The Land of Frankincense is a good reason to visit the Dhofar region in southern Oman. I flew from Muscat to its capital Salalah and stayed there for 3 nights. Date palms give way to coconut palms and sandy white beaches, which reminded me of Sri Lanka. It’s not an uncommon sight here to see camels crossing the motorway or a camel caravan moving along through the desert. (Frank)incense is everywhere here in the south: stepping into the modern Salalah Garden Mall, the smell already comes to you. The local Al-Husn Souq only sells typical Omani hats and frankincense resin per kilo.

Al-Balid

In the outskirts of Salalah lies the Al-Balid Archaeological Park with its Land of Frankincense museum, 1 of the 4 locations that comprise this WHS. I spent 1.5 hour there in the late afternoon (it's open til 8 p.m.), a perfect time to enjoy its setting of ruins and birds via the walking trails. Al-Balid was a port, so its remains are located near the water. The archaeological site is quite extensive, with a citadel and a grand mosque.

The next day I drove to a second location, …

Sharjah: the Gate to Trucial States probably will be the next nomination from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) . A visit to Sharjah and the selected locations provides a great excuse to dive deeper into the history of the UAE. Between 1820 and 1971 they were known as the ‘Trucial States’ because of their treaties with Britain, which effectively made them a British protectorate. ‘United’ is an important word here: the main thoroughfare of the Dubai metro is called ‘Union’, and you may recognize ‘Etihad’ (Arabic for Union or United) from the Abu Dhabi airline.

Sharjah creek

Sharjah is the third ranked Emirate within the UAE, after Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Politically, it has much less influence than the other two which emirs always act as the union’s president and prime minister respectively. I went there by public bus E307A from Dubai’s Abu Hail metro station, an easy 25 minute ride. The cities of Dubai and Sharjah have actually grown together, many people live in the cheaper Sharjah and work in Dubai. The TWHS consists of numerous (too many?) locations, most of them in the capital Sharjah City but some lie much …

The Archaeological sites of Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn include a settlement and tombs in northern Oman, dating from the Bronze Age. This area was part of the Magan empire, which supplied raw materials such as copper to the Sumerians (in present-day Iraq). Although getting there has become easier over the years, it still is a nice off-the-beaten-track site seldom touched by non-WH travellers.

Qasr A'Rojoom tower at Bat

At 3 pm I hit the road from Nizwa, planning to be at Al-Ayn at the fabled ‘golden hour’ for good photos. I brought print-outs with me of the instructions given on this website to reach the locations of Bat and Al-Ayn. I skipped the even more obscure Al-Khutm in advance. Finding the excavations at Bat proved to be pretty straightforward. I used the approach via Ibri, where the biggest hurdle is avoiding the Pakistani/Bangladeshi men on bicycles riding against the traffic flow. Maps.me , which I used for navigating around Oman, knew a place called ‘Bat. Village. Oman’. This is the modern town, the archaeological site lies just one left turn away right before it.

I found the site strictly fenced off, there …

Bahla Fort dates back to the late Middle Ages, and was the stronghold of a tribe that controlled this region and the trade in incense. The fort and its oasis (with date palms, old houses and a mosque, which also are in the core zone) are surrounded by a 12 km long wall. In Oman, that is densely covered by fortresses, this is said to be one of the largest and oldest.

One of the wind towers

The fort can easily be reached in half an hour from Nizwa, Oman’s second tourist capital behind Muscat. It lies along the main road and is so huge that it cannot be overlooked. Parking is at the far end (at the Souq side). When you read the previous reviews on this website, that steadily have been added since at least 2005, its slow development into a popular tourist attraction becomes clear. It has fully reopened in 2012 and is now open every day from 8-16, except Friday afternoon. The story goes that the Omani’s rebuilt parts of the fortress according to their own insights, because there were no drawings or photographs left of the whole …

The Aflaj are as typical of Oman as its fortresses. Nearly every village or town with roots older than Sultan Qaboos’s reign has such a falaj irrigation system. A combination of 5 out of the more than 3,000 still functioning systems have been declared a World Heritage Site. Of these 5, I visited the ones in Birkat Al-Mouz (Falaj Al-Khatmeen) and Nizwa (Falaj Daris). To both there is no formal access, they just lie in public areas.

