Although it has decent tourist facilities, the Tsingy de Bemaraha is only for the hardened traveller as realistically there is no easy way to reach this park on the west coast of Madagascar. The property is so poorly accessible from the nearest city or commercial airport that it almost fits into our ‘ Takes more than 5 days ’-connection: a return trip takes at least 5 days from Tana. To make matters worse, it nowadays should be visited as part of an armed convoy due to safety concerns as there have been robberies along the route. There is no public transport to the site, all has to be done by 4WD, although the very wealthy could charter a bush plane and land on an airstrip that lies some 8km from Grand Tsingy.

The road to Tsingy from the coastal city of Morondava (195km/8h) starts with a passage through the well-known Avenue of the Baobabs. From that point on, the sand road is all there is – Tsingy for that reason also is inaccessible during the rainy season. A bit further on lies the turn-off for Kirindy Forest, a park that has severely deteriorated since Covid: people …

The Royal Hill of Ambohimanga is a fortified hill with great historical and symbolic value for the people of Madagascar. It is a wonderful site to visit as it is in good condition and has so many layers: the first unified Malagasy kingdom, the start of its interaction with the outside world just before colonial times, and a contemporary place of worship. I spent 3 hours there on a guided tour of the palace complex and a forest walk.

Although it lies only 20km away from the Madagascar capital Antananarivo, it will take the best part of an hour to get there by car. Leaving the busy city center is the hardest, after that, a fine drive along the rice paddies follows. Ambohimanga is one of many hills in this area. From viewpoints, you can also see the tomb of the King’s astrologer on the adjacent, slightly higher hill. Also, there are the remains of a palace in between these two hills. The astrologer’s hill is a popular place for local worship, the only way to get there is to walk up.

We started the visit to Ambohimanga after entering via the Royal Gate (photo …

The Rainforests of the Atsinanana are the quintessential Malagasy WHS, as they comprise the last remaining patches of rainforest in Madagascar and are home to the iconic lemurs (of which 108 species have been discovered). Like the other reviewers before me, I choose to visit Ranomafana NP out of the 13 WH locations, as it is the easiest to reach. After 2 days of driving from the capital via Antsirabe along bare red soil and agricultural terraces, suddenly there they were: forests! Even in the dry season, it often rains here at night. More water is present at the river with a large waterfall next to the access road.

I stayed in Ranomafana village for one night; this way you can do the night walk after arrival and visit the diurnal creatures the next morning. You can allocate more time when you’re interested in a specialized subject like birds – the park has three sections, of which the main one holds most lemurs and the other two have their own qualities.

The night walk nowadays is executed along the road parallel to the park entrance - it is forbidden to enter the park borders after …

‘Completing’ France is a tough act, as its WHS include sites in four overseas territories scattered across the globe. The French Austral Lands are the hardest ( 9,000 EUR/28 days if you’re lucky to get a spot ). Somewhat near in the Indian Ocean but much more accessible is Réunion, served by daily direct flights from Paris. This island is governed as an overseas department and its culture is very, very French. Réunion is blessed with its own WHS, the Pitons, Cirques and Remparts .

The WHS area geographically is a bit complicated, although it would be hard to never set foot in the core zone while spending a few days on the island. Generally, it covers the whole interior, but, it’s a WHS with an enclave , three enclaves even: they are the villages inside the cirques. And, the WHS is slightly larger than the national park. La Maison du Parc in La Plain des Palmistes, which acts as the park’s visitor center, has a very clear scale model of the island depicting the park’s borders and the WHS extras. I discovered the WHS plaque (photo 1) there as well: it is situated in a …

Our Himalaya connection so far only had seven entries. None of them had any rationale, and the connection itself had no definition. As in my head it was time to travel to the Himalaya again (I still have so much ‘to do’ there), I decided to work on the upgrade of this connection for a bit and see whether there is potential for more Himalayan WHS in the future.

The definition

Everyone has an image in his/her mind of what and where the Himalaya are, but providing a solid definition isn’t that straightforward. It’s not one mountain range but a series of them, and it borders even more mountain ranges with overlapping values.

I eventually came up with:

WHS located in the Himalaya proper, the rugged arc between the Tibetan Plateau and the Ganges Plain. Including sites that are in its foothills or where the site lays claim to specific Himalayan features for its OUV.

This implicates:

1. This scope excludes the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, which it borders to the northwest (they could have their own connections in the future). Also, the Tibetan Plateau itself is not …

Today or tomorrow, the 10.000th review of a (T)WHS will be submitted to this website. I am not exactly sure when the first one was (we didn’t log the dates at that time), but looking back in the Waybackmachine it must have been late 2001. It was this one about Dorset and the East Devon Coast by Norman Day. On 13 November 2003, I had the first e-mail exchange with Solivagant about his first review – of Gough Island . That was review number 194. So it all took off slowly!

