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 of June, I went to see exactly this museum. It is one …

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 …

During late April and early May I travelled for just over 2 weeks in Azerbaijan and Northern Iran. With this trip I may have definitely earned my place on the domestic security watchlist (googling my head off about Shia Islam) & given up an easy visit to the USA for 5 years (because I ticked off Iraq, Sudan and now Iran from the new Axis of Evil-list in the past 2 years). But it was all worth it: it opened up a whole new part of the world for me with its own pecularities. And that is what travel is all about.

Martyr portrait in the streets of Iran

1. Be prepared for some serious personality cults

In Azerbaijan this veneration is limited to one person: Heydar Aliyev , founding father of the current independent republic and Soviet Politburo member before that. His son has been in power for the last 13 years, but he is much less charismatic and seldom portrayed. Iran’s streets on the other hand show a whole pantheon of depicted persons. The combined pictures of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei are the most frequently seen. But the main streets of all towns are also aligned with endless …

Golestan Palace is the most recent construction on the timeline of Iranian WHS, dating from the 19th century Qajar dynasty. It also is possibly the only real attraction of Tehran - a metropolis of 10 to 15 million inhabitants. Because of its location in the capital’s city center, it is the most visited Iranian WHS among our community after the ones in Esfahan. Still this results in only a meagre 696th spot overall.

Edifice of the Sun

Despite its relative fame, the palace is not so easy to find for an individual visitor. It lies just off a main boulevard, and is completely surrounded by much higher government buildings from the 1960s and 70s. The construction thereof by the government of the last Shah was made at the expense of older buildings belonging to the Golestan Palace (such as a theater).

When you finally find yourself at the entrance gate, there’s a big decision to make: how many of the 8 buildings/museums warrant a visit? Because on top of the 2x 150,000 Rial entrance fee to the grounds and the main buildings, there …

This nomination carried the Epic Subtitle “Dome of Soltaniyeh; the pasture which became the capital city of the empire”. Unfortunately it was not brought forward to the inscription, now the name of this WHS is a simple Soltaniyeh . The original title though hinted at the Mongol origins of the site: this is the best representation of the heritage of the Mongolian Ilkhanids among Iran’s WHS, although the newer parts of Takht-e Soleyman and the Blue Mosque of Tabriz also date from this era (13th-14th century).

Model of a complete mausoleum of Öljaitü

The famous Dome of Soltaniyeh can already be seen from miles away. The light-turquoise structure on top of a 50 meter high octagonal building still towers above everything in its surroundings, including the current town of some 6,000 souls. This is a very flat landscape, the Mongolians are said to have chosen this spot to settle because of the vast pastures it provided for their horses.

The building was made to house the mausoleum of Ilkhanid khan Öljeitü. Its interior at the moment is fully covered in scaffolding, therefore unfortunately it …