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Ticking of WHS is one thing for me but also ticking of countries (I love lists) and with direct flights on KLM from Amsterdam to Trinidad & Tobago I just had to go. Of course also visiting the various TWHS.

How to get to Tobago Main Ridge Forest Reserve

I would say: by car only. Plus you have to get to Tobago as well. At the moment (pandemic) you can only get there from Trinidad. There are no international flights.

The site

The forest reserve covers a huge part of northern Tobago. A road crosses it from where you can make hikes of various length. The forest is mainly interesing for birth watchers as there are more as 200 and of which 30% is endemic.

Should it be WHS?

I would not say it has all the criteria. It's already a biosphere reserve and of course it must be protected. I do not think it deserves a WHS status as it's not that unique. On the submission it also says "Main Ridge Forest Reserve was also voted the "World's Leading Eco-Tourism destination" which I'm not really sure why that matters. If they go for WHS they should close (most part of) the reserve and have one or two trails left so that flora and fauna can thrive better. Of course not fully close it, then we cannot tick it off anymore :-)

In any case it was a pleasant hike for sure.

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Time of visit: November 2021

Duration of visit: 2 days

Mode of transportation: by rental car, from CDMX

Review and experience

Alas, we fell to the tourism trap of San Miguel de Allende. Okay, I'm half-joking. Yes, the town is filled with tourists and the commercialism of SMA is rampant, but its charming and colorful buildings, the magnificent Baroque-style cathedral, and its hilly and winding cobblestone streets certainly do have their magical draw for visitors. It was nice to come to SMA after spending a week in the bustling metropolis of Mexico City. Everything in SMA just felt so quaint and quiet, so it was a well needed respite from the exciting chaos of CDMX.

In terms of its basis for WHS inscription, I would say that SMA falls in the middle of the 7 colonial cities that we've visited to-date. It really isn't as unique and authentic as Mexico City (as the mothership of Mexico's colonial towns), Guanajuato (with its distinctive tie to the important mining history of Mexico), and Puebla (as I believe one of the earliest), but it truly was a lovely town to spend several days in, as everything was so catered to visitors, as serve as our home base for exploring the several other WHS nearby. If cartel activity weren't as rampant, we would have certainly made the trip to Morelia and Monarch Reserves as well from SMA!

On our way to Guanajuato as a day trip, we made …

Ticking of WHS is one thing for me but also ticking of countries (I love lists) and with direct flights on KLM from Amsterdam to Trinidad & Tobago I just had to go. Of course also visiting the various TWHS.

How to get to the Pitch Lake

I would say: by car only. On Trinidad public transport is not reliable (except maybe to Maracas beach). Hiring a taxi for a fixed price will do the trick but do count on an easy 100 USD as Trinidad IS expensive! Probably it's better to hire a car for approximate 50 USD / day. You can combine a visit here to the Banwari Site (another TWHS).

The site

It's quite a large area with green around it and in the middle is the Pitch Lake itself. When I visited it was raining quite a lot so it was more a lake of water as that you could see the asphalt and pitch. On the edges you could and the guides even showed the liquid pitch. A visit takes an hour approximate if you do the walk with guide. Do NOT EVER go alone as you can get stuck. It's a dangerous place. At one side they still mine but it's not heavily mined. Interesting is that around the pitch lake there are neighborhoods and even in those places it just pops up everywhere. Also, everything is sinking so building is risky and roads are bumpy.

Should it be …

One thing's for sure: the Karez wells are cool, and only in a temperature way. They are in fact anything but cool to look at and in a somewhat typical Chinese way they are fancied up with additional attractions around it like bike rides, museums unrelated to the wells, a stroll past a lake etc. You pay a pretty steep entrance fee what is actually just a small manmade cave.

The wells can be found in Turpan and Hami, with the ones in Turpan more likely to be added as WHS if ever. There are literally dozens of these all over town, some better than others. There is one in Turpan claiming to be the deepest and it's made into a bigger museum, boasting a more expensive entrance fee as well of course.

