Belgium is currently preparing the 2019 nomination for Hoge Kempen Rural - Industrial Transition Landscape . This is going to be proposed as a mixed site ánd evolutionary cultural landscape. It covers the Hoge Kempen National Park plus .. more. To me it’s unclear which locations will comprise the core zone, but additionally to the park the garden cities of Winterslag, Waterschei, Zwartberg and Eisden seem to be included.

Hoge Kempen and its industrial left-overs in the distance

The core zone will be centred around Maasmechelen, a municipality of 37,000 inhabitants known for its coalmining history. Maasmechelen nowadays also is well-known even across the border in the Netherlands for its Outlet Shopping Center (attracting over 2 million people a year): ‘Maasmechelen Village’ was constructed on the grounds of the former mine of Eisden. I did not come to shop obviously, but to get a grasp of this potential WHS.

For its natural values I prepared a visit to Hoge Kempen National Park. The park only exists since 2006, and commercial exploitation seems to be a big issue here too. There are 6 designated access points to the park, but most have been …

In September I spent 2 weeks in Ecuador , my first visit to this country. I covered all 5 WHS on a self-designed tour around the country by public transport. The small Andean nation has its pros and cons – it is quite compact for example, saving one the hellish bus rides known from Peru – but it will not make my list of favourite countries in the world that I’d love to return to. Find below my Top Tips for Travelling to Ecuador as a World Heritage Traveller.

Galapagos Frigatebird displaying its inflatable red throat pouch

1. The Galapagos is expensive but not prohibitive

I spent 560 US dollars to get ‘into’ the Galapagos – and from that point the costs for lodging and food are similar to those in Quito. This expense was split between 440 dollar for the return ticket from Quito (getting there from Guayaquil is slightly cheaper), 20 dollar for a kind of visa fee (“transit control ticket”), to be paid at the departure airport, and 100 dollar for the conservation fee to be paid upon landing. So ‘ticking off’ the Galapagos is cheaper than …

The Galapagos Islands don’t need a long introduction: they were among the first batch of inscriptions in 1978 (actually it was the very first on record) and they were also a shoo-in at our Top 200 WHS. One can ‘do’ the Galapagos either via an accommodated cruise or a self-arranged land-based alternative, which has become more feasible and popular in the last 10 years . For me the choice was clear quickly: to be ‘locked up’ on a rather small cruise ship for at least a week with strangers did not seem appealing to me at all. Also I am not a fan of daily water based activities like snorkelling and swimming. So I based myself in the town of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island, the largest town on the Galapagos Islands.

Giant tortoise couple on the move at Santa Cruz

Puerto Ayora nowadays is a surprisingly touristy and affluent city. It isn’t unlike a Greek harbour town, with tourists milling around in the streets at all hours and daily departures of ferries to other islands. I had planned on taking two organized day tours from here: to North Seymour and Bartolomé. …

The City of Quito has been on the WH List since its beginnings in 1978. The Ecuadoreans were quick off the mark, with the Galapagos Islands also inscribed that year. From its foundation in 1534, the city always has played an important political, economic and cultural role in northern South America. During its heydays between the 16th and 18th century, numerous churches, convents, colleges and universities were founded. Still, Quito does not have the ring to it of Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires and isn’t a tourist magnet in its own right. Most people visit it as an obligatory stop-over on their way to the Galapagos Islands.

Street in the Historic Center

Nicknamed ‘Florence of the Americas’, the city is high on religious art and architecture. In the retrospective Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, much emphasis is given to the Quito School of Art. In this fusion style , indigenous artists executed Spanish religious concepts. It resulted in an extreme degree of ornamentation, with bloody displays of wounds, the abundant use of gold leaf paint and the substitution of traditional European natural iconography with local flora and fauna. I started my tour …

Sangay National Park is a rarely visited WHS in the central highlands of Ecuador. Only 17 community members were there before me, resulting in a 874th spot at the ranking of Most Visited Sites . That’s less than Zabid (Yemen) or Ilulissat Icefjord (Greenland) for example. It would be interesting to find out how the other visitors approached Sangay, especially before the controversial construction of the Guamote-Macas road. I did it the same way as the only other reviewer so far (Jay T): with a car and driver/guide arranged by Julio Verne Travel in Riobamba. They also advertise downhill bike tours along that road, and can arrange multi-day hikes into the area.

Laguna Magdalena

The WHS covers only about half of Sangay National Park: the most restricted area. When you drive along the Guamote-Macas road, you’ll be in the core zone for only 8 km. The map from 2009 at the UNESCO website clearly shows the road at the southwestern tip, plus a lake system called Lagunas Magdalenas right beside it. Confusingly, their popular name is the Atillo Lakes (named after the nearby village).

