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Perched on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, northwest of Athens, the Archaeological Site of Delphi is one of the highlights of a trip to Greece. I visited Delphi on a personal day tour from Athens in November 2019, an off-season excursion that allowed my friend and I to wander through the site with few other visitors beyond a French class meandering up the mount.

Delphi is a showcase of Greecian history. The site I was most pleased to see was the Temple of Apollo, home to Pythia, the famed Oracle of Delphi. The foundation and a smattering of columns from one side of the temple remain halfway up the slope, although the abundance of fresh air makes it unlikely that any vapors from the subterranean chasm will lead to prophecies today. In a similar vein, the Sibyl rock, upon which another oracle expounded, remains a little further down the hill. Just next door is the incredible reconstructed Treasury of Athens, a gift from the city-state to thank Apollo for their victory over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. Further up the hill is a theater with a spectacular view over the valley of Phocis, and a path to the sacred Castalian spring. At the summit of the archaeological site is the Stadium of Delphi, a well-preserved athletic site that was home to the Pythian Games, an ancient Panhellenic competition dedicated to Apollo and contested every four years (offset from the Olympic Games by two years). While it is …

Bom Jesus do Monte is a Catholic shrine located just outside the pleasant Northern Portuguese city of Braga. It is located on top of a hill, and the route to it is shaped by a zigzagging staircase that symbolizes the way taken by Christ on the day of his crucifixion. The entire complex is built of granite and is decorated with fountains, statues and other ornaments. The shrine is visible in the far distance from Braga's central square, but it lies some 6 km away.

At half past eight in the morning, I put my rental car in the free parking lot at the bottom of the hill on which the sanctuary is located. From there you can walk up, almost 600 steps have to be climbed on the long wide staircase. I didn't see any other tourists yet, but there were lots of local joggers around for whom this climb apparently fits perfectly into their daily or weekly sports routine. This lower part runs through a forest and is therefore pleasantly shaded. A chapel can be found in every hairpin bend, containing somewhat primitive portrayals of scenes from the last days of the life of Christ.

After about 300 steps I reached the first main plateau, from where you have a wide view over the city of Braga and you are at the foot of the most beautiful part of the stairs to the sanctuary. Unfortunately, early in the morning is not the best time to take …

After visiting the Le Corbusier inscribed locations in Japan in 2009 and in Belgium in 2016 without entering, and not being much of a modern architecture enthusiast myself, I failed to appreciate any particular OUV and hence gave a low rating on the basis that other WHS like Bauhaus were much better.

Four years later, in June 2020, I kept my promise and I decided to visit one of Le Corbusier's most iconic designs, the Notre Dame du Haut Chapel just outside Ronchamp, France, and I was positively surprised. This time round, not only did I really enjoy the site but also managed to enter to appreciate the interior features and understand why this chapel is nicknamed the chapel of light. I must confess that the drawing factor for me to visit was a news update I received about the unveiling of a UNESCO inscription plaque which is strangely placed outside the site just in front of the entrance gate.

The chapel was completed in 1954 on a pre-existing pilgrimage site. The previous stone chapel had been largely destroyed during World War II. It is considered one of the most important buildings of the 20th century and represents a key shift away from the functionalist form of Modernism that Le Corbusier displayed in his earlier projects. The main structure consists of thick masonry walls, which are curved to improve stability and provide structural support. The monumental curved concrete roof is a shell structure supported by columns hidden in …

I know that Prague is a victim of aggressive tourist industry, but it has affected the inscribed parts pretty unevenly, and Prague is still one of the most beautiful and valuable historical towns in Europe!

Above all, the historical core of Prague is a unique assembly of two castles (Vyšehrad and Prague Castle) and four originally independent medieval towns (Old Town, New Town, Lesser Town and Hradčany) including quite large former Jewish ghetto within the Old Town, all picturesquely sitting on the bent of Vltava river. Furthermore, this WHS has two separate components, and besides the city center, the Průhonice castle with huge park has been also included.

I live in Prague for around 20 years, and my office in the Charles University campus is located within the inscribed area, close to the outer gothic walls of New Town, not far from Vyšehrad Castle.