I visited three in total, not because I really wanted to but because there was time for it. The one in Hami is a drive-by coming from the desert, and Turpan has only so much to do for 3 days aside from the Silk Road WHS and the desert (claiming to be the hottest spot in China). The picture is the one in Hami but they all basically work the same way. The water is tunneled down from Tianshan (WHS) and funneled to a manmade cave where it pools for collection. This is how the towns exist in the desert in the first place. So these wells are very important and I understand the significance, …

Time of visit: November 2021

Duration of visit: 2 hours

Mode of transportation: by rental car, day trip from Mexico City

Review and experience

Yet another review where I'm unlikely doing the actual WHS justice. Like several others who have reviewed this site, we only had the chance to visit the Cuernavaca Cathedral and the church in Tepoztlan. The significance of these sites is indisputable - nearly every cathedral and church we visited over the course of our 3 weeks' stay in central Mexico shared similar characteristics to these earliest churches of Mexico, as do some old missions in my home state of California. The large single nave, adjacent monastic buildings, and beautiful courtyard and the two-level convent filled with arches. As such, its OUV and its inscription on the basis of Criteria (ii) and (iv) felt sufficiently appropriate. 

However, for the Cuernavaca Cathedral, its belltower was interesting and (potentially most) unique, as it resembled the Seville Cathedral's Giralda Tower. Of course, that tower was initially built as a mosque minaret, so it's interesting to see the Moorish influence brought over to the New World from this angle. That said, I don't think this particular component of the cathedral's broader style is as frequently replicated in other churches we had seen in Mexico. The height of the belltower is domineering to the nearby skyline, and it's a little sad that the recent earthquake damaged the cathedral, and I believe a part of the belltower collapsed.  

Ticking of WHS is one thing for me but also ticking of countries (I love lists) and with direct flights on KLM from Amsterdam to Trinidad & Tobago I just had to go. Of course also visiting the various TWHS.

How to get to Banwari Trace Archaeological Site

I would say: by car only. On Trinidad public transport is not reliable (except maybe to Maracas beach). Hiring a taxi for a fixed price will do the trick but do count on an easy 100 USD as Trinidad IS expensive! Probably it's better to hire a car for approximate 50 USD / day. You can combine a visit here to Pitch Lake (another TWHS).

Keep in mind as well that the site is not standard open. You would think so as they have no less as 4 toilets in a small building. You have to arrange with the National Trust that they contact the caretaker (lives next door) so he knows you are coming. I was lucky on a Sunday that he was at home and after explaining why I visited he allowed me in and explained a bit about the site.

The site

It's small. The total size is like a moderate plot of land which normally would be for a house. It's a small hill actually. There is no explanation signs. The caretaker told me the government has plans to make a path with signs explaining the site. Including a small exposition with the …

I visited this WHS in Spring 2021 focusing first on the many lacklustre tumuli and the Kybele Sanctuary in the 8 locations close to Bergama town, Islamsaray and Kapikaya leaving the multi-layered (Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantium and Ottoman periods) city last.

Before driving up the steep road all the way up to the Acropolis, the Asklepeion and Red Hall (you can also take the cable car up if you don't want to drive to the top), I took in the interesting Red Hall/Temple of the Egyption Gods. When I visited, there were no apparent restrictions due to the COVID pandemic so I gladly visited these sites too before heading uphill to the Acropolis. There are old rusty brown metal UNESCO signs at most locations and the usual Turkish UNESCO WHS sign next to the Acropolis entrance.

The name Pergamon or Bergama means fortified area. Philetairos existed as a powerful kingdom from 283 BC. It fell under the Roman domination pursuant to the will of Attalus III in 133 BC, and the city started to reshape under the influence of Christianity when the Roman Empire began to lose power and divided in two. In the 8th century BC, Pergamon was exposed to Arab invasions and in the early 14th century it joined the Menteshe Beylik. The city was included in the Ottoman territories by Orhan Gazi in 1345 and the Turkish period began. The ancient city of Pergamon stands out with its successful urban planning despite the topographic difficulties.

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Time of visit: November 2021

Duration of visit: 2 hours

Mode of transportation: by rental car, from Oaxaca

Review and experience

I'm really conflicted on how to actually review this site. For context, I visited the Yagul Archaeology Site. As several have noted below, I appreciated visiting a minor site and being one of the only visitors during my time there. As an archaeology enthusiast, I always love sites where visitors can get up close and personal without the disturbance of a large crowd. However, if Yagul were a standalone site, I would've felt that it is rather insignificant, because while the particular site has been occupied from 500 BC, majority of the structure visible was built in the Late Postclassical era (right before European contact) - so for its recency and the abundance of archaeological sites in Mexico, it's not particularly unique or impressive. 

Logistically, the site was very easy to access. It's clearly labeled on Google Maps with easy to read road signs. There is a paved straight road from the main highway to access the site itself. However, the naming of this WHS is confusing, as I at first confused the more visited Mitla Archaeology Site! Oops...

