Out of the 9 main islands of the Azores, Pico Island may be the prettiest one. Its lush green flora strongly contrasts with the abundant black lava stone that is present along its coasts. Its iconic stratovolcano peak is a landmark in the Azores part of the Atlantic Ocean. And there’s a WHS as well: the Vineyard Landscape of Pico Island comprises two narrow strips of land along the coast, where grapes are grown on a bottom of solid lava. Within stone fences, grapes were traditionally grown between the rocks of the lava stone - without soil. This part of Pico was unsuitable for ordinary farming.

One of the vineyard plots

The northern part of this WHS lies right next to the airport of Pico, so it’s a really nice welcome when you fly in. The plots neatly divided by walls of basaltic blocks are a memorable sight. I stayed for 3 nights near the other stretch of vineyards though, at Madalena. There’s a great walk through the WHS landscape that you can do in that area. It starts in Porto Calhau. I did not rent a car on Pico (also not on …

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) has been part of the Tentative list of Portugal since this year. At this geographical location three tectonic plates have been moving away from each other and the void has been filled by magma from the inner earth. The MAR actually extends from the Antarctic to the Arctic, but this possible future nomination only comprises the Portuguese Azores section. It replaces the earlier single tentative sites Algar do Carvão and Furna do Enxofre, and now seems to incorporate all inhabited and uninhabited islands plus the terrestrial waters of the Plateau of the Azores.

Pico Volcano

It is not difficult to see or experience geological features of the MAR during a visit to the Azores. My stay at the three islands of Terceira, Pico and Faial provided numerous up-and-close views of results of volcanic events that took place here. One of the main tourist attractions of the island of Terceira for example is Algar do Carvão, a “volcanic chimney”. While I found tourism very low-key in general on the Azores and local costs only a fraction of those of the mainland, entrance to Algar do Carvão costs 10 EUR. For …

The Central Zone of the Town of Angra do Heroismo in the Azores was a relatively early WHS (1983). As no nomination files of that period have been made public and the ICOMOS evaluations at the time were concise, the ‘Why’ of the nomination and inscription isn’t well-documented. The only thing that stands out is that Angra was an important port-of-call during the maritime explorations of the 15th and 16th centuries. How this is linked to tangible elements in Angra itself is rather unclear. Maybe just ‘being there’ half-way between Europe, Equatorial Africa and the West Indies was enough.

View from Memorial Hill

Angra is located on the island of Terceira, one of the 9 islands of the Azores. To get there I used the weekly direct flight by charter company TUI from Amsterdam to Terceira. My fellow passengers on the full flight were mostly Dutch senior citizens. The flight to Terceira airport took only 3 hours and 40 minutes, and afterwards I immediately hired a taxi to take me to Angra where I was to stay for 3 nights. My first impression of the town was that it seems colourful and …

The Wooden Tserkvas in the Polish part of the Carpathians have already been well-covered by the reviewers active on this website. I visited 6 of them myself in 2015. However, 8 of the inscribed tserkvas (churches) lie just across the border in Ukraine. Noone wrote a report on one of those yet. As I had half a day to spare after visiting L’viv , I hired a taxi to take me to the wooden Holy Trinity Church in Zhovkva – part of the Later Halych Group of the inscribed Ukrainian tserkvas.

Holy Trinity Church in Zhovkva

Zhovkva is a town of 13,000 inhabitants, about 30km northwest of L’viv. The drive takes just half an hour and doesn’t bring very remarkable scenery. The roads out of L’viv are potholed, many of the streets leading from the main streets into villages are still unpaved. Inspired by the Polish churches which lie in sometimes idyllic rural settings, I hoped to get a glimpse of the Ukrainian countryside by going to Zhovkva. It didn’t turn out to be that way however.

The Holy Trinity Church lies beside the main road that leads from L’viv to Zhovkva …

The Historic Centre of L’viv presents an eclectic mix of architectural and artistic highlights of both Eastern European and Western origin. I stayed there for 2 nights during the long Pentecost weekend. The city is very popular with Polish tourists – the border is only an hour away – and has a lively atmosphere with cafés, terraces and street performers. Cost levels are very low, they are comparable to those in Belarus which I visited last year and a fraction (25-30%) of those in Western Europe. It is easy to navigate in L’viv as signs around town are in English as well: a souvenir from the Euro 2012 football championships.

Merchants' house at Rynok Square

L'viv has traditionally been a trading city, and has been part of the Kingdom of Poland (until 1772) and Austria-Hungary (until 1918). It attracted different populations that lived in their own communities - from Armenians to Jews, and from Ukrainians to Germans and Hungarians. Reminders of this multicultural history can still be found, though most of them have only been revived since post-Soviet times. Much of the buildings that one sees nowadays around town date back to ca. …

I have just returned from a 10 day trip to southern Egypt - only my first visit to this country (105 countries came before!). I ‘did’ the Luxor to Abu Simbel stretch, covering only 2 WHS and 1 TWHS. But it was well worth it, as these are undisputed members of our Top 200 WHS. Find below my Top Tips for Travelling to Egypt as a World Heritage Traveller.

Kids in Daraw

1. Go now to avoid the crowds

Since the Revolution of 2011, visitor numbers to Egypt have been low. Many trip reports that float around on the internet date back to over 10 years ago. Locals that I met were complaining that especially Europeans and Russians do not come anymore. Fortunately for the Egyptian tourism industry, the Chinese are not deterred. And high hopes are held for the Indians. In general it was relatively quiet everywhere I visited – especially in the cities and during the early or later hours of the day. A number of shops and restaurants in Luxor and Aswan seemed to have closed down. But there definitely were crowds at the Valley of the Kings and at the temple of Kom Ombo. Beach destinations …