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The Israel Ministry of Tourism, www.goisrael.com
Tourism
for fellow Athenians, and the stunning sites were all
generally located around the Mediterranean basin, the
then-known world.
Today, only the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt remain.
The others were the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and
the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Statue of Zeus and
the Temple of Artemis.
Just as Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games
in 1896 with his modern version of the competition, the
New7Wonders of Nature founder, Swiss-born Canadian
filmmaker, author and adventurer Bernard Weber, has
revived the concept of the Ancient Seven Wonders of
the World. Only this time round, well over two millennia
later, the new wonders are not of man’s making but
God’s work.
Of course, the other key difference is that the final
selection will be decided democratically as millions of
people - possibly up to a billion - of all ages, nationalities
and religions will vote.
Global Interest
While the ‘election’ is drawing global interest to all the
‘wondrous’ candidates, the Dead Sea is no stranger to
attention. It has attracted visitors for thousands of years
from biblical times where it was a place of refuge for
King David through to one of the world’s first health
resorts for Herod the Great and finally to the modern
era where thousands of tourists come from all over the
world to bathe in its famed healing waters.
The Inbal Jerusalem Hotel
Spring-Summer 2011
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Its most recent famous visitors were the Chilean miners
who so nearly lost their lives last year in a collapsed
mine. No strangers to great depths, “at least here at the
Dead Sea” the lowest spot on earth, “it’s good for our
health,” bellowed one miner floating on his back upon
the salty water.
The Dead Sea’s surface and shores are 422 meters
(1,385 ft) below sea level - the lowest elevation on the
surface of the Earth. It is 378 m (1,240 ft) deep - the
deepest hypersaline lake in the world. It is also one of
the world’s saltiest bodies of water with 33.7% salinity.
Halleluyah. Good for the body, good for the soul. Appreciating the water’s unique healing qualities.
The ‘beauty’ in voting for the worlds natural beauties is
that it draws attention to the global concern that what
is here today, could be gone tomorrow. The concept
behind the project is to protect the natural wonders of
the world. The mission is threefold:
-To protect and promote the discovery, exploration and
enjoyment of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
-To expand the recognition of other wonders of
nature by continent, region, country and other unique
classifications.
-To foster a passion for these natural wonders that
inspires a mindset and practice of conservation.
So like some of the other prospective New Natural
Wonders such as the Amazon, whose forests are
threatened by industrial felling, the islands of the
Maldives sinking assuredly into the Pacific due to the
rising water caused by Global Warming or the Great
Barrier Reef, endangered by rising sea temperature and
acidification, Israel’s glistening natural treasure - the
Dead Sea - is shrinking rapidly due to the siphoning off