During the Covid-19 outbreak in March-May 2020, it happened to me that I was “confined” within this WHS and its buffer zone almost continuously for two months – my home is several hundreds meters from the borders of the WHS area. I took an opportunity to explore the entire core zones again and without annoying masses of tourists… and I realized again how beautiful Prague is.

In May, I also did an afternoon trip to Průhonice component by metro (C-line stop Opatov) and suburban bus to admire its magnificent gardens in bloom and without masses of tourists.

Only one part of …

I visited Dilmun Burial Mounds before UNESCO recognized its status. This World Heritage site was part of my private half day tour around Bahrain. Actually, It was not a part of the original tour program, but after had a fruitful discussion on ancient Dilmun civilization with my historical buff guide during our walking tour to see Pearling Heritages in Muharraq, my guild wanted to show me the Dilmun royal mounds, so after negotiated with a driver, we squeezed Dilmun Mounds in the plan. We went to city of Aali, after made a brief stop to see few remains water springs of Bahrain, it hard to believe that Bahrain was once full of water springs and very green island and was considered a heaven on earth, I found myself to be standing on the top of the Royal Mound No.1.

The large earth mound was uninspiring surrounded by the city, similar to what I saw royal tombs in Japan near Nara, a big hole show ruins of multi burial chambers and indicated that it was already excavated by archaeologists or grave robbers. My guide recommended me to go to the top of the mound to see the view of whole city, something that should not be allow anymore after UNESCO listing. From the top I saw other big royal mounds blending with the whole urban landscape, a very interesting sight. After my guide explained different styles of burial ritual of Dilmun and what I should see in the national …

The story of this transnational nomination began in 2008 when "The Spa of Luhačovice" was deferred by the WHC. The ABE evaluation was clear: no OUV for Luhačovice alone, but ICOMOS recommended a thematic study on European spa towns. Initially, a total of 16 spa towns from seven countries were included in the tentative list. In 2016, the number was reduced to eleven. Interestingly, Luhačovice did not make it to the final nomination.The nomination website Great Spas of Europe provides photos and brief summaries of each spa, and links to their official websites. The nomination focuses on the development of European spa tradition between the 18th and early 20th centuries with its heyday in the 19th century. It only consists of spa towns with hot and mineral springs, seaside resorts are not included.

I visited the three sites of the Bohemian Spa Triangle on Easter weekend 2018.

Karlovy Vary is the largest and most famous of the three towns, and it was also the liveliest. Although the peak season had not started in April, the city centre was quite full with tourists and locals. The historic spa centre is located in the narrow valley of the river Teplá. I started my walk at the Grandhotel Pupp in the south and ended it after 2.5 kilometres in the north, where the narrow valley opens and the Teplá flows into the Ohře. All main spa facilities - spa hotels and mineral springs (Pramen in Czech) - are located along …

[Visited, 16 Sep 2017]Fresh from 2 day hike of Huangshan, a friend and I took the train from Huangshan North to Shangrao. We arrived past 5 PM so no more buses were available. A taxi to our guesthouse near Jinsha cableway, costed 150 RMB for over an hour drive.

Sanqingshan was one of my most memorable WHS visit. The adventure began upon arrival to our guesthouse. We inadvertently started a rift between two neighboring guesthouse owners. We mistakenly went to a wrong one but the owner did not care - it was shoulder season and he needed revenue. At 10 PM the correct guesthouse called asking where we were. We shared our Wechat location, baffled as we thought we already checked in. The correct guesthouse owner then proceeded to get us. An argument ensued between both owners, forced the wrong one to reimburse our payment and ended with us moving guesthouses in the middle of the night.

Dinner was also equally amusing. Restaurants were already closed when we arrived, and we mimed our way to asked a lady on the street where we can grab food. She abruptly left, so we assumed she did not understand. A few minutes later, she reappeared with a live chicken in tow. We tried telling her again that we needed food to eat and not a chicken to cook. The lady again suddenly walked away while we continued our search. Unsuccessful and famished, we begrudgingly walked back to our guesthouse. To our …

After a recent road trip in June 2020, I have now visited 23 out of the 33 Belgian Belfries and only 2 out of the 23 French ones, something I hope to make up for in the near future.

