American Lee Abbamonte has a travel blog which I used to follow a few years ago, when he was still a young guy discovering the world. He came back on my radar recently when he teamed up with journalist Ryan Trapp to write ‘ Chasing 193: The Quest to Visit Every Country in the World ’. The book is not about him: it features circa 30 people from all walks of life and corners of the world who are trying to visit the current 193 UN countries.

Pros and cons of the book

Not all interviewees have visited 193 nations yet, or are close to that goal (for some it’s not even a goal). The 30 include mostly white North American/European males, people that are ranked high on the MTP list or active TCC members. The interviews are all done in the same Q&A format, which a more imaginative journalist could have done better as it gets tedious after a while. I also suspect that most of them were obtained via exchanging e-mails.

Despite these shortcomings, I finished the 434 pages quickly. Some of the included travel life …

Although I did not need the credits anymore towards my Bachelor Degree in Cultural Sciences, I was tempted by a new course from the Dutch Open University about ‘Cultural Heritage’. It comes with a book called The Heritage Universe : 11 chapters on topics such as canonization, conservation and 'tainted' heritage.'

The Scientific Approach

It would not be a proper scientific book without a theoretic model of course. In this case that of Austrian art historian Alois Riegl , who publicized his ideas around 1903-1905. He focussed on the experience of the individual, on the relationship we have with monuments and objects from the past. This in contrast to those scientists aiming for an ideal, universal standard. He distinguished 6 values that are attributed to objects/sites, such as age value, historical value, esthetic value and utility. So when we value ruins from Antiquity for example, we value them in a state that we can notice they are truly old (incomplete, overgrown, ruined). For him the 20th century was all about this 'age' criterion. The authors conclude that in the 21st century, conflict and nostalgia will be the …

In southern Denmark lies a small town where in 1773 the Protestant Herrnhutter started a new church community. Their town plan and characteristic light brick houses have been preserved until today. It is a quiet place where linden trees line the streets on both sides, and where the huge wooden Moravian Church is still the focal point. Christiansfeld a Moravian Settlement is one of no less than three Danish nominations for 2015.

The Moravian hotel

The Herrnhutter or Moravian Brethren are a Protestant denomination originating from Bohemia, whose members settled in Saxony (now Germany) after being persecuted in the Catholic Habsburg lands. There they established a new village called Herrnhut, and from that place they started the first large-scale Protestant missionary movement. They sent their missionaries to all parts of the world. Denmark (or more accurately: the Dano-Norwegian Empire of that period) was one of the first places they went to. Christiansfeld is an easy site to visit on the way between the Jelling WHS and the Hamburg Speicherstadt TWHS , and well worth a short stop. I was there in April 2013 and I walked Christianfeld’s picturesque main …

The Archaeo-astronomical Site Kokino is a Bronze age site in the north-east of the Republic of Macedonia, not far from the border with Serbia. It was rediscovered as recently as 2001 by local archeologist Jovica Stankovski. There’s a lot of overenthusiastic misinformation about the site on the web, consisting of often repeated statements such that it is already a WHS or that it gained a 4th place among astronomical sites by NASA research. For now it is on Macedonia’s Tentative List, being put forward as an ancient observatory and holy mountain. Though it may come across as an obscure site, it is fairly well-known within the country's tourist industry.

Arrival at Kokino

I visited Kokino on the penultimate day of my short Balkan Tour of 2015. There’s no public transport going to the site, so I hired a car with driver from travel-macedonia who did the 3 hour round-trip including an hour's wait for a reasonable 40 EUR. The road to Kokino is fully signposted from the turnoff at the Alexander the Macedonian motorway (the country's other main motorway by the way is named after the 2nd best known …

Basing myself in Kosovo’s capital Pristina, I visited 2 out of the 4 locations that comprise the Medieval Monuments in Kosovo : Gracanica Monastery and Prizren's Our Lady of Ljeviš church. They are considered ‘In Danger’ since 2006 as they need “urgent conservation work” and safeguarding, due to the post-conflict situation which saw this Serbian WHS end up on the territory of the partially recognised state of Kosovo. In the months prior to this trip I had scoured the Internet for information on how to reach the monastery of Gracanica. It lies just 10 kilometers from Pristina, but in a Serb enclave whose surroundings pretend it does not exist. I was almost deterred by the transport issues described in the Lonely Planet chapter on Kosovo (“Rumours abound that bus drivers won’t let you on or off if you tell them where you’re going”) and the stories that run on Tripadvisor about encountering “unwelcoming nuns” at the monastery itself.

