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 …

The 17th century fortress of Ananuri is part of the Tentative List of Georgia. It was the castle and seat of the Dukes of Aragvi, a feudal dynasty which ruled the area from the 13th century. It lies some 70km north of the capital Tbilisi, along the Military Highway that leads up to Vladikavkaz in Russia. On the first day of my trip to Georgia I visited Ananuri as part of a full day tour along that 213km long historical road.

When we left Tbilisi we got caught in a small traffic jam, all because of scores of tourists wanting to go up that same way. Tourism is really booming in Georgia since a few years: people come mainly from the neighbouring countries such as Azerbaijan and Russia, but also from India and the Gulf States (or perhaps they are Indians who work in the Gulf). After an hour’s drive the fortress of Ananuri comes into sight. Seen from the bridge by which you approach it, it is really picture-perfect.

The fortified complex consists of a typical Georgian Orthodox church with a cone-shaped dome, surrounded by …

Over the years, we have discovered quite a number of Trivial Connections between WHS. One of these is Viewable from another WHS : which WHS can be seen from standing in/on/at another WHS? The view should be achievable as part of "normal" touristic viewing (so no use of drones....). And it excludes Contiguous sites (which can obviously be seen across their mutual boundary) and Exact locations inscribed twice (that would be too easy of course). So far, we have been able to find 16 of these viewpoints: from towers, volcanoes, hilltops or by just looking down a street.

It is not necessary true that if WHS A can be seen from WHS B, B as well can be seen from A. Visibility often depends on a bit of height (is there a tower to climb?), or the size of the WHS. Full mountains or volcanoes are obviously easy to see from afar. The combinations of WHS where A can be seen from B and vice versa, are:

• Agra Fort & Taj Mahal
• Cape Floral Region (Table Mountain NP) & Robben …

When I told my colleagues that I was going to Gdansk for a long weekend, the conversation quickly veered off to Lech Walesa. We hadn’t heard from him in a long time. Had he died already? A quick Wikipedia search turned out he is alive and kicking, working the lucrative lecture circuit in the USA. His hometown is on Poland’s Tentative List under the label of Town of Memory and Freedom . Reminders to various periods in Gdansk’s history, starting from the Hanseatic era, are brought together under this flag. During my stay I mainly focused on the part called the Gdańsk Shipyard associated with the emergence of Solidarity movement, together with the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers .

To get to know that area and hear more about this period plus its current impact, I joined one of the daily “free” Solidarity walking tours . It’s a popular tour, over 30 people showed up from all over Scandinavia, Russia and Western Europe. We did not tour the old town which resembles Amsterdam without the canals. We explored its edges. We stopped for example at an unsightly …