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English: The International Festival of the Sea was a maritime festival held in the Floating Harbour in Bristol, UK. 1996 was the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's voyage to the Americas, in 1496, when he landed in Newfoundland. John Cabot is celebrated as a famous Bristolian (there's a tower named after him in Bristol), although he was actually Italian, born Giovanni Caboto. His ship "The Matthew" was recreated for the festival (although the original design is not precisely known), and the 20th-century Matthew undertook the same journey as the original, to Newfoundland. Bristolians claim that Cabot was the first European to reach America, since Columbus (four years earlier than Cabot) got to the West Indies and not the American continental mainland. Both arguments completely ignore the arrival of Vikings in the Americas centuries before, of course!

At the time of the festival, there was an interview with the Prime Minister of Newfoundland, and it was striking to us in Bristol how "Bristolian" the Newfoundland accent is. The descendants of Cabot are now a very major influential family in Boston, Massachussets.

Bristol is now quite a major tourist town in the UK - prior to this festival, it wasn't. Nearby Bath has always been a major tourist attraction, and although Bristol is far bigger, it was not really on tourists' radar - so this was a pretty major event for Bristol.

This photo shows ships in the Floating Harbour, with Bristol Cathedral in the left.