Without repeating what has already been mentioned before, I would like to underline the very good information, map and pictures on Wikipedia (search Belfries of Belgium and France). This can come in handy to plan the most convenient loop if you're travelling by car, as well as to know what to look for when you're in town.

Most inscribed Belgian Belfries are quite straightforward to spot and lie in the main square. Others aren't, and here I can highlight a number of them such as the one in Namur which seems more like a round tower, the one in Tienen - make sure to look out for the UNESCO information board/sign as you can easily be misled by the Church of Our Lady of the Lake belfry which is not inscribed, in Leuven you can easily be misled by the University Library or City Hall but it's the unfinished tower of St. Peter's Church which is inscribed, in Zouitleeuw there's no belfry proper but St. Leonard's Church with its central tower, in Sint Truiden the city hall tower is inscribed not the Church of Saint Martin or the gothic church of Our Lady, and in Dendermonde the city hall belfry is inscribed not the octagonal tower of the Sheldt …

Late Autumn 2019 my friends unexpectedly canceled our group’s anticipated road trip from Halifax to Ottawa, Canada and changed to Hawaii instead with dubious reason that they wanted surf, sun and sea instead of ocean of fossil and autumn foliage. At first, I was not happy since I planned to see those uninspired Eastern Canadian UNESCO sites, but Hawaii was indeed hard to resist. To accommodate me, Volcanoes National Park was one of the must stop of this trip. Before I visited Hawaii, I already noted that after great eruption in 2018, almost all volcanic activities that made this national park well known were no more. As of late 2019 no lava flow, no eruption, no fume, no smoke and we were wondered that with no volcanic activities, our visit will be worthwhile of not?

When we reached the visitor center of the national park, there was a big sign informed us that almost half of the national park was still closed and no lava to be seen, a lot of visitors seem to be disappointed and complained with park rangers for misinformation in many guidebooks and tourist brochures. Our group decided to do some tracking to see Sulphur bank and volcano crater. The tracking trail was nice, but the Sulphur bank was underwhelmed, since all of us already visited Yellowstone National Park, the trail and the sulfuric smell in Hawaii were nothing special. The crater on the other hand was really impressive for its size, but again …

September 2014 - I have quite good memory about this tiny picturesque village. I sent my parents here a year before with the remark that it is a WHS. When they came back, they were like "seriously?". I wanted to see it myself. After spending the morning in Pilsen and visiting the brewery we drove further to Cesky Krumlov. With a small detour you can easily visit holasovice on that Tour. We walked into the local Tourist Information, bought some Souvenirs (handmade Krtek christmas hangers) and meandered through the village. In the south east corner we bought a big jar of Honey, took some nice pictures and shortly after continued our drive to cesky Krumlov. The village is nicely preserved and certainly a good example. But a serial nomination could be more suitable for this kind of heritage. Maybe "rural life in the Austro-German-Bohemia area"

Mafra Palace, Convent and Royal Hunting Park became my first ‘new’ WHS post-Covid! I had planned to go and pick up the 2 recently inscribed Portuguese WHS in April already but had to cancel at the time. After things started opening up again within the EU, this trip quickly got back to the top of my list as Portugal was welcoming tourists with open arms. I wouldn’t normally visit Portugal in mid-summer (it was 36 degrees Celsius!), but the good feeling of being able to travel again overcame any disadvantages.

Mafra hasn’t received the best of reviews, “another run-of-the-mill Baroque palace/monastery” sums it up I guess. All previous reviewers ‘only’ visited the Palace, so I planned to focus on the Tapada: the hunting park. I just did a photo stop at the palace, which seems way too big for its surroundings. There’s a convenient large, free parking next to it and I also enjoyed a 1.60 EUR fish soup for lunch at a bakery in the street across.

