous house ora castle through its life – who lived thereover the years and what are their stories?Organise a game of Charades. Ask childrento act out a part and role play with each

other, whilst everyone else guesses who theyare.

32. Fairy tales, bajka, pohádka, παραμύθι,saga, казка often contain a strong local,European and even universal dimension. Askgrandparents to come toyour local school andtell such stories andlegends.

33. Invite childrento create their ownfairy tales.Challenge them toset the fairy-tales indifferent Europeanlocations.

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34. Explore sites where key events inEuropean history have taken place. Do youhave one in your local area? If you do, tell thestory as part of the Call for European HeritageStories!

35. Discover your local landscape byorganising a treasure hunt. Identifycultural marks and make maps of them.Explore landscapes around castles andpalaces i.e. parks designed specifically forhunting, or landscaped gardens.

36. Create a European cultural heritagequiz. You could try crossword puzzles, wordsearches, treasure trails or I-spy trails.

37. Organise a local network of ‘Friends ofMonuments’: Groups of children

can be involved in variousactivities to take care of

and maintainmonuments,archaeological parksand other forms ofcultural heritage.

38. How many ofyour heritage sites can

be visited by wheelchairusers? Can visually

impaired people access them?How many of them are children friendly?Encourage discussions with your localcommunity and authorities on how to makethem more accessible.

39. Organise a visit to the remains of ancientEuropean civilisations and explore who paid a

visit to your neck of the woods?Was it the Greeks,

Etruscans, Romans,Vikings, Celts, Moors,

Slavs or Ottomans?Find out the story thatbrought them there.

40. There’s a lot tobe told about old

nobility (kings andqueens, lords and ladies,

dukes and duchesses) andtheir shared European roots!

Explore their family trees, compare them toyour families and find cousins who are look-alikes of royal family in your area.

41. Organise a #EuropeForCulture boardgame competition. Participants come up with agame idea where the story and characters arerelated to European cultural heritage. Or makea spin-off of popular games by creating a boardgame featuring the streets of yourneighbourhood, or replacing the figures inchess with European personalities, or bymaking a memory card game of the famousparks and museums in Europe.

42. Collaborate with local religious leaders toorganise a guided tour of all religious placesin your community to showcase the diversity ofreligions in Europe.

43. Put your explorer hat on. Thearchaeological sites near you are most likely tohave an ancient dimension through manycivilisations. Explore the history of a significantsite local to your community through aseminar for heritageenthusiasts.

44. Encouragechildren to exploretheir own familytrees for ancestorswho were skilled indifferent crafts; askthem to discuss theorigins of the skillsand how they werepassed on in their familiesfrom generation to generation.

45.What skills did a craftsperson need toconstruct the historical buildings in yoursurroundings? Is there anyone around you whostill uses these techniques? Organise ademonstration of their work for newgenerations and the community.

46. Encourage migrants to share their culturalheritage with other members of the communityby telling the stories from their countries. Try tofind similarities and differences in local storiesand fairy tales.

47. Create models of roads and transport linksto show how your area is connected to itsneighbours. Make a map of shared roads andhow they connect you with other Europeans.

48. Explore if your community had aninternationally renowned architect and findout where their designs are located in Europe.

49. Investigate how musical styles,instruments and ways of listening to musichave changed throughout history. This couldinclude a treasure hunt of the local flea market

for old vinyl, sheet music, or musicalinstruments.

50. Karaoke night! Why not have athemed night, or stage your own"Eurovision" song contest! If you make a

video and share it, you might become thenext viral sensation. Tag it with our official

hashtag #EHDs and we promise to share it.

51. Ask young people to prepare a 60-secondvideo tour of your community/town showingits heritage and its connection to Europeanculture. Don’t forget to share it onsocial media with thehashtag #EHDs -because we wouldn’twant to miss it! Wemight just rewardthe most interestingones with someEuropean HeritageDays goodies!

52. Immigration andintegration in Europe isnot a current phenomenon inEuropean history. Compare the importance ofmigration of people in olden times with today.

