Granada and Leon have battled forever about which of the two is the most important city in Nicaragua. The Republic's Leadership even had to find a new capital in between the two rivals as a compromise: Managua. The City of Granada therefore must look with envy to Leon's 2 WHS, the only sites designated in Nicaragua so far. In the promotion of the TWHS City of Granada and its natural environment every argument possible seems to have been brought forward to turn this around. The city was founded in 1542 and now has some 100,000 inhabitants. It's Nicaragua's "Tourism Capital": it has been a blossoming tourism and expat center since the early 21st century. It holds a particular attraction for Snowbirds from the USA. Clearly it does tick the right boxes for them: a warm climate, cute colonial town center, lots of foreigner-oriented restaurants (serving smoothies and green salads instead of the Nicaraguan staple rice and beans) and still cheap to live in. I stayed for 3 nights in Granada, and one of the best things I did was take the self-guided Lonely Planet "Colonial Explorer" City Walk. The whole circuit takes 4 hours, …

Nicaragua is a land of volcanoes, and the Volcan Masaya is the most spectacular of them all. It's an active complex volcano with a total of five craters and numerous other volcanic features. Masaya continually emits large amounts of sulfur dioxide gas. The site has been on the Tentative List since 1995, but seems to have never been seriously considered. Volcan Masaya lies within easy reach of a half-day trip from Managua or Granada. It's a very accessible site with a car/taxi or an organized tour. I visited it on a "Night Tour" from Granada - we were 17 tourists divided over 2 minibuses. After a short visit to the historic market in Masaya City , we arrived in this National Park at about 4.30 p.m. Apparently this is the only volcano in the western hemisphere where you are able to drive to the rim. And that's what we did first: stand next to a steaming crater. There was so much smoke that it was not possible to look down to see what's boiling inside. Because of the gases, you're only allowed to stay in this area for 5 minutes. I found it remarkable …

When the León Cathedral entered the List in 2011, many will have wondered "Do we really need another cathedral?". After having now visited this Nicaraguan monument, my answer would be: "It's different". It's essentially a Centralamerican structure, not purely Spanish-colonial as so many others (although its construction was started during the late colonial years). Also, it's a Single Monument that carries the weight of being a WHS on its own - not "just" as part of an inscribed city center.

Weeping lion at the tomb of the omnipresent Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario

León is Nicaragua's second city in size. Its slogan is "Primera Capital de la Revolucion" : here's where the demise of the Somoza regime started. León has been a Sandinista stronghold since. Right next to the cathedral survives a long political mural from the 1980s , painted jointly by German and Nicaraguan artists. The cathedral has been used for militairy purposes also in the insurrection of 1979. The cathedral is Leóns pride, and it stands impressively in the center of town. It's so huge and there a so many turrets and domes on its roof, that it …

León Viejo is said to be one of the earliest cities of Spanish America. Panama Viejo , that I visited last week, makes the same claim. I have been looking for a list in which order these Spanish overseas cities were founded, but could only find this one . It doesn't even include León Viejo; if I fit it in, with 1524 it would come on a shared 11th place among the Spanish colonial cities. The difference between this and many other cities on that list is that it has not developed since the 16th century, when it was abandoned. Anyway, León Viejo is of great importance to Nicaragua as it was its first colonial capital. The Spanish settled on the shore of what then was called the Lake of Leon. In its heyday, some 200 Spanish families lived here. A serious town was constructed for them, although there weren't many inhabitants: everything seems to have been supersized. There were no less than three convents, and the town hall spanned a full block. In the surrounding area lived thousands of native Americans, who were dominated and put to work by the Spanish. The entrance …

Portobelo and San Lorenzo were Spanish fortifications on the Caribbean coast of Panama. Portobelo even was the most important Spanish port of Central America in its time, the storehouse for the silver and gold that came from Peru by land or sea/river and had to be transported across the Atlantic. Both sites lie on either side of the modern city of Colón, some 80 km apart. As most others, I only visited Portobelo. I would love to see a review of San Lorenzo on this website too, but it isn't as easily accessible. Without a rental car, your only chance is joining a day tour from Panama City. The pricing of these tours (of any guided tour from Panama City) is ridiculous: they all seem to start at 100 US dollar. That's the downside of Panama: due to the cruise public, a large number of western expats and the general Americanization of the country prices often bear no relation to real costs. Fortunately Portobelo can be reached by public transport. It cost me 5 US dollar each way, with a change of buses at the town of Sabanitas. Taking this route, you avoid Colon …

This Panamá City WHS covers two locations along the Pacific Coast: the site of the oldest European town on the American mainland and the first European settlement on the Pacific Coast of the Americas. It was inscribed in two stages, with reasons for inscription varying from inter-oceanic communications to Panamanian house-types, and from 16th/17th century town planning and architecture to Simon Bolivar's visionary attempt in 1826 to establish a multinational congress in the Americas. Whenever I see so many different arguments put forward, I always suspect real Outstanding Universal Value is lacking: such value surely would be much easier to pinpoint. On my way to Nicaragua I included a 3 day stop-over in Panamá, and used it to explore this hard-to-grasp WHS and its Atlantic Ocean counterpart Portobelo .

