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 …

Vézelay, Church and Hill was the last destination of my short trip to the Champagne and Burgundy regions of France. Vézelay lies about an hour and ten minutes drive west from the Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay ; both WHS can easily be combined into one day trip from Dijon or even Reims. The hill with the church on top is a landmark visible from afar.

Sculpted portal of Vézelay Church

The site has been an important place of pilgrimage since relics of St. Mary Magdalene were brought here in the 10th century. So it comes as no surprise that the same location is also part of the French Route to Santiago de Compostela WHS. It is actually the starting point of one of the four main pilgrimage routes to Santiago. The steady flow of pilgrims brought considerable wealth to the town in the Middle Ages. On my drive up there I saw a couple of long distance hikers too (the pilgrims of the modern age). The Abbaye Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay is the main feature of this WHS. The Abbey church is undergoing major restorations at the moment, especially near …

The Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay is a 12th century former monastery in Burgundy. The Cistercian godfather Saint Bernard of Clairvaux found a sufficient remote location to create a new community of monks, one of many at that time. The Cistercians broke away from the mainstream Benedictines because they felt that the Benedictine monks had become too worldly and devoted too little time to manual labor. The Cistercians made up for that in self-sufficient communities like this. The Abbey owes its place on the List to its excellent state of preservation. I visited it by car from Reims on a combined day trip with the WHS of Vézelay . In the year 2015 this still is an off-the-beaten track location, though the Abbey receives over 100,000 visitors a year. I drove on minor roads for over an hour, passing this region’s typical ramshackle villages that look deserted. Only at the site’s car park I was back among living creatures again. I arrived around 10.30, at the same time as two buses with German tourists. Also I counted some 40 cars with individual visitors. Access to the site is run professionally. As the Abbey is now …