The outline of my day trip was …

The Inca road network Qhapaq Nan consists of many sections. One of these is called “Achupallas-Ingapirca”, and it lies in the provinces of Chimborazo and Cañar in the southeast of Ecuador. Like all other inscribed sections, it comprises a stretch of road and associated sites. Parts of the original path are still accessible: there is a 3-day / 40km long trail that can be arranged to cover it. I just visited one of the associated sites, Ingapirca.

Temple of the Sun

The Inca started to expand their empire northwards into Ecuador from Peru only from 1463. They met with a lot of resistance, notably from the Cañari people who were local to the area around Cuenca. The interesting feature of Ingapirca is that it is a mixed Cañari – Inca site. The Inca Túpac Yupanqui ended up marrying a Cañari princess, and the two groups reputedly lived together peacefully afterwards although they kept their own customs. The guides that accompany visitors to the archaeological site identify themselves as indigenous Cañari, and they are happy to point out especially these remains.

The Cañari worshipped the moon, and the remains of their Temple of …

They just call it ‘Cuenca’ in Ecuador, but with the Spanish Cuenca also inscribed we have two WHS with the same name! So for the website I’m sticking to its full name: Santa Ana de los Rios de Cuenca . Looking at the current state of our connections, links, reviews (1) and photos (1) for this WHS, not many previous visitors found anything to write home about or even had a critical look at its specific site page. So with Cuenca being the first stop on my Ecuador trip, it’s now time for a makeover.

Main door of the New Cathedral

Adding additional links proved to be hard. Actually none of the key attractions of the city has a functioning website. I found a number of blog posts from mainly Americans living in the city glorifying life there, but most were too shallow to warrant a link. I eventually settled for 5 Things You Can't Miss In Cuenca's Cathedral of Immaculate Conception . The best website about Cuenca still is the official one from the local tourist department . It does have comprehensive listings of churches, museums etc with their opening hours. I …

The Antequera Dolmens were the fourth prehistoric European WHS that I visited in the past 4 weeks. After the Ice Age Art Caves, Neolithic Orkney and Gorham’s Cave I was not terribly keen on checking out another one. But well, this was an orphan site that I had left ‘to tick off’ not far from Malaga Airport from where I would be flying home after the WH Travellers Meeting. So on a Sunday morning I drove out there from La Linea, in a little less than two hours. The WHS consists of 5 different features, all located in or around the mid-size Andalusian city of Antequera.

View from Menga Dolmen

Antequera comes with a few pleasant surprises. The first is that it rightly is part of our Free Entrance connection: none of the locations charge an entry fee. The sites are far from unkept though. The locations of Menga/Viera dolmen, El Torcal and El Romeral are all at least manned by security and in the case of the first two they also have a small visitor center with staff, parking lots and toilets.

Another positive is that one can only admire the …

The Medina of Tetouan was the second goal of our 2017 WH Travellers Meetup. This Moroccan city can easily be reached on a day trip from the Spanish south coast. We did so by taking an early morning ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta, and then moved on by a pre-arranged minibus to Tetouan for the final 40km. Crossing the border proved to be easy for pedestrians, although the Iranian visa in the passports of some of our group raised a few eyebrows.

Gate to the Sufi shrine Zaouia al Harrakia (1845)

Tetouan always has been culturally close to Spain. The city derives its character from the arrival of Spanish-Arab refugees at the end of the 15th century, when the last Jews and Muslims were expelled from Andalusia. Later on it even was the capital of the Spanish protectorate of Morocco (1913-1956). A reminder of that is the early 20th century church at the Moulay el Mehdi square in the modern part of town, where we were dropped off by our driver. A guide took us from there through a lively shopping street, until we arrived at the Hassan II square. This is fully …

Gorham’s Cave Complex is Gibraltar’s only WHS to date, and it was the main venue of this year’s World Heritage Travellers meeting. This Complex comprises four caves where tangible remains of the Neanderthaler way of life have been found. No skulls or other bones have been discovered in these particular caves (yet), but the archaeologists have been lucky earlier this year to find a Neanderthaler milk tooth !

Overview of the core zone

The Cave Complex is located at the southeastern tip of Gibraltar and its Rock. After casually strolling across the Spanish-British border and crossing the empty air strip, we took bus number 2 from the town center to Europa Point. Europa Point is a collection of monuments and memorials such as a 19th century lighthouse. The main landmark nowadays is the Saudi sponsored Mosque of The Custodian of the The Holy Mosques .

We all gathered a bit further up the road at the Europa Advance Viewing Platform. I had unsuccessfully tried to find it on a map beforehand: this is a piece of tourist infrastructure still in the making. Essentially the 1st and 2nd Europa Advance Battery are …