The 10,000 reviews have been submitted by 1758 different community members and are divided among 1137 WHS and 1104 TWHS. 6,879 reviews include a photo.

Development

The first reviews were mostly comment-style posts, without photos. These limitations were also set by the technical set-up of the website at the time.

We had a ‘Rohtas and Idanre’ phase when local youth were tapping away at Pakistani and Nigerian internet cafes. You can still see some of their efforts in the 18 reviews of Idanre Hill and 15 of Rohtas Fort (and that is after cleaning up). And there was a short-lived Blogger phase …

Cathedrals is among the connections that have the most WHS associated with them. At 166 entries, it only lags behind more generic topics such as Located in a former capital (200) and former subjects of the World Monuments Watch (186). A recent book, Heaven on Earth. The Lives and Legacies of the World's Greatest Cathedrals by Emma J. Wells , describes 11 of these WHS Cathedrals plus a further 2 that are on the Tentative Lists. Does it bring any new insights?

What it is about

The book - I ordered the quite heavy (480 pages) hardcover version - provides ‘biographies’ of 16 European cathedrals, with a focus on the gothic building frenzy in the 12th and 13th centuries. Each cathedral gets about 15 pages. The text concentrates on the Who and Why behind the construction and not so much on the architecture itself. I’ve called them ‘biographies’ as their histories are described from their conception up until the present date.

The story starts with Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia and ends at the Duomo of Florence. In between, the cathedrals in Santiago de Compostela, St-Denis, Chartres, Paris, Canterbury, Wells, Winchester, Reims, Amiens, Salisbury, York, …

I just completed my WHS-oriented trip to Western Turkey. Saw 7 new WHS, 3 upcoming possible WHS and 8 TWHS. I had been to this region twice before so I skipped the WHS I had already been to (Bursa, Ephesus, Cappadocia, Hierapolis/Pamukkale). I did a clockwise loop by rental car in 9 days, with Izmir as the most western point and Konya as the most eastern. Then I flew/bussed to Ankara, Safranbolu and Edirne to clear all that was left!

Below are my tips for travelling to Western Turkey as a WH Traveller.

1. Beware that entrance fees have risen sharply

Despite rampant inflation, food and public transport are still inexpensive in Turkey when you come from abroad and accommodation I found good value. Entrance fees however have risen sharply over the past couple of years (you'll notice the little stickers on the tickets overriding the original prices). The most prolific sites now charge 200 TL – at about 10 EUR, this still is reasonable for a classy WHS I think. But it will add up as they charge mostly per location: Pergamon is 200 TL for the Akropolis and 180 TL for the Asklepion (and 180 TL for the …

Turkey has a good track record in nominating ancient sites with noteworthy remains still in situ . The more complete ones concern relatively late (20th century) and careful excavations deep in Anatolia. Gordion (nominated for 2023) is another example: it was the capital and cultural center of the Phrygian civilization. The Phrygians had come to Anatolia from what is now Bulgaria and Greece.

First: what have the Phrygians ever done for us? It would be overstating to say that they were an influential tribe: after a flowering period in the 8th century BC when they ruled over large parts of Anatolia, they were overrun by the Lydians, Persians, Alexander the Great, Celts and Romans. Still, there are two terms in modern English that remember them: the Gordian Knot and the Midas touch .

The site of Gordion lies deep in the countryside, in what looks like an impoverished area. While driving up there I noticed dozens of people poking around in the fields with sticks – were they looking for bird eggs or mushrooms?

The archaeological site doesn’t seem to draw many visitors, I only encountered three other cars on Saturday morning. The area …

Íznik is Turkey’s nomination for 2024. It rose quite quickly among the 84 candidates , apparently using Bursa ’s experience (it lies in the same province) to create a complete nomination dossier in a short time. Or, as others say, because it has an AKP mayor (no shortage of Erdogan banners in its streets anyway in late April 2023). With 2025 looking set for Izmir, the Turks in the short term seem to prefer the easy nominations backed by city tourism money and less so the more complex (in funding, in selection) thematic serial sites that also linger on the Tentative List.

There isn’t a really strong focus in Íznik’s proposed OUV. Probably they are going for another ‘multi-layered’ approach (as did Pergamon ), presenting historical continuity from prehistory til the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, there are 4 specific topics mentioned: the production of ceramic tiles, Byzantine-Ottoman architecture, the town’s interaction with the lake, and its role in the history of Christianity.

Íznik nowadays has 22,000 inhabitants and a bustling, pedestrian-friendly town center. I started with exploring its ceramic tile history, as I recently in Kuala Lumpur’s Islamic Arts Museum saw some fine examples of …