The Palazzina di Stupingi is one of the 23 inscribed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy . It’s a former hunting residence, commissioned by Duke of Savoy Victor Amadeus II and built between 1729 and 1733. The architect Filippo Juvarra was responsible for designing this residence or little palace (hence: ‘palazzina’).

The original bronze deer that stood on top of the Palazzina

Stupinigi nowadays is a suburb of Turin: the palace lies some 10km from the city center. Among the Savoy residences, it is one of the later ones. It dates from the period that the court started incorporating parts of the countryside into their domain. For the purposes of entertainment and hunting, they created a so-called “ring of pleasure” around their capital. I took a taxi to Stupinigi from my Turin hotel near the train station, and 20 minutes later (and 20 EUR poorer) I was dropped off at the entrance of the palazzina. I visited in the late afternoon, hoping to avoid the peak of the summer heat and visitor crowds. It was very quiet, there were maybe only 10 other tourists around. I seriously doubt …

Ivrea, industrial city of the 20th century will be submitted by Italy as their cultural nomination for 2018. It was actually already scheduled for 2017, but had to give way to the Venetian Defence Works. Ivrea lies in the foothills of the Alps, about an hour north of Turin. It’s a sizeable city of 25,000 inhabitants.

An original Olivetti typewriter made in Ivrea

Travelling by train from Turin, you’ll surely know when you’ve arrived in Ivrea: the townscape near the train station is invariably modern with lots of apartment blocks. During the 20th century, the city was transformed into the Olivetti Company Town. Olivetti was a very successful producer of type writers and calculators (until the Age of Computers started). Especially Adriano Olivetti set the most famous Italian architects and planners to work during the period between 1930 and 1960. He promoted a different kind of company town, more geared to the community’s needs (gathered via questionnaires) and involving psychology. This is going to be a serial nomination consisting of the Via Jervis and the Borgo Olivetti. The Via Jervis is the main drag of the modern city, the …

I’m down to 3 in my quest to ‘complete’ Italy: Mt. Etna on Sicily and Su Nuraxi di Barumini on Sardinia are still beckoning. Interesting sites, but a bit too far away for a weekend trip. So (with a little reluctance) I settled for the 3rd remaining WHS: the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont . This is a serial nomination of 6 sites in Northern Italy, situated east and south of Turin. Within this group, I focused on the wine growing area of Nizza Monferrato.

Wines for sale at Palazzo Crova

Nizza Monferrato is the namesake of Nice in the Provence (called Nizza or Nizza Marittima in Italian): both once belonged to Duchy of Savoy and got their suffixes to distinguish between the two. I travelled to the Italian Nizza by a combination of train and bus from Turin. The trip takes about 1.5 hours, and a transfer is needed in Asti. From that point on the flat surroundings of the northern industrial cities are replaced by a landscape of cultivated hills. That’s where the WH area begins. The bus travels via one or two interesting hillside villages such as …

With no less than 17 entries, the Belgian Tentative List keeps on providing opportunities for rewarding day trips from my home. So this Saturday I drove just south of Brussels to a spot near the town of Waterloo, famous for the eponymous battle of 1815. It is actually home to two TWHS: the Battlefield of Waterloo and the Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo . Both nowadays are located on the grounds of the Mémorial 1815 .

Overlooking the Battlefield

I arrived at 9.30 in the morning, right at the opening hour. The large car park already held some 20 cars and a bus. I had been wondering whether this is a busy site, but it turned out that I was the first visitor of the day. The other vehicles must have belonged to the staff and the ‘actors’ that carry out the reenactments which spice up the visitor experience during summer days. For a long time the Waterloo Battlefield and its huge Lion’s Mound had been a popular but not all that interesting destination for school trips. However, the bicentennial of the battle (in 2015) lead to a …

The WHC Session of 2016 was one to remember, due to the coup attempt happening in Turkey overnight right in the middle of discussion about the new WHS. However, the Committee managed to finish that agenda item before everybody flew home again. 21 new sites were selected – a mixed bunch. Find below some aspects that warrant a closer look.

Steccí in Bosnia Herzegovina - one of the new WHS

1. Year of the architects

Long awaited were the nominations of the Works of Le Corbusier and those of Frank Lloyd Wright. The latter discussion had an unprecedented cliffhanger when it couldn’t be finished on Friday and the Saturday session was cancelled. All to no avail: the FLW sites have been referred. A third renowned architect, Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, in all quietude walked away with a second WHS centering on his works: after Brasilia, now Pampulha .