Now the conflict, and why I'm giving it a higher rating. I think the caves are hugely important from a world heritage perspective. They provide evidence for the earliest known domestication of corn (maize), along with other several crops. Agriculture is the foundation of …

Peaceful & Interesting. Makes for a nice stopover on the way to Iraq or Eastern Syria.

On a trip around Sicily in September of 2021, I stayed several nights in Noto and visited Scicli, Ragusa, Palazzolo, and Catania each for a few hours.

Noto is pleasant and easy to explore (its historic core is built essentially on a grid pattern). Climbing to the roof terraces of San Carlo is highly recommended, and the balconies of Palazzo Nicolaci are definitely a remarkable detail. Stepping into churches for a few minutes is always an easy thing to do; visiting Palazzo Castelluccio or Palazzo Nicolaci is of limited reward. In general, as delightful as the exterior Baroque ensembles are in the area, the interiors behind them are somewhat underwhelming.

Ragusa is the most visually striking of all villages when Ragusa Ibla is viewed from the terraces of Ragusa Superiore (most specifically, the viewpoint by Santa Maria delle Scale). Both parts of town are worth walking through and there are numerous visual highlights, but just as in Noto, the church interiors felt not as remarkable as the exteriors.

Scicli's inscribed area is pretty small and looks monumentally attractive. Unfortunately, all churches were closed at the time that we visited, so I have no evidence of whether they continue the theme of being more impressive on the outside. One of the key architectural monuments, Palazzo Beneventano is a gorgeous Baroque building that can only be admired from the street. Palazzo Spadaro, which we visited on a whim, was barely worth a 15-minute walk-through for the negligible cost of …

Time of visit: November 2021

Duration of visit: several hours scattered throughout 2 weeks

Mode of transportation: by rental car, across CDMX, Queretaro, San Miguel de Allende, and Guanajuato

Review and experience

As several reviews have noted, this was an "effortless" WHS, as each of my visits was part of a different and dedicated WHS to that city. I had originally intended to visit San Juan del Rio as it wasn't co-listed as another WHS, but after seeing Queretaro, SMA, and Guanajuato over the course of a few days and running short on time, I decided to skip the slight detour. I did have a chance to briefly visit the site within SMA - "Former Royal hospital of San Juan de Dios", but only from the exterior as the church was closed. It would have been nice to see the actual paved Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, but the several bridges I previewed online near SMA seemed quite dilapidated and inconspicuous, so I decided to not make such detours.

Overall, I'm glad to see such a large swath of sites inscribed as part of this WHS, as hopefully through this there will be better protection for the dozens of churches inscribed for years to come, but I was disappointed by the significant overlap with existing WHS. Furthermore, I didn't quite grasp why this particular "Camino Real" was inscribed; California for example has its own "Camino Real" and the cultural exchange was somewhat similar. I also …

Based on previous reviews here, I initially thought I would stay at a nearby accomodation with a "private" entrance allowing to be earlier. Unfortunately, it seems that this private entrance has been closed in the last months due to Covid. So I chose to stay in Valladolid instead and drive early to be at Chichen Itza at the opening at 8am. I arrived at 8.05am and was not the only one who had that idea as I had to wait for about 20 minutes to buy the ticket. The entrance price has increased in the recent years. In November 2021, an adult ticket costs 533 Pesos, and I had to pay 80 Pesos for the parking.

Fortunately the site is so large that it didn't feel crowded inside, and there is still nobody on most of my pictures. There were still several areas of the archeological park where I was alone, like the observatorio and the Grupo de Las Monjas. Those areas, with the skull platform, were actually my favourites areas. Of course, the pyramid and the other areas are interesting as well. The Great Ball court size is truly impressive !

All the hawkers also arrived in the park after 8am, and they were not fully set up before 10ish, so I suspect the large groups arrive later. The complete tour of the site, going everywhere on my own (no guide) took me about 3 hours. I am not sure it was my favourite Mayan site, but …

I have very nice memories to the trip to northern Greece in June 2006. I managed to visit two promising TWHS (Zagorochoria and Mount Olympus) and two excellent WHS: paleochristian monuments in Thessaloniki and the rock city with monasteries in Meteora.

To visit the Meteora site, we traveled by bus from Ioannina via Metsovo to Kalambaka/Kastraki. Then, we did a loop by walking along the asphalt road that goes through the rock city. We did stopovers to visit the Roussanou monastery (PHOTO), where we joint the guided tour, and also the Holy Trinity monastery, which we visited for free but without stepping inside. We spent a night in a tent on dry meadow full of ants in the eastern part of the rock city complex (I am not sure if it is legal now but such were the times...) Unsurprisingly, this WHS was very touristy and overcrowded by visitors. The advantage of our walking and staying at the site regime was that we were a bit incoherent with the constant flow of tourist groups in buses and cars. The weather was hot but still bearable, fortunately we "survived" the heavy rain storm inside the Roussanou monastery.

