Rwenzori Mountains National Park covers a 80km long mountain ridge in the far west of Uganda. It forms a natural border with the DR of Congo. The park attracts some 2,700 visitors a year, of which at least half are local schoolchildren. The others are mainly trekkers and mountaineers, arriving to hike a 10-day circuit or give the 3rd highest peak of Africa (Margherita’s Peak) a try. WH travellers do not often make it there: so far only 16 claim to have visited it, while noone has written a review yet.

Old mining barracks in Kyanjiki

In preparation of my visit I had been looking for the best access point to get into the park without having to do a multi-day hike. I found out that there are two main entries: one at Nyakalengija (with the Equator Snow Lodge and Ruboni Community Camp ) and one near Kilembe. I choose the latter, as the Rwenzori Trekking Services (RTS) advertised one day treks into the park departing from the associated Trekkers Hostel Kyanjiki. The office of the RTS, whose members accompany the hikes and maintain the trails, is also found …

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has been made a WHS for its high variety of tree and fern species, whose dense cover of the valley floors has lead to the name ‘impenetrable’. It is the remnant of what once was a very large forest. To the general public the park is mostly known as the number 1 place to see mountain gorillas. Bwindi welcomes over 20,000 visitors a year for that purpose.

Impenetrable Forest

Although the southern part of Bwindi lies only some 50km north of Mgahinga NP and the Virunga Massif, it is a separate mountain range. Both nature reserves were once connected via a corridor, but they got separated some 500 years ago. The mountain gorillas in Bwindi have evolved on their own since, that’s why they’re sometimes regarded as a different subspecies from the Virungan ones. According to research, they are more likely to feed on fruits, travel longer distances per day and build their nest in trees than their Virungan cousins. As this was my second gorilla tracking after Virunga 5 days before, it is tempting to compare the two experiences. In hindsight I am happy …

Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is a very small park in the extreme southwest of Uganda. Covering the Ugandan part of the Virunga Mountains, it is contiguous with both Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Virunga National Park in Congo. The site has been on Uganda’s Tentative List since 2007, in preparation for a possible transboundary nomination of these 3 parks. Although it’s named ‘Gorilla National Park’, Mgahinga has only one habituated gorilla family that can be visited. And that one is prone to wander across the borders to Rwanda and Congo, so it’s not the safest bet for gorilla tracking (although since a few years the family has returned to Ugandan soil). Probably the only thing that sets this park apart from the nearby WHS of Virunga and Bwindi is its sizeable population of rare Golden Monkeys.

Park entrance - they already have developed an Epic Subtitle

The Ugandan Wildlife Authority has a helpful office in Kisoro, and I booked my Golden Monkey Tracking there a day beforehand. It costs 50 US dollar for the activity, plus 40 US dollar entrance fee to …

From the moment that I became aware that it’s feasable at the moment to cross the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo and visit Virunga National Park , I simply had to do it. I booked myself into the comfortable Mikeno Lodge , arranged transport from Kigali in Rwanda to the Congolese border and signed up for a gorilla trek in the park. This is one of the earliest WHS (1979) and it has been praised in superlatives for its montane landscape, volcanism and biodiversity. The site is also one of the 50 remaining WHS that are still unreviewed at this website. The park has been faced with “an almost uninterrupted series of trials” since the mid-1980s, ranging from the influx of one million Rwandan refugees in its vicinity to the oil exploration by SOCO. The latter is the subject of the acclaimed but rather unsettling documentary Virunga (2014), which I watched on Netflix a week before I headed out there. “Congo is safe now”, my Rwandese driver said while we were passing empty refugee camps near the border.

Park quarters at Bukima

One of the first remarkable …

Rwanda has no WHS to date, and it saddens that the only entry on its Tentative List comprises the Rwandan Genocide Memorial Sites . The horrors of the Rwandan Genocide still determine the image of this small country, though it has come a long way since. The TWHS covers four locations connected with the memory of those 100 days in Spring and early Summer of 1994. Spread out over the country, they are: Nyamata (a church), Murambi (a school), Bisesero (a hill) and Gisozi (the main Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali).

