On January, 24th the Centre of Architectural Heritage and Infrastructure of Danube University Krems (Austria) together with the Center for Heritage Interpretation (Bulgaria) have held a creative workshop ‘Heritage Tour’. The workshop took place in Krems, Austria and went under the moderation of Árpád Bőczén (Center for Heritage Interpretation NGO, Bulgaria) and Laszlo Ferenczi (Central European University, Department of Medieval Studies, Hungary). The agenda was dedicated to on-site testing, evaluation and discussion of the Pocket Guide city tour, which had been developed in the frames of the project.

The workshop started in the Campus of the Danube University Krems (DUK) with the greeting from the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Art and Architecture Univ.-Prof. Dipl. Arch. ETH Christian Hanus and introduction of the DANUrB project to the workshop participants by Árpád Bőczén. Among the experts, invited especially for the workshop, were Doris Denk, head of the department of Education, Culture and Tourism from Municipality of Krems (associate partner in the project), Dr. Peter Strasser, LL.M., Head of the Center for Cultural Property Protection, expert in UNESCO World Heritage and Christoph Wiesmayr, founder and director of a creative NGO “Schwemmland”, based in Linz. 

For the PocketGuide tour testing, which followed the introduction part, the participants moved to the Steiner Tor – the old city gates, which are the first point of the tour. The route of the tested city tour went through the old town of Krems, which is included into the UNESCO World Heritage. Furthermore, the guide mentioned different places of interest, streets, outstanding buildings and objects, as well as historical events, stories and legends, connected with them. The group took a walk according to the PocketGuide route plan and listened to the following audio-guides.

After the tour testing, the workshop continued with the evaluation and discussion at the university campus. The participants evaluated the information, provided by the PocketGuide tour about the city, its history and places, buildings and objects, as well as quantity and quality of the presented information. In addition, they gave their feedback, exchanged opinions on every spot description of the Krems tour in particular, and collected their impressions from the tour in general.

Later the following questions were open to discussion:

• Which thematic tours already exist in the region?
• How can the Pocket Guide tour be the most useful and more target group-oriented?
• How can the Pocket Guide tour better represent the place or city?
• How can we improve the tour?
• What is missing in the tour?

Finally, the participants developed suggestions from different perspectives and relevant knowledge about Krems for the further improvement of the tour.

For more information about the DANUrB project, please visit dtp.interreg-danube.eu/danurb
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Project co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF and IPA)