Kazan had been on my travel radar for quite a few years, so I knew I had to make a southern detour there during my Russia-by-Rail trip. Not only is it a mini-hotspot with 3 WHS within easy reach, it is also the capital of the Federal Republic of Tatarstan (which sounds kind of exotic). In reality it is a modern, Russified city. It is very clean and I liked that every car stopped in front of zebra crossings when a pedestrian approached! I stayed for 3 days and started my explorations with the oldest Tartar fortress that still exists in Russia: the Kazan Kremlin .

From the Kazan railway station it is only a 20 minute walk to the Kremlin. It is not difficult to find the fortress: there are signposts everywhere, also in English. Kazan was one of the host cities of the Football World Cup last year, and they have retained an international touch. This year they organized the World Skills Games: an international competition among young artisans, from gardeners to tilers. The logos of these Games, which ended late August, can still be seen everywhere in the city.

The Trinity Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad is an active monastery and one of the most important centres of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is a Lavra – originally a term for a cluster of hermit’s cells (now only visible here at the gate church), but also a sign that the monastery is high up in the orthodox church hierarchy. It has been the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1983, although it was closed during the early communist years (1917-1946). It’s also an educational center for young priests.

I visited Sergiev Posad on a day trip from Moscow by interurban train. The slowest trains cost 360 ruble (4,60 EUR) for a return trip and are very frequent. Just as Clyde noticed in his review from 3 years ago, there’s a constant coming and going of salesmen and -women through the carriages: advertising such necessities as woolen socks, glue, children’s books, ‘leather’ wallets and plastic toys.

From the Sergiev Posad railway station, exiting to the right and following the road for about 15 minutes, it is an easy walk to the monastic complex. Taking this route, you’ll be presented with an exquisite panorama of the …

The Church of the Ascension in the Moscow suburb of Kolomenskoye was the first stop on my two-week trip across Russia. It is a relatively minor sight in this historic capital: when you look at any of those ‘Top Ten Things do in Moscow’-things, the Kremlin and Red Square, the Metro and the Novodevichy Convent will surely be in there. The Kolomenskoye Estate however will only turn up in longer lists of attractions or not at all. That does not mean that it is quiet however: when I visited on a Sunday morning around 9 a.m., several Chinese tour groups were already present too.

The site has been registered as a Single Monument without a Buffer Zone , so it’s all about this one ‘White Column’. Part of the compound are also a freestanding bell tower, the colourful entrance gate and what looks like the remains of another gate. There is no entrance fee, although you can get tickets to enter ‘six museums’ from the on-site kiosk. The tickets were free, I don’t know if they always are or because it was a special day today (‘Moscow Day’).

One of the six museums actually …

WHS connected to Railways – apparently there aren’t enough of them yet, as Saudi Arabia , Iran and Peru have put new proposals on their Tentative Lists in recent years. As I am about to take a trip on the Transsiberian Railway shortly, I thought a closer look at objects related to trains might be of interest. That famous Russian railway system is on the 17th spot of our current Missing List by the way. It is so extensive and so much in use that I doubt that it will ever be brought forward to be included in the real List. As a magnificent feat of engineering that opened up Siberia, OUV would not be in dispute however.

Station buildings

Our current 50 entries in the ‘Railways’ connection comprise of about 13 ‘stand alone’ station buildings and 37 railway complexes including tracks and assorted buildings. The station buildings are mostly of interest because of their architectural features. Some notable examples include:

• Kaiserbahnhof Potsdam : only in representative use nowadays, it was constructed in 1909 in the English cottage style (to resemble an English …

Staigue Fort is one of five early medieval drystone enclosures that make up the Western Stone Forts , a site on the Irish Tentative List. It is located along the touristic route known as the Ring of Kerry, a few kilometers off the main road at the end of a narrow way. I visited it on my way back to Cork Airport after an unsuccessful hit at Skellig Michael (BTW - I did see the island so well from the Kerry Cliffs that I was tempted to count it as a ‘visit’! If it had been inscribed on natural criteria as well, I would have).