Panama Viejo

Panama Viejo lies in a relatively quiet area north of the city center. The Metrobus dropped me at the entrance, where I was asked to pay the foreigners fee of 8 US dollar. This ticket includes both the museum and the archaeological site. The museum does only cover one floor, but presents the story of this site well. …

La Laguna (as the city is commonly known) lies right beside Tenerife Norte Airport, and forms a single urban center with the island's capital Santa Cruz. It's a sizeable city of 150,000 inhabitants, which became a WHS in 1999 mainly because of the model its urban layout provided for many Spanish colonial towns in the Americas. The Lower Town of La Laguna displays the checkerboard street plan that became the norm afterwards. I stayed in La Laguna for 2 nights at the final stage of my trip around Tenerife and La Gomera, and walked the city's streets for some serious sightseeing on Saturday morning. Most historic buildings are private residences, usually with an elaborate front door or wooden balcony. The Historical and Antropological Museum of Tenerife is housed in one of them, the Casa de Larcaro. Entering the museum gives you the rare opportunity to actually look inside one of these buildings - most of the other ones are closed to outsiders. The museum tells the story of the Conquest, the sugar industry and the Larcaro family. La Laguna has some good 20th century architecture too, such as the Palace of Rodriguez de Azero …

When I told my colleagues that I would be visiting Tenerife during the New Year's holiday, they thought that I finally had succumbed to a relaxing beach vacation. They were surprised to hear that it would put me within reach of 3 WHS. Those that had been to Tenerife themselves all offered "El Teide" as the island's most likely WH candidate. The Teide WHS is a volcanic landscape that actually covers two peaks (Pico Viejo and Teide), of which the latter is the most iconic. I already enjoyed good views of it from the plane while approaching Tenerife Norte Airport, and from the top of the Garajonay on La Gomera.

Mount Teide bugloss (Echium wildpretii)

Teide NP is part of our infamous "One million visitors or more" - connection. Visitor numbers have actually been dwindling over the past 5 years (due to the economic crisis?). Still it can get very busy up there, and I used Hubert's excellent advice how early to start out. I left my hotel in Granadilla at 7.30 a.m. When I arrived at the park some 45 minutes later, it was almost freezing cold (+2.5 …

Spain's Garajonay National Park only has a small footprint on the web. In preparation of my visit, I had been looking for a few extra links to upgrade the site's page on this website. But not many people seem to go there or at least write about it. It's not popular among World Heritage lovers either: it's ranked 409th out of 481 European WHS in our listings . The park covers the central part of the Canary Island of La Gomera, which is the neighbouring island to Tenerife. Tenerife's prominent WHS Teide volcano can be seen well from the Garajonay. Garajonay's claim to fame is its laurel forest. At its inscription as a WHS in 1986, this Spanish national park was seen as the best preserved stretch of laurisilva that once covered all Canary Islands and Madeira. 13 years later the similar Laurisilva of Madeira was admitted to the WH list. Its nomination document goes a long way to describe the differences: the Madeira laurel forest WHS is about 5 times larger than the one on Gomera, and the forest "is in general more luxuriant than the Canarian forest, being taller, wetter and cooler." …

Singapore accepted the World Heritage Convention only as recently as 2012, being one of the last sovereign countries to do so. Heritage of the tangible kind never has been much of a priority in Singapore. After independence in 1965 the focus has been on economical development against all cost. The recent interest in conserving heritage seems to be stimulated by NGO's such as the Singapore Heritage Society that spoke up about the remaking of Chinatown in 1998 and the demolition of the National Library building at Stamford Road in 2001. Heritage however does play an important role in the "invented" Singaporean national identity: "Heritage binds Singapore and sells it ¹ . The development of Singapore into Asia's premier "Garden City" for example was initiated in 1963 by Lee Kuan Yew himself. In pursuing its first WHS, Singapore puts less emphasis on the tourism functions of World Heritage: the expected political and sociocultural returns appear more important ² . The selection process for a possible WHS started already before 2012. In 2010, a study was commissioned by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts to identify potential sites that could …