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53. Host a research night exploring UNESCOheritage sites near you. Encourage yourcommunity to discuss which other sites wouldthey recommend for the UNESCO list.

54. Find out words that your language shareswith other European

languages: i.e. howmany German/

French/ Italian/Spanish words doyou have in youreverydaylanguage. What isthe story behind

this?

55. Visualise yourEuropean links by

mapping out the origin ofyour neighbourhood’s artefacts, architecturalstyles or ancestry.

56. Create a storyboard to investigate thelandscape around you as the result of both theaction and interaction of natural and humanfactors. Do you know the Landscape AwardAlliance of the Council of Europe?

57. Collect jigsaws and other puzzlesdepicting European heritage sites andorganise a puzzle afternoon for the community.

58. Organise a design-a-postcardcompetition for younger children. Perhapsthey’ve been to – or dream of going to – aEuropean destination that they’d like to tell youabout?

59. Do you know the origins of the Europeanflag? The 12-star ‘European Emblem’ wascreated by the Council of Europe in 1955, andadopted by the European Communities in 1985.Discover its fascinating origins and try tomerge the design with your national/local flag.

60. Have a dressing-up day at school or work!Come dressed as a famous historical characteror even choose a special theme, era ortraditional style from anywhere in Europe.

61. Team up with a youth theatre or yourcommunity drama group to bring history to life.Ask residents of a local retirement home toshare their favourite stories and choose one tocreate a sketch.

62. Explore an opera performance, balletshow or movie screening which has beendirected or written by directors or authors ofEuropean origin and explore their work.

63. Stage a flash mob performingchoreography of mixed European dances. Justdon’t forget to capture a video and share it withthe hashtag #EHDs for others to enjoy as well.

64. Organise a debate on whether and howabandoned heritage sites can be reused, usingexamples of other places in Europe that havesuccessfully achieved this mission.

65. Explore the ways in which the industrialrevolution affected your place and communityin terms of technology, transport and changesto society. Organise tours, performances andexhibitions based on this theme.

66. Organise a guided tour of an industrialheritage site led by someone who used towork there. They will have a lot of personalstories to share.

67. Lunch break! Explore the use of plants incooking or in medicine and compare withneighbouring countries. A biologist could lead atour, taking photos of plants and herbs. Youcould even organise a cooking class to recreateold recipes!

68. Create a recipe book by swapping andcompiling recipes about traditional dishesfrom different communities in yoursurrounding area.

69. Organise a meal wherecommunities can cometogether to share theirlocal food. "Let's cometogether and cook ourtraditional dishes" –explain/explore where thesekind of dishes originated.Instagram it with the hashtag #EHDs.

70. Hold a European cake festival! Bake acake in the shape of a historic building. Gettogether with your local community to make atown, country of even a whole continent ofcakes!

71. Be like Slovenia and bring heritage closerto youth through a series of school lessons. Itis one of the most impressive heritageeducation efforts in Europe.

72. ‘It happened here’.Invite children to tell thestory of local heritagesites in their own wordsor through differentartistic expressions. Ifthey do it during EuropeanHeritage Makers Week theyjust might be one of theselected #HeritageMakers visitingStrasbourg in November 2018!

73. Is your community twinned with a town(or towns) in Europe? Why not arrange a livestreaming with them to celebrate yourEuropean heritage links and get to know each

other?

74. Challenge visitors to take part in arecord-breaking attempt like a "EuropeanBake-Off", a “European MasterChef”.

75. Organise an Olympics-style event,where children can compete in different

games popular in various European countries.

76. Organise an exhibition of images of yourtown/community from as far back as possible,exploring migration and cultural influence inthe community over the years.

77. A number of philosophical movementsdeveloped through Europe and there was awide exchange of ideas through well-knownthinkers. Hold a ‘living library’ to ‘Meet aphilosopher’ and learn about their life, city,family, influences and work.

