Wadi Al-Hitan (the Whale Valley) is “the most significant site in the world to demonstrate the evolution of whales”. The valley lies 190km south of Cairo in Egypt’s Al Fayoum area, to which the Dutch foreign travel advice still applies the label “necessary travel only”. Well – it was necessary for me! There is no reason to avoid this region nowadays. Large tour groups are assigned escorts according to the Lonely Planet – and indeed we met a tourist convoy of 4x4’s accompanied by armed police. I was with a local driver (who seemed to know everybody) and we were just waved on at the only checkpoint near Lake Qarun.

Cast of the hind limbs of the whales

In the early morning I was picked up at my Cairo hotel with a 4WD jeep. Due to the busy traffic, getting out of (and into) Cairo is quite time-consuming. Once outside the city limits we hardly saw anyone anymore. The road has been completely paved up to the last 32km, but occasionally some sand hills have blown over the road and a 4WD (or just high clearance) is helpful. The final stretch is …

A lot can be said about Historic Cairo and Cairo in general, but I will focus my review on the mosques of Islamic Cairo. I was in the mood for it: just before this trip I bought the book Mosques. Splendors of Islam and I recently re-visited Istanbul – famous for its exquisite Ottoman mosques - as well. Cairo however might the best place in the world to see the architectural development of mosques: from the Samarran style to the designs favoured by the Fatimids, the Mamluks and the Ottomans.

Ibn Tulun Mosque

Beforehand I had made a list of mosques from the different periods that I wanted to see: Ibn Tulun Mosque (Samarran) + Al Hakim & Al Azhar Mosque (Fatimid) + Sultan Hassan & Aqsunqur Mosques (Mamluk) + Muhammad Ali Pasha (Ottoman). Due to the considerable walking distances between them, I ended up only visiting the ones that I have underlined.

The first of these was the oldest: the Mosque of Ibn Tulun (879). It exemplifies the early tradition of the Arab-plan or hypostyle (“many columns”) mosque, with a spacious courtyard (“to accommodate the large number of worshippers during Friday …

Due to switching to a new employer, I had some unexpected days off on my hands in late October to finish up my unused holiday allowance. Almost immediately I knew that I wanted to spend them at a city trip to Cairo – not too far away but good for 3 quality WHS within 5 days. I started my trip with a long-awaited visit to Memphis and the pyramid fields of Giza and Saqqara . The good thing about this WHS is that it covers the entire history of Egyptian pyramid construction, not just the big and famous pyramids of Giza.

Pyramid of Cheops in Gizeh

My plan for the first day was to take a bus from the Egyptian museum to Giza. There should be 2 bus lines (355 and 357) that ply this route - but where do these buses stop? The surroundings of the museum are a jumble of multi-lane streets, a fly-over and a roundabout. There are many buses but no bus stops and I also did not see the 2 right bus numbers passing by. So I decided to switch to the metro, which turned out to be …

The Danube Limes was the Roman military border along the Danube. The Romans here used the river as a natural boundary: there was no boundary wall such as for example the Hadrian's Wall in northern England. This 'border' consisted of a series of defense towers, auxiliary forts and larger legionary fortresses. The Danube Limes is nominated to become a WHS in 2019. It will be an additional site to the existing Frontiers of the Roman Empire WHS, not an extension of it. The nomination includes no fewer than 164 locations in Austria, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia. And for 2021 an extension into Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Croatia is already scheduled. The rationale behind this is explained as: "Unlike the Roman monuments already inscribed, the ... constructions are evidence from the edges of the Empires and reflect the adoption of Roman culture by its subject peoples."

Lay-out of a Roman castellum or small army camp

From the sparse remains that are left of this border, I visited those in the Austrian town of Klosterneuburg. It lies half an hour drive from the airport of Vienna and thus was a nice ending of my …

What is the ‘worst’ WHS? According to the ranking of most popular sites on this website, Kuk in PNG is currently rated the lowest among our community members - although it has only 1 vote and few have been there at all. Among the more frequently visited ones, Battir and Srebarna stand out negatively. Well – regarding the WHS visited by me I have just reached an all-time low: I gave Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape a 3 out of 10, which in my personal conversion table translates to 1 star. Even less than the little inspiring Srebarna where I was a month ago….