Back to Staigue Fort: it lies in a lovely location, against a hill and due to its massive size (up to 5.5m high and 27m in diameter) it can be seen from afar. There were two other cars at the parking lot when I arrived, plus a shepherd and his two dogs. At the entrance gate they want you to put a 1 EUR coin into a moneybox as a “Land Trespass charge”, though there’s no one to enforce it. The trespassing sign may indicate that this land is in private …

Just 3 weeks after the St. Kilda failure , I went on my way to another Atlantic Island WHS: Skellig Michael . Months before I had booked a tour for Saturday the 17th of August, but already on Friday morning it was clear that boats would not sail either on Friday, Saturday or Sunday because of rough seas. So I tried to make the most of my time and have a closer look at the Irish Tentative List . The country so far has only 2 WHS. And although the island isn’t exactly dotted with highlights, there must be some more potential. My first stop was in the town of Cashel, where I visited one of the Royal Sites of Ireland also known as the Rock of Cashel.

The Royal Sites TWHS comprises 5 locations, mostly in the Dublin area. Cashel however lies about an hour north of Cork, where I had flown into. They were sacred sites and places of royal inauguration for the medieval kings of the Irish provinces. Cashel was the place of the kings of Munster. Like the others, it “is strongly linked to myth …

The Hospital of Our Lady with the Rose has been added to Belgium’s Tentative List earlier this year. The hospital of medieval origin is located in the Walloon town of Lessines, a municipality of 18,000 inhabitants best known as the birth place of painter René Magritte. I visited it on a stormy Saturday as a day trip by car from my home.

The site would become another addition to the Brussels Hotspot – it lies some 55 km south of the Belgian capital. The building is only open in the afternoon, from 14-18.30h, every day except Monday. As Zoe indicated in her review , there is parking right in front of it in a dead end street. However this was full when I arrived, so I ended up at a large (free) public parking just beyond the market square and within walking distance of the hospital. The hospital / museum complex has an informal restaurant on site, which opens already at 12. Entrance to the buildings / museum / gardens costs 13 EUR. French, English and Dutch are all spoken well by the reception staff and most information …

The WH Travellers Meeting of 2019 was an odd one: we did not visit a WHS! Not even a TWHS. We gathered at the Scottish island of Skye for what would have been an epic trip to St. Kilda . Unfortunately the boat trip out there was cancelled for both the main and the spare day. More on what we learned about the logistics of getting to St. Kilda later in this post. What was left were 24 international travelers roaming about northern Scotland and its islands.

The 25th and 26th of July 2019 went into the weather record books of Northwest Europe as the hottest days ever. Even the island of Skye, from where we were supposed to sail to St. Kilda, was sunny and dry at 22 degrees Celsius. Our trip however was cancelled by the cruise company due to the wind being “in the worst possible direction”. It was bitter to know that the trips just the day before and after we were scheduled did go on.

In hindsight and after talking to the locals on Skye, a departure from the island of …

The Tokaji Wine Region represents a distinct wine-growing tradition that has existed for at least a thousand years and has been preserved intact to date. The region is known for the Tokaji Aszú, the world's oldest wine that uses a process of 'noble rot'. The volcanic subsoil and the microclimate of the area are ideal for this type of viticulture. I visited the region as the last WHS in a series of 3 during my recent short trip to Hungary.

From Hortobagy , it takes an hour and a half of driving to arrive in the heart of this wine region. I did not expect too much from it: the site is in the bottom 100 of our rankings & well, it’s about wine again and I don’t drink that. Daydreaming along the way in the car, I just hoped to be able to sit in the sunshine on a terrace in Tokaj with a cappuccino and preferably also a piece of cake. That may seem like a simple wish, but something like that is certainly not a given in eastern Hungary.

The town of Tokaj …

Hortobágy National Park - the Puszta is a steppe landscape where man has left only temporary structures. Shepherds graze their horses, cows and sheep (species adapted to local conditions) here on the barren land. Fishponds were built in the early 20th century to vary the land use more. The park is also known for its variety of bird species. I had planned to focus mainly on the park’s natural features (though it’s a cultural site on our List) and I even brought a travel guide book to make the most of it.

I had 1 full day here (stayed for 2 nights) and focused on Route 1 described in the guide book. This is an all-day circuit by car, with stops and short walks along the way. Officially you do need a permit to visit any site in the national park that lies off the main road, but since the Visitor Center wasn’t open yet at 8 am when I went out I decided to start without one (in the end I never encountered any controls).

The route first goes eastwards from the town of Hortobagy, on the busy road B33. There you’ll find …