To sum up: the site is really a world class, and I was happy for the opportunity to explore the site for two days.

I visited this WHS in Spring 2021. The main location is definitely the Ancient Site of Ephesus, but there are three other locations which make up this WHS which can be considered as minor site by comparison.

Before visiting the Ancient Site of Ephesus, I invested some time to try to cover the three minor locations which make up this WHS. A panoramic viewpoint of the Ayasoluk Hill, the Artemision (or Temple of Artemis) and the Medieval Settlement location is reachable just off the main road before reaching the Ancient Site of Ephesus. It is also part of the Via Sacra Artemis. The Ayasoluk Castle and the Basilica of Saint John require quite an expensive ticket for what you get too see so if you're pressed for time and money, I would skip it. On the other hand, just behind the castle, I could visit the Isa Bey Mosque for free. I really liked the few original remaining turquoise tiles inside but even the most keen enthusiasts would find it difficult to classify this site as WH material.

The Artemision was the most important sanctuary of Ephesus. The massive Temple of Artemis counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Not much remains of this temple which was later converted to a church, apart from massive pillars which have been currently taken over by storks. The remains of the aqueduct go through the urban area of modern Selcuk and are also taken over by stork …

Vlkolínec [Vlk = wolf in Slovak language] was my very end destination of the trip to Veľká Fatra mountains in 2004. We started in the south, in spa town Turčianské Teplice, ascended to the highest peak - Ostriedok (1596m) then followed the main and the eastern ridges of this beautiful Carpathian mountains in a direction to the town of Ružomberok. After several days spent in relatively wild nature, the descending to civilizations was welcomed opportunity to take a rest and refresh ourselves in the UNESCO guarded village of Vlkolínec. It was not intentional to spare money, but later we realized that entering the village from the upper side means no entrance fee at all.

As already mentioned the setting of the village is beautiful. Though there was nothing very special in the village, and the visit is really "Holašovice-like", I gave fairly high rating to Vlkolínec (in contrast to Holašovice WHS itself). There are no many such preserved wooden villages in Slovakia, thus it deserves the inscription to the list even though the wooden buildings are not extremely spectacular. Besides abandonment, old wooden houses usually suffers from the "trend" that they are sold to open-air museums - skansen. Well, Vlkolínec is maybe also a museum village, but it is still normally inhabited. Perhaps, some visitors are "spoiled" by open-air museums where one can find the finest examples of vernacular architecture and expect something similar also in the case of Vlkolínec. However, I really enjoyed Vlkolínec as an example of …

Time of visit: November 2021

Duration of visit: 1 hour

Mode of transportation: by rental car, from Queretaro en route to Puebla

Review and experience

Padre Tembleque Aqueduct is a unique WHS monument, and relatively unfrequented given it's slightly out of the way for most visitors. Rather than making a day trip from Mexico City and/or Teotihuacan, we took a slight detour en route from Queretaro (after several days in San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato) to Puebla. 

While the structure is impressive and the lack of visitors provided a quiet refuge after a lengthy and congested drive, I found the OUV of the aqueduct more limited in depth than most other WHS I have visited. Criterion (ii) is likely the most appropriate among Criteria (i), (ii) and (iv), considering it truly is an interchange of several cultural traditions, though that argument can be made for many cultural sites throughout Mexico constructed in the colonial times. I think it would have been equally if not more interesting to have featured a Mesoamerican aqueduct as a stand-alone WHS, as for example, the Aztecs built extensive water management systems, and I found featuring this aqueduct as a stand-alone site somewhat Euro-centric. All said though, the site was visually impressive and the history behind it interesting. I am also grateful for its being listed as a WHS, as otherwise it would have been very unlikely that we made a detour to visit!

Tactically, it was a little …

I visited Socotra in November 2021. At the time of my visit, Air Arabia provided Monday-only charter flights between Abu Dhabi and Socotra, so visitors were required to spend a week on Socotra. Given that all tourists arrive and depart at the same time, tour operators seem to follow the same general itinerary, although they apparently coordinate so that sites are not inundated with tourists on the same days. I went with Untamed Borders.