Church of Gračanica monastery

In reality it took me a lot of effort and time (2 hours) to get there. But that had more to do with Pristina’s complex public transport …

The “ Natural and cultural heritage of the Ohrid Region ” spans a large area in and around the Macedonian side of Lake Ohrid. The Republic of Macedonia owns about two-thirds of the lake, the remaining third is on Albania’s Tentative List as a transboundary extension . The site includes the lake, towns at the lake shore (such as Struga, Pestani, Trpejca and of course Ohrid itself), and also single monasteries like Sveti Stefan and Sveti Naum. And it encompasses a part of Galičica National Park - a protected natural area that covers the mountains surrounding the lake on the Macedonian side.

Saint Panteleimon monastery

I spent 3 nights in the town of Ohrid, and had 2 full days to explore. On my first day I ‘did’ the cultural circuit in Ohrid itself. First the short hike to the lovely Church of St. John at Kaneo. And then uphill to the archaeological site of Plaošnik. This was a big surprise: about half of the area is subject to archaeological survey or under construction for who knows what. The church of Saint Panteleimon itself is an ‘instoration’ – it was …

In preparation of my ‘Balkan Tour 2015’ I had looked into Albania’s TWHS for ones that would be interesting enough to add to my itinerary. The country currently has a T List of 4, but none of these sites look very promising except the easy extension of the Ohrid WHS into the Albanian side of the lake. The Ancienty City of Apollonia is the most recent addition to the T List, but it is yet another Greek-Roman site. So I had decided to skip them all. But unexpectedly I had half a day to spare on my last day in Albania, due to a late departure of my bus from Tirana to Struga in Macedonia. I used it to get to Durrës and visit the T listed Amphitheatre there.

Amphitheatre of Durrës. The people there were cutting the grass.

Durrës is a port and Albania’s second city, only a 40 minute bus ride away from Tirana. Its amphitheatre lies in the city center, but isn’t as easy to find as many others of its kind. There are one or two signs, but mostly you’re up to yourself discovering the …

Berat and Gjirokastra are two towns in Central Albania, located some 150 kms apart. Their strength lies in vernacular urban housing and monuments from the Classical Ottoman period . Both are also towns that developed in and around a citadel. Gjirokastra is locally called Gjirokaster, the -kastra comes from the Northern Albanian dialect. It first became a WHS on its own in 2005, while Berat was added as an extension 3 years later.

Zekate tower house, Gjirokaster

I started my visit to this WHS in Gjirokaster, en route from Butrint to Tirana. I arrived by bus in the Lower Town, and decided to walk up to the historical area. It does look like a steep climb, but it takes only 20 minutes and it awards one with great views of the rows of tower houses Gjirokaster is known for. The historic center has a real authentic feel and I had a great time staying there overnight. This was further enhanced by local son Ismail Kadare 's Chronicle in Stone , which I was reading. He describes life as a child in Gjirokaster during World War II. At that time …

Butrint lies just across the Straits of Corfu from my previous destination, the Old Town of Corfu . It’s an easy trip out there from the Ionian Island: daily hydrofoils and ferries ply the route to the Albanian resort of Sarande, from where an hourly local bus heads out to Butrint 30km south. The WHS covers an archeological site that spans a long period, with mainly Greek, Roman and Byzantine remains. It also seems to have been renominated in 1999 as a cultural landscape, although UNESCO does not list it as such.

Remains of a column in the Theatre

During the high season the site can be crowded with daytrippers from Corfu, but fortunately I arrived early in the season. After paying the 700 lek entrance fee (5 EUR), I headed out on the forest path that connects the ruins. This shady environment was the first surprise of my visit: it’s a pleasure just to walk here, and I heard birds singing all the time. The natural area of Butrint also is awarded Ramsar wetland status . The wetness of the area clearly shows at the first major archeological …

The Old Town of Corfu with its Venetian/British architectural mix is the odd one out among Greek WHS. It entered the list in 2007, 8 years after they were done adding the Classical Greek sites. Despite Corfu’s prominent package holiday profile (worth a million visitors a year), the WHS isn’t covered well at this website. No photos at all have been posted for example. So I was eager to explore Corfu Town as a prologue to my 'Balkan Tour 2015', which will take me to Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo.

Venetian winged lion, at the walls of the New Fortress

The Venetians were here for the longest period: from 1386-1797. They mainly used the site as a militairy stronghold, to keep tabs on the entrance to the Adriatic Sea via the Straits of Corfu. They constructed the Old and the New Fortress, which protect the town of Corfu on both sides. These fortresses still are the major landmarks and tourist attractions in town. The Old Fortress lies on an artificial peninsula. It was something like a self-contained village, where the Venetian rulers were safe from the hands of the Ottomans …