Over the past 2 weeks I have done a hygiene / maintenance check on all 1092 pages of individual WHS on this website. Part of it was to verify whether a link to an official website was functioning, or whether we had one at all. The whole exercise brought me at a myriad of websites more or less geared to the specific WHS.

What’s a good official website?

I think these are the bare minimum requirements. It should show:

• Opening hours (including updates on closure for renovations etc)
• Entrance fees
• Location with physical address

We link to the official websites especially for this kind of information: it would be impossible to keep track of changing opening hours for all 1092 WHS for example. The ‘owner’ of a WHS is in the best position to do that. If an official website does just that and only that, it’s already fine by me. Additional information such as background stories and maps are a bonus however.

Which websites are allowed?

Ideally the official website is maintained by the body …

Some 6 weeks ago I travelled around Georgia for 10 days, alone and by public transport. The country has become quite popular and fashionable lately: with international flights to Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Batumi and no visa requirements for most nationalities, it has fully opened to foreign tourists. Find below my top tips for travelling to this country, where I have tried to weave in some answers to earlier forum questions as well.

1. Plan for anything between 5 days and 4 weeks

The capital Tbilisi is a great hotspot from where you can make several worthwhile day trips such as Georgian Military Highway (including Ananuri ), Mtskheta , Gori plus Uplistsikhe and the David Gareji monasteries . Even if you only have 5 days to spare, it is worth it. But you can also entertain yourself considerably longer in Georgia: adding Svaneti will take at least 3 more days. Kutaisi (for Gelati ) needs another night. But I have also seen itineraries of people that stayed for 4 weeks and found enough to do even for that amount of …

With my visit to Visby over the past weekend, I finally ‘finished’ Sweden. I did so on a nightly public transport expedition of over 1,600 km: bike from my house to local train station (5 min) – train to airport (45 min) - fly Amsterdam to Stockholm (1.5 hr) – pricey Arlanda Express train to Stockholm central station (20 min) – Batbussen to Nynäshammn (45 min) – ferry to Visby (3h15 min), arriving at 5.45 in the morning. If you ever end up on the streets of Visby via the same early ferry, I’ve got two practical tips for you: (1) Marthas café opens early for breakfast, at 6 am on weekdays and 8 am on Saturday, and (2) there are hammocks for public use along the beach road next to the botanical garden to catch up on your sleep.

After breakfast and having tried to get some rest on a park bench (I only discovered the hammocks later in the day), I started my visit properly with a walk along the exterior of the city walls. They do not look that impressive coming from the harbour, but that's …

Uplistsikhe Cave Town is another easy day trip from Tbilisi. I visited it on my last afternoon in Georgia. From Tbilisi’s Didube metro and bus station I took a shared taxi with destination Gori – the driver was calling for passengers at the metro exit. 5 of the 6 spots in his car were quickly sold, but the final one proved to be difficult. I had planned to arrive at Uplistsikhe at about 16.30 to have 1.5 hours at the site until it would close for the day, so I was not prepared to wait indefinitely. In the end I paid up another 5 lari to get the taxi going.

In Gori the driver dropped off everyone at his or her destination. Grabbing the commercial opportunity, he wanted to bring me all the way to Uplistsikhe (10 km away). Quite convenient for me, and I would worry about the return trip later (I easily found a taxi back to Gori). Uplistsikhe turned out to be a fully developed tourist attraction, with a full parking lot, a souvenir shop and a café. You also have to pay an entrance …

The Tbilisi Historic District is part of the Tentative list of Georgia. It’s a small neighbourhood in Georgia’s capital that can be explored on foot. The rest of the city is of course much bigger: over a million people live there and one moves around the easiest with the subway that still dates from Soviet times. I went several times to Didube metro station for example, to take buses to Mtskheta and Gori from the eponymous bus station. A ticket costs a mere 0.5 lari (0,17 EUR).

I first explored the Historic District by the 3-hour 'free' walking tour of Tiblisi Hack Free Tours . This was under the guidance of Russian(!) Anya and together with about 15 other tourists from all corners of the world: Lithuania, Ukraine, Germany, Canada, United States, Jordan. Her key question was "Do you think Tbilisi is more Asian or more European?" This befits one of the two key elements in Tbilisi’s claim to OUV: the location of Georgia (and especially Tbilisi) on the cross-roads of Europe and Asia with all consequent historical conditions. I think the Historic District is more oriental, to …

Since the retreat of the controversial Bagrati Cathedral, Gelati Monastery can shine in its own right. And what a sight this is. Its wall paintings are overwhelming and intriguing at the same time, because the depicted people far exceed the average list of Christian holy figures. They show saints and historical figures from Georgia and the Byzantine empire in their most beautiful clothing.