During the course of my week, we visited:Day 1 (arrival): Delisha beach, not far from Hadibu, so seems like many visit this beach and sand dunes on the day of arrival

Day 2: Qalansyia in northwestern Socotra, where we picked up a small fishing boat for the ninety-minute trip to Shuaab, the island’s nicest beach. Along the way we passed through several schools of sardines, so abundant that the turquoise water appeared black and attracting a feeding frenzy of sea birds, spinner dolphins and one whale shark. We spent the end of the day at Detwah Lagoon.

Day 3: snorkeling in the Dihamari Marine Nature Sanctuary at some of the richest coral reefs in Socotra, where it was easy to see colorful parrotfish and angelfish, but not lobsters. Fortunately, a local lobsterman had caught several spiny lobsters — I bought the largest for only $15, which we dropped off at the restaurant for dinner.

Day 4: Momi plateau, covered with desert roses, one of the rare bottle trees found only on …

Time of visit: August 2018

Duration of visit: 3 hours

Mode of transportation: within Pohnpei - a 1.5hr drive from Kolonia, followed by a channel crossing by foot; to Pohnpei, from San Francisco, then Honolulu, via the United Pacific Hopper flights through Majuro, Kwajalein, and Kosrae

Review and experience

The primary focus of my 2 days on Pohnpei was scuba diving - truly a diamond in the rough and underrated dive location. I was so close to choosing Chuuk over Pohnpei, as Chuuk had some impressive WWII dive sites and I could only select one stop-over along the United Pacific Hopper flights without extra costs, but Nan Madol ended up being the tie-break for selecting Pohnpei. 

I'd like to think of Nan Madol as a sleeper hit WHS. Despite having taken a handful of archaeology courses in college, I hadn't heard of Nan Madol and the Micronesia dynasties! Perhaps I was asleep in class if one of my professors covered it for a brief few minutes, and if so, shame on me... While Nan Madol may not be as impressive as the likes of Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, or the Great Pyramids, its truly lives up to its OUV in my perspective - a one of a kind cultural masterpiece. An added bonus to the experience was that I was the only visitor (aside from my guide/driver) to the site during my time there, so the experience was intimate and undisturbed by others. Venice of …

Wachau belongs to my favorite WHSs in Austria, and I visited already several times. My last visit was in Summer 2013, when I joint a cycling trip of my friends despite the fact: I hate cycling(!) so, I had to manage traveling by other ways. We traveled from Czechia by car through Waldviertel, which is a forested highland. The contrast of the typical Central-European landscape and the Mediterranean-like Danube valley is really impressive and somewhat surprising. Danube is fairly clean in Wachau and we enjoyed swimming, watching birds and even crayfish in clean waters. Even though there is quite busy traffic of both cars and bicycles along the river, it is always possible to escape to river beaches or to surrounding hills with picturesque views.

Well, Wachau is enjoyable even for persons suffering from an allergy to vineyard WHSs, because its OUV is not based solely on the vineyards. Besides the natural beauty of Danube river, I enjoyed villages and little towns such as Duernstein or Spitz (PHOTO-bottom: view from the castle ruin above Spitz). To say something negative about Wachau, I was a bit disappointed by Melk monastery. Due to the relatively wide valley around Melk, the monastery appearance from the river was not such monumental as I expected. Further, the Melk monastery is overcrowded by tourists and I had a feeling of tourist trap. In contrast to Melk, I enjoyed my visits to Krems (PHOTO-top) and Stein with their streets, old townhouses and 13th Century churches much …

Time of visit: December 2020

Duration of visit: 15 minutes

Mode of transportation: by foot from the Royal Portuguese Reading Room

Review and experience

Valongo Wharf carries important historical significance, and in the wake of the race protests and discussions in the US - my home country - in 2020, visiting the site was an emotional and touching experience in the context of slavery, Africans in the Americas, and issues of race and class. 

It intrigues me that Valongo Wharf is the smallest WHS site (as of writing in Nov 2021) and among the short list of sites selected only on Criterion VI (despite the committee's recommendation to use VI in conjunction with others). Among the several other slavery and indentured servitude sites in the VI-only list, Valongo felt forgettable and less "monumental" (amongst the giants of Goree and Auschwitz) as a reminder of the human atrocities. I struggle to identify another Cultural Criterion OUV that would be fitting for Valongo Wharf. 

My poor rating comes not as a criticism of Valongo's historical significance, but rather the opposite - for a country so heavily influenced and defined by centuries of slavery, I was disappointed that this was a standalone slavery WHS for Brazil. Sites such as Paraty/Ilha Grande and Salvador already prominently focus on its relation to slavery in Brazil. Furthermore, the site felt not well protected, and there was only a single placard detailing a few paragraphs of history on the site. Compounded …