2. The world’s largest salamander

One of Hubei Shennongjia ’s claims to fame is that it is home to the world’s largest salamander: the Chinese giant salamander. It is fully aquatic …

Between 1815 and 1830, the current states of the Netherlands and Belgium were united for a short period in the ‘United Kingdom of the Netherlands’. They are now working on a joint nomination for 2018 to highlight a specific experiment of that era: the efforts of the so-called ‘Society of Benevolence’ to “improve the inhumane conditions suffered by many of the poor”. The Society established domestic colonies to reeducate paupers (tramps, orphans, down-at-heel families) by means of land reclamation and agricultural innovation.

"Order and Discipline", the Headmaster's House in Veenhuizen

The Dutch part of this nomination covers 6 separate locations in 3 clusters, all in the northeast of the country known at the time as the ‘Dutch Siberia’. I visited most of these already in 2011, when I did a whirlwind summer tour along the sites on the Dutch Tentative List. The best known of the colonies is Veenhuizen, a name tied to its large prison that can hold 1,000 inmates (nowadays filled for 25% with prisoners 'on loan' from Norway by the way). An impressive square former prison building holds the disappointing Prison Museum. Walking around town, the …

It has taken me 17 years, but in late June 2016 I finally ´finished´ Germany: I have now seen all 40 WHS in this country. The last one left to do was the Monastic Island of Reichenau , some 10km from the border with Switzerland. I visited it on a day trip by car from Zürich Airport. Unfortunately my camera had broken down two days before when touring the Swiss Alps, so I can only show some images taken with my smartphone.

Münster St. Maria und Markus

The Monastic Island of Reichenau originated in the 8th century, when the traveling monk Pirmin founded the first monastery on this island in Lake Constance. Some 24 other churches and chapels were added in the remainder of the early Middle Ages, and religious relics were shipped in (often gifts by pilgrims). The large Benedictine monastery developed into an important center for study and arts in the empire of Charlemagne and his successors. The island also is very suitable for agriculture (then and now), so the monks could be self-sufficient. Nowadays it’s a holiday island with only 3 churches …

When I was a child, we always went on holiday to the Allgäu Alps . Living near the German border, my parents only spoke German as a foreign language and felt the most comfortable in German-speaking countries. We went there so often that we even were designated by the local tourist organization with a special pin celebrating 10 (or 15?) visits. So I have seen my fair share of Alpine landscape and know the omnipresent sound of cowbells. Although I must confess that when I got older I skipped all the hiking and my parents often left me at the hotel with a book to read.

Starting the hike

This background might be the reason that I left it so long to visit the Swiss Alps WHS . But also the site’s inaccessibility played a part: the WHS originally encompassed only the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, which is quite costly to visit and doesn’t lend itself for a short weekend break. Since 2007 however, the core zone has been extended across a wider area in the Bernese Alps. Additional access points to the east and west have …

Like so many serial nominations of recent years, ‘Viking Monuments and Sites’ was sent home with a deferral (2015). The cooperation between Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Latvia and Norway stranded on a weak selection of serial locations and “conceptual vagueness”. Fellow-Vikings Sweden had already earlier left the sinking ship , stating the lack of diversity in the representation of Viking Age culture. I have been looking for news about a possible re-nomination in the future, but have not found any indication that they’re working on it.

Oseberg burial ship

Norway contributed two locations to this initiative: the Hyllestad Quernstone Quarries and the Vestfold Ship Burials . Combined they’re one site that still features on the Norwegian Tentative List. To make things even more confusing, the Hyllestad Quarries has one location and the Vestfold Ship Burials has three. They’re not close to each other, even lie in different parts of South Norway. And one wonders what’s still left to see, as 2 out of the 3 ship burials have been removed from their original sites to the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. During my visit to Oslo in the first weekend …

Rjukan/Notodden Industrial Heritage Site was added to the WH List last year. It’s a niche site that very few will have visited before its designation - our visitor count currently still stands on a modest 17. It’s also one of the clearest examples of under-represented cultural properties brought forward by the Filling the Gaps study of ICOMOS (2005): a ‘developing technology’ related to ‘energy conversion and utilization’. At Rjukan/Notodden, hydro energy was created using the natural power of waterfalls and river.

Gaustatoppen, casting its shadow over Rjukan

Of course I had done my usual preparations: reading the ICOMOS review and the nomination dossier, plus some additional Googling on certain subjects. But I had difficulty to grasp what this WHS exactly involves. What will follow is a reconstruction that hopefully will provide a starting point for future WH travellers.

First of all, this is a linear WHS. It covers the flow of the water downhill via two rivers and a lake, plus the railway tracks and the land in between that run parallel to the water. The core zone is 93km in length, and …