The 12th century Gelati Monastery dates back to the Golden Age of medieval Georgia. The complex consists of 3 churches, a free-standing bell tower and an academy building. It was for a long time the cultural center of Georgia, with its own academy where the best scientists, theologians and philosophers worked.

From the center of Kutaisi a minibus leaves 5 times a day directly to this monastery. It starts from a small parking lot with some other local minibuses at the back of Meskhishvili Theatre. The ride costs 1 lari (0.30 EUR). The 4pm bus that I took only transported women: a few living along the route who had gone shopping in the city, another tourist and me. We two were the only ones that remained …

Qalhat has been one of the surprises of 2018’s WHC session. It got inscribed, after a proposal to overturn the Referral advice by ICOMOS. I was in Oman last April and of course I was aware of the upcoming nomination. At the time though I decided to give it just a quick look, mostly because of the experiences at the site a week or two before by Martina & Ivan . They were not allowed to enter and the archaeological site seemed closed. After staying overnight in the not too exciting city of Sur, I left my hotel at 7.30 the next morning. I had a hike on my agenda and needed to start before the heat got too bad. But unfortunately at 7 o'clock it felt already like being in a hot air oven. My planned hike was at Wadi al-Shab, about 25 kilometers north of Sur. On the way there you will also pass the ruins of the ancient city of Qalhat. There is a small parking space at the highway (on the direction towards Muscat from Sur) that is a good vantage point to take pictures and have …

Upper Svaneti is among the most remote WHS in Europe, and one that has been on my travel wish list for long. It was a fairly dangerous place until 2003, “when robbing the foreign visitors were almost a daily thing”. Since then it has arrived slowly on the beaten tourist track. The road to get there is steadily improving as well: it took me 2.5 hours from Zugdidi to Mestia, and another 2 hours to cover the final 44km from Mestia to the Ushguli valley with the WHS (full-size marshrutka’s still take longer than the shared jeep-taxi’s which I took). I stayed for 3 nights in the Svaneti capital of Mestia, a lively town similar to a ski resort.

At the central square of Mestia, jeeps and minibuses congregate daily to take tourists on a trip to Ushguli. The asking price for a spot in a jeep for a return trip is 50 lari (17 EUR), a private car costs 200 lari. I did not want to wait for a jeep to fill up, so I splurged on the private option. The road still needs a 4WD because …

The David Gareji Monasteries and Hermitage are located in the far southeast of Georgia, right on the border with Azerbaijan. There is no public transport that goes all the way there, but every day at 11 o'clock a special shuttle bus ( The Gareji Line ) departs from the Pushkin statue in the center of Tbilisi. This will take you to the monastery for 25 lari (8 EUR), and will return 3 hours after arrival. You cannot reserve this bus and I was afraid that it would be very busy on a Saturday when I had planned to visit. It was, but in that case they just send another bus.

The drive there takes 2.5 hours, with the landscape becoming more and more beautiful along the way. At the end you’re in a vast steppe with rolling green hills and many birds. The monasteries are built against a cliff, and that gives them their special charm. In the rocks there are hundreds of natural and carved caves: they were used as monks cells, chapels and churches. The site consists of two parts: the Lavra monastery at …

The Historical Monuments of Mtskheta are all about the Georgian Orthodox Church, celebrating the introduction of Christianity in Georgia in the year 317. Three medieval religious buildings in the ancient capital of Mtskheta were selected to represent different phases in Georgian ecclesiastical architecture: the Jvari Monastery, the Svetitstkhoveli Cathedral and the Samtavro Monastery.

Mtskheta is an easy half day trip from the capital Tbilisi by marshrutka . Once you have arrived within the town limits of Mtskheta, you have to pay attention where to exit the bus - the trick is to stay on until you are right in front of the big cathedral, ignoring all the loops it does first around town and across the river. I spent about 3 hours in Mtskheta, including a ride back and forth by taxi to the Jvari monastery on a hill outside the city.

The Svetitstkhoveli cathedral towers high above everything in the city. One enters through a large gate, with two bull heads on both sides: these are pagan fertility symbols. The courtyard is very spacious, with a neat lawn that is forbidden to walk on. The outer walls of the …