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78. Ask your library to organise a day-timepyjama party for kids. Share picture bookswith traditional tales, fables, legends andmyths from a whole variety of Europeancountries.

79. Ask the visitors to your event to placepins on a map of Europe to show where theycome from.

80. Organise visits to a war heritage site inyour town and help people interact with thesite and the exhibits. Focus on the people livingthere before, during or after the war, ratherthan on the military course of the war.

81. Encourage people to get in touch withdifferent applications used in the area ofculture and cultural heritage. Discuss how thenew technologies can help, share and preserve#CulturalHeritage in the future.

82. Organise a concert or atheatre performance or anexhibition using amonument or historicalplace in your communityas the main stage.

83. Invite local artists tocontribute to a muraldepicting the community’shistory in Europe.

84. Organise an oral history project with alocal archive, creating a collection of thehistory of your community in as manylanguages/perspectives as possible.

85. Organise a guidedtour in a graveyard andtell the stories of itsresidents - especiallywhere there are someunusual names on the

tombstones.

86. Discover whichEuropean country/region/ city

shares the cultural heritage of your communityand organise an exhibition. Did you know Maltaand Poland have a shared cultural identity?

87. Explore the history of tourism to yourvillage/ town/city and create an exhibition ofphotographs or a guidebook to reflect on how itis viewed from the outside.

88. Have you ever been to a European Capitalof Culture? If you get a chance, visitLeeuwarden-Friesland in the Netherlands orMalta’s capital, Valletta, both of which havebeen designated European Capitals of Culture

for 2018

89. Get together with a group of localmusicians to co-create a new piece ofmusic with the influence of different genres

popular in Europe, and finish the event witha performance.

90. Do you have an area recognised as beingof outstanding quality in your surroundings?We are sure you do! Investigate how thelandscape (as defined by the Council of EuropeLandscape Convention) is an essentialcomponent for your quality of life.

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91. Are you aware of any European exchangesof species, skills and nature know-how betweenyour local area and other locations? Organise atalk with a conservationist, or practicalworkshops where people can get hands on withnature.

92. Regenerate a local beauty spot by holdinga litter collection and clean-up day on aforgotten heritage site.

93. Organise a bike tourthrough important

landmarks exploringthe surroundings withstops for a picnic or avisit to localcraftspeople.

94. Organise ahackathon for

developers to make anapp for crowd-sourcing

stories of cultural heritage.

95. Be like Croatia and recognise the potentialof digital content for bringing culturalheritage closer to the younger generations.

96. Organise a cross-frontier communityexchange visit for children and their parents.They can host each other and learn from eachother about their cultures.

97. Bring #EHDs events to those whocannot come to them e.g. planevents in retirement homesand special care units.

98. Have you ever heardof ‘yarn bombing’? Takeyour knowledge of knittingto a higher level and workwith your local heritage siteto add some colourful works ofcrafts to your community.

99. Did you know that you can see the samestars in the sky as on the other side of Europe?Why not hold a Dark Skies astronomy night inyour community. Encourage everyone to switchoff their lights and go stargazing!

100. Get to know about heritage policy inother European countries. Check out theCouncil of Europe’s HEREIN Knowledge Baseand involve heritage experts in your area in

European collaboration.

101. If you are amuseum, invite young

people to come in for aday and learn aboutthe collections andconservationtechniques.

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Our special thanks to the EuropeanHeritage Days National Coordinatorsof the 50 participating countries for theircollective ideas and inspiration for thisbrochure.

You can get in touch with your NationalCoordinator by visiting our website:www.europeanheritagedays.com andclicking on Contact Us

Photographic images reproduced with kind permission of:

European Heritage Days in Albania, Armenia, Austria, Finland,Georgia, Ireland, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and Turkey.

Also: European Commission, Council of Europe, The HeritageCouncil (Ireland), Fundación San Millán de la Cogolla, CentroNaturalistico Sammarinese, Ivan Zupančič, Marko Pleško, IPCHS,Valentin Benedik and Shutterstock.com

European Heritage Days 2018

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