Falaj near Bait al Radidah fort

The town of Birkat Al-Mouz is conveniently located en route between Muscat and Nizwa. When I parked my rental car at the local fort, I was immediately approached by a man in a 4x4 who asked whether I wanted a tour to the nearby mountain Jebel Akhdar. The "green mountain" is rather dry at this time of year, so I let that opportunity pass me by. For most tourists however the mountain is a bigger attraction than a falaj. T

he downhill stream of the Falaj Al-Khatmeen is easy to follow in Birkat Al-Mouz. It first appears above ground at the back of the Bait al Radidah fortress. Then …

You’ll easily end up with ‘fortress fatigue’ when travelling through Oman: in the past, local chiefs built them in high numbers to protect strategic positions and water sources. On my second day in the country I was still up for visiting some good forts though. Along what is called “the Rostaq loop” lie 3 worthwhile examples, of which those of Rostaq and Al-Hazm have a combined spot at Oman’s Tentative List. The third fortress, that of Nakhal, has the prettiest setting of them all. However, the very brief tentative site description gives no clue why it could not join the other two to be part of a future WH nomination.

The many floors of Rostaq fort

Rostaq is a former capital of Oman, and it holds one of the oldest remaining forts in the country. It was built on top of pre-islamic fortifications. It’s huge: while looking for a parking spot I drove for hundreds of meters all the way along its outer walls. Fortunately one can park right at the entrance. The fort is not only large in surface, but also in height: it has 3 levels. These are connected by stairways …

Since 2011, I keep track of how much money I spend in a country on each of my longer trips. The list now includes 34 “countries” (including the not fully recognized Kosovo and Taiwan). And although my travel style certainly isn’t the cheapest, I think the general insight can be of use to other World Heritage travellers as well as I have used a similar spending pattern in each country. This consists of conveniently located 3-4 star hotels/b&b’s, public transport in the luxury classes when available (and the occasional car rental when necessary), eating out in restaurants 1-2 times a day and daily activities requiring entrance fees and sometimes a guided tour. So here are my findings:

The super cheap

Albania and its cousin Kosovo were the cheapest overall. This did not impact the pleasure of visiting: you really get value for your money in these two places. Cuba worked out well for me in 2012, but it may have gotten more expensive over the past years. I only stayed and ate at casas particulares and there was not much available to spend your money on.

The backpacker favourites

The next group contains …

Teylers is an 18th century museum complex and former scientific institution in the centre of Haarlem. It has been on the Dutch Tentative List since 2011, and even already was brought up for nomination in 2013. However, ICOMOS advised a ‘Rejection’ and the nomination was subsequently withdrawn by The Netherlands before the WHC session. The nomination failed to convince of the building’s scientific purpose (next to being ‘just’ a museum) and only small part of the complex was seen as exceptional. The Dutch still have hopes for a future renomination though, especially after several extensive renovation projects will be finished.

The First Room

I had visited Teylers before in 2010, but was very disappointed at the time because of its small size and presence of crowds of inexperienced museum visitors. Now, in 2018, they have finished one of their major projects: the Lorentz Lab. This shows the office and laboratory of physicist Hendrik Lorentz , winner of the Nobel Prize in 1902 and “leading spirit” in an international network of early theoretical physicists that also included Albert Einstein.

On a rainy Sunday in March I paid the quite hefty 13.5 EUR …

Since a couple of years we maintain a Connection at this website called One Million Visitors or More . It contains the sites - with entry regulations - that are visited by more than 1 million people yearly. The list currently sports 90 WHS; so some 8% of the sites on the List we can regard as highly visited. Over the past few days I have brushed up this Connection and tried to replace older visitor statistics with those from the past 2 or 3 years. Below are my findings.

Huangshan: my worst crowd-related travel memory

I had to remove Mammoth Cave , Canterbury Cathedral , Museuminsel and the Tokyo Museum of Western Art (one of the Corbusier locations ): they fell below the one million a year mark. Berlin’s Museuminsel seems to suffer from the renovations that have been taking place since 2014 at the Pergamon room with the Altar in the Pergamonmuseum. Canterbury Cathedral had to deal with both the introduction of an entrance fee and fear of terrorism: " Our only problem has been a drop in continental school groups. Because we are on the way from Dover to London, …

Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture is one of the most eclectic WHS on the list. It includes seagrass beds, salt lakes, Phoenician ruins and 16th century military fortifications. As far as I am aware, there is no common link between these features besides their geographical proximity. Previous visitors rated this WHS a meagre 2.08 out of 5 stars on average, so my expectations were not high when I flew out to Ibiza for a weekend in late February. But at least I would enjoy 2 days in the sun while it was freezing severely at home.

Dalt Vila

Saturday I spent on Formentera, Ibiza’s small sister island that lies half an hour away by ferry. It is much more unspoilt, and features 32 ‘green routes’ of hiking and bike paths. The northern tip of Formentera is also part of the core zone of this WHS. It is known for two things: the salt flats, where flamingos and other birds nestle in winter. And for the ecosystem of the Posidonia seagrass – possibly the most unknown part of the site’s OUV.

By following the trails #1, #19 and #2 from the harbour of …