Remembrance wall at Kigali Memorial

On my first morning in Rwanda I headed to the Memorial Museum of Gisozi. I got there on the back of a moto-taxi, the ubiquituous and very convenient mode of transport in Kigali. The Museum is guarded tightly, they wanted to see what I had in my backpack and pockets. Police and soldiers in the streets are a common sight in Rwanda, especially at intersections and government buildings. The Genocide Museum was opened in 2004 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. It consists of a building …

In determining the Top 200 among WHS , we are constantly reassessing a certain site’s uniqueness on a global scale. The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh became a WHS because of juxtapositional Urban Planning: the organically grown medieval Old Town versus the planned 18th/19th century New Town. “The dramatic topography of the Old Town combined with the planned alignments of key buildings in both the Old and the New Town, results in spectacular views and panoramas and an iconic skyline .”

View on the Old Town from Calton Hill

So if the Skyline is what makes it different, Edinburgh should particularly be enjoyed from a high viewpoint. On a crisp Sunday morning in December I walked the short and easy trail to the top of Calton Hill. This is a setting very typical of Edinburgh: it’s one of several hills surrounding the city center, dotted with monuments and memorials to historic Scotsmen. I wasn’t the only one enjoying the morning here: especially young Asian tourists (or are they students?) know about the place too. This spot allows unobstructed views on both the Old and New Towns. You supposedly …

Before the year 2015 ends, I needed to go on ‘mileage run’ to secure KLM Elite Status for next year. So I went on the lookout for a cheap return ticket to a nearby destination, including opportunities for an unvisited WHS of course. The choice fell upon Edinburgh – although I had visited the city before in 2001, I had at the time not been to the Forth Bridge . This 2015 addition to the List has many superlatives attached to it in its nomination file, such as “icon of Scotland”, “potent symbol of the Railway Age” and “unique milestone in the evolution of bridge and other steel Construction”.

The Bridge lies just a few km from Edinburgh Airport, and already good views of it can be had from the air. I had especially chosen a window seat, and though it was a bit hazy early morning the three big arches were clearly recognizable on the approach. December is not a particularly good month to plan a visit to the Forth Bridge: the Firth of Forth ‘cruises’, where you can admire the construction from the water, aren’t running past November. …

Montenegro made a sudden appearance on the international political scene this week as it was asked to become a member of the NATO . The move steers it away from the Russian sphere of influence, which it was a part of essentially until independence from Serbia in 2006. So far this small Balkan country holds 2 WHS, both 'inherited' from former Yugoslavia. At the WHC session of 2016 it hopes to double this number with the transboundary site of the Stecci Medieval Tombstones and on its own steam with the old capital Cetinje .

Kids celebrating Independence Day

Cetinje was the Royal Capital of Montenegro from the 15th century until Montenegro's incorporation in Yugoslavia after WWII. In the early 20th century it was the world's smallest capital, registering only 5,895 inhabitants. It is considered both a cradle of Montenegrin culture and a Serbian Orthodox religious center. The official residence of the Montenegrin President is still located here. I visited Cetinje in 2013, on my way between Podgorica and Kotor . Buses between the two cities will make a stop in Cetinje, so it's an easy break. It's also within …

Publishers seem to believe that the weeks leading up to Christmas are a great period to publish coffee table books and what I call ‘list books’. The latter in the travel book genre often mean Top 100 or Best 500 of sights around the world. An Amazon search will reveal a pretty long selection of these. Both Lonely Planet and National Geographic recently came up with a Travel List book that may be of interest to World Heritage Travellers.

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet’s The World’s Great Wonders covers 30 man-made sites and 20 natural wonders. The book is a smallish hardcover. It aims “to inform, to inspire and to encourage its readers to travel”. It covers a lot about the selected World Wonders in 4 to 6 pages per Wonder. It does so by including ‘How did they do that?’ and ‘Getting there’ sections. The selection was made by Jheni Osman . She managed to include recent world wonders such as the Panama Canal, Maracana Stadium, Palm Jumeirah and the Larga Hadron Collider. With a background in scientific journalism, Osman happily includes the Lark Quarry (site of …

De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam lies just outside the core zone of the Amsterdam Canal Ring WHS , but is a monumental building in its own right. It's a former church dating from the 15th century and a bit of a national burial site with tombs of Dutch historical figures such as Michiel de Ruijter , Nicolaes Tulp (surgeon of Rembrandt fame) and Joost van den Vondel . It currently hosts artifacts on loan from several Vatican Museums concerning the period that Rome transformed into a papal center dominated by Churches with crosses. This exhibition will run til 7 February 2016.

De Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam

Rome. Emperor Constantine’s dream shines a light on Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. He allegedly was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He stopped Christian persecutions and legalised Christianity along with all other religions and cults in the Roman Empire. Until today we can see the results of his policies in the many basilicas of Rome, and also abroad. His most famous building projects include the (original) Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Old Saint Peter's …