MARQ museum or Time Travel

This photo was taken by one of the staff at the MARQ, showing our complete group

 Last Saturday we visited the MARQ- the Archaeological museum of Alicante. There are five permanent exhibitions which include the Prehistory exhibition; the room of Roman Culture; the room of Iberos, the Middle Age room and the Hall of Modern and Contemporary Culture. The Prehistory room is about ‘the first evidences of human occupation in the territory of Alicante’. It is quite remarkable that the exhibit features objects from up to 100,000 years ago. It is hard to imagine that humans left evidence of their life’s from that long ago. The room is the room of Roman Culture. This room was highly informative.

History

The MARQ was established in 1932 for the ‘preservation and knowledge of [Alicante’s] cultural heritage’. It certainly does that, with exhibitions about Alicante’s past. The building that is currently the muse

This photo taken by Ksenia shows Lina and some amphoras (Ancient Roman pots for  wine)

um was a hospital up until the end of the 20th Century. This means that all the exhibition halls used to be wards. Before the building became the MARQ it was important to the city of ALicante in other ways, showing that this in its own right is important to the history of Alicante.

Socio-Cultural

Due to the MARQs purpose to uphold and preserve the history of Alicante, meaning that it holds significance to the city of Alicante. All the exhibitions are all related to the city and province directly. All the artifacts are also form around Alicante. This id important to the culture as it shows how long people have been living in and around the city.

Tourism

The museum has many pros, such as the layout which is easy to follow and the exhibitions and the artefact

This photo was taken by Catherine to show the lack of English on information plaques 

s are all well lit up so that you can view them easily. Moreover there are interactive activities which help keep children and people with short attention spans (like us students) entertained. However there are cons, the museum has very little English translation. The English explanation is always much shorter and less informative than both the Spanish and the Valencian, which is frustrating if you want to actually find out about the exhibits. Moreover the videos do not contain English subtitles so if you do not understand Spanish, you will struggle to obtain absorb information. This is a problem as it means that the museum is not very accessible for tourism as English has become the international language, so even if foreign visitors do not understand Spanish, chances ar they understand English. Also the exhibits are not very large, which is both a pro and a con as it is good for children but for people who may want to learn more they don’t contain the most information.

We found the MARQ really easy to get too with good transport links. The tram station, MARQ-Castillo is only a couple of minutes walk from the museum and costs €1,45. You can also get there by bus, the 23 which costs the same if you are far from a tram station. Also the price is really reasonable. The ticket prices are really reasonable as well. For the adults its €3,

This photo shows one of the exhibition halls 

students and over sixty fives it is €1,50 and for children under eight its free! So if you are strapped for cash you can still enjoy this museum at a low price.
For more information visit their website http://www.marqalicante.com/




Bibliography

Photos- Ksenia, Silvia Coronel, Lina Uselyte and Catherine Redgrave

MARQ museum website http://www.marqalicante.com

Moovit (directions to the MARQ)  https://www.google.com/amp/s/moovitapp.com