Entrance to Valtice castle

Last Sunday I spent an hour at the castle and garden of Valtice. I did so after having driven up from Lednice right across the cultural landscape that connects these two estates / towns, where the Liechtenstein family united baroque architecture with English landscape architecture. That it was a ‘bad’ WHS visit for me shows in several ways:

The number of photos : I took 23 in total of Valtice, of which 9 made it into my Flickr album which I use as a back-up for …

During my ‘Czech 3 castle WHS weekend’ I stayed overnight in Kromeriz. It lies about half-way between Litomysl and Lednice/Valtice, and probably is the nicest of these towns. The hotel La Fresca and its restaurant are warmly recommended anyway. Its menu was only written in the Czech language, probably a sign that not too many foreign tourists stay for the evening and night. My reason for being here of course was the Gardens and Castle in Kroměříž , which have played an important role in the development of the baroque palace and garden design in Central Europe.

Autumn colours in the Castle Garden

The WHS consists of 2 locations: the Castle and its garden (1) and the Pleasure Garden (a.k.a. Flower Garden) (2). Both are walkable from the city square. The locations are well-signposted and even connected to each other via a route with partial WH logo’s incorporated in the pavement at frequent intervals. I knew beforehand that the castle probably wouldn’t be worth entering (although it houses “a splendid art collection”), so I just focused on both gardens during my 1.5 hour visit on an early Sunday morning.

The garden at …

Litomysl Castle was one of the three castles of southeast Czechia that were still on my to do list. I decided to tackle all of them (Litomysl, Kromeriz and Lednice/Valtice ) during one fast paced weekend break. Early Saturday morning I flew to Vienna, a more convenient hub than Prague for this scope. There I rented a car and drove for 3 hours until I arrived in Litomysl. Not all rental companies allow you to take the car from Austria into Czechia (Sixt does). And you have to be aware to buy a Czech toll vignette at a petrol station after crossing the border. Otherwise it’s all straightforward.

Arcade castle

Thanks to its ca. 8,000 sgraffito ‘bricks’ that fully cover its exterior, this Castle strongly stands out amidst its baroque surroundings. It is located above the town center on Castle Hill and surrounded by a French formal garden, the English style castle garden, the brewery, riding hall, stables and carriage house – which all belong to the core zone too. I did not plan to take castle tours at all 3 castles of this weekend, but for Litomysl I thought it could …

In 2001, I visited the Athens Acropolis for the first time. I went on a Sunday morning. Entrance was free on that day of the week. I made no note of other visitors, only of being welcomed (or: slightly scared) by 2 stray dogs at the entrance gate. Last month I went back and witnessed what impact the surge in mass tourism has had: the entrance fee is now 20 EUR for this single site and you really have to coordinate your visit well to avoid queuing.

Erechteion in the early morning

I arrived at the gate at 7.50 am, 10 minutes before opening. This awarded me with spot #5 in the queue for the ticket office, where 5 people in a row just were getting started doing their repetitive work all day. This is not a kind of job that in Greece is replaced by machines quickly – although you can buy e-tickets . At 8 am the queue had grown to some 40 people. Two dogs also came over to have a look, probably not the same individuals that I encountered 17 years ago!

I was one of the first …

The Monastery of Daphni is part of the WHS Monasteries of Daphni, Osios Loukas and Nea Moni . All these 3 medieval Greek monasteries contain gold-coloured mosaics that are valued as masterpieces of Byzantine art. The monastery of Daphni, located just outside Athens, is an easy one to access and that’s the one I choose for my visit too. It took about 45 minutes to see it all & even combined with a return trip from and to Athens city center it costs less than 2 hours of your time.

The main church

Together with a Russian couple that also wanted to visit Daphni, I left the city bus in a suburb of Athens. Many buses will stop near the monastery, see the official website for the range of bus lines. I used a one-day Ath.ena ticket to pay, it covers the metro rides as well. It was somewhat of a search for the entrance, but then we were faced with a heavily secured monument. Access is prevented by a large iron gate and a high fence that fully encircles the former monastery. Would it still be closed today (= Friday)? No: it …

Meteora stands for a group of 7 monasteries built on high rock pillars, pillars which were created by erosion and earthquakes 60 million years ago. This is a really accessible tourist attraction (certainly a candidate for our ‘ one million visitors or more ’-connection, but I could not find details that confirm this) and much info on it is readily available. So I’ll just focus in this review on getting around by public transport and the enigma of the 7th monastery.

Monastery of the Holy Trinity

I stayed overnight for 3 nights in the town of Kastraki, which lies just in the foothills of the Meteora mountains. This proved to be an excellent choice; only for an ATM or bus connections to long distance destinations you have to walk 2km to the next city, Kalambaka. When the bus tourists are gone later on in the day, Kastraki is a cozy place with a few restaurants and always those beautiful views.

4 times a day (at 9/11/13/15h), a public bus starts from Kalambaka, stops at Kastraki (opposite to the church) and makes further stops at all monasteries. It is a normal public …