The Mafra WHS comprises only 1 location (it’s a large area), but still, the entrance to the Tapada lies 7 km away from the Palace. I drove there in my rental car, via narrow and winding roads. It is signposted well, also with UNESCO signs. At the entrance, I found out that, as an anti-Covid measure, visits to the park have to be pre-booked via their website. Fortunately, I could do that via my phone and be able to secure …

A huge and pristine lake, with unique islands which have their own vibrant culture. Lake Titicaca fits the criteria of a world class WHS. Seemingly, this tremendous lake would be inscribed under cultural criteria as a "cultural landscape" or mixed. Though the later might be difficult. It is somewhat baffling this site hasn't yet reached the world heritage committee.

I found the landscape to be stunning, whether from islands or boat. This will almost undoubtably be inscribed one day. I expect a joint nomination by Bolivia and Peru that includes both natural and cultural elements.

In June 2020 I visited a number of locations of this tentative WHS up for inscription in 2022, namely Eisden, Maasmechelen, Connecterra, Terhills and Mechelse Heide. I had already visited the area several times previously but for shopping and the nearby Herentals Belfry.

Terhills and Connecterra have a visitor centre (entrance 3 euros) which were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the various hiking trails are open 24/7 so I mainly visited to have a closer look at the pithead frame of the former Eisden mine (possible to climb for a panoramic view - not worth the effort), and what is marketed as “the most beautiful view in Flanders” at Connecterra which has retained four of the spoil-tips, three of which are accessible. Their green tops offer a worthwhile view of the landscape surrounding Terhills, the beautiful ponds and the peaks in Belgium's only national park. The view of the surrounding landscape is remarkable mostly because nature claimed back this large industrial area (in an otherwise flat landscape) but not worth travelling for. The huge shopping outlet, and especially the nuclear plant in the distance, are still quite an eyesore, and even in Belgium itself, there are better nature reserves for nature panoramic views such as Het Zwin just outside Knokke.

After a long road trip, we had planned to enjoy a short hike and picnic at another "highlight" of this tentative WHS, the Mechelse Heide. There's a free parking lot and information boards at the entrance, …

The Sydney Opera is one of the youngest inscribed WHS. It was officially opened in 1973 and inscribed as WHS in 2007 (less than 50 years later). As a basic rule, I feel WHS should be timeless. And timelessness can be better judged with adequate temporal distance. For the Sydney Opera House, though, I feel confident that this is a timeless building. On the one hand side, I enjoy the timeless, organic architecture, combing imagery of sails and sea shells. On the other hand side, it's influence on modern urban development cannot be overstated. Wherever a city tries to reinvent itself or create a new landmark, you find a Sydney Opera, e.g. the Opera in Copenhagen (mhew) or the Elbphilharmonie in my home town Hamburg.

We visited Sydney multiple days including New Year's Eve 2020 (NYE or sdNYEy). It's hard to miss the site if you are in town and most parts are open to visitors. If our resident Aussies (Joel and Shandos) are in town, you may even get a WHS tour from a local and catch up with the community. Thanks to Joel and Shandos for being our tour guides :)

Getting There

Assuming you are in Sydney, just walk. The site is open to public and you can walk through it. The concert halls require a ticket to some show, but we managed to get a peek. You can also join a tour. The best views are had from the bridge …

September 2014 - I finished my studies and we bought an old VW Campervan to drive around Europe. So we switched to vanlife for few weeks.

Starting our journey, we headed south via Dresden to Czechia. Our first Twhs was Zatec. Since I am a brewing scientist, I was happy to see finally a beer spot on the list. I was quite disappointed, when Mechtild Rössler read out on the Whs meeting the deferal of the "town of hope". Obviously she did not even know what hops is and that it is a fundamental ingredient for beer.

Zatec is the home for Saazer Hops. Around the town are numerous hop fields and along the road to Prague you can spot here and there some wires and in september the are filled with winding hop plants. It is not only the destinct ingredient for czech pilsner but exported to the US for floral IPAs or to add bitterness to beers around the world. The town itself is related to hops only. We visited the hops Museum and took a creepy elevator ride on a hop tower showing a movie with a small hope cone flying above Zatec and singing "huii" and "ahoj". However, on top of the tower there was quite a nice view to the hop tens, where hops is being dried after harvest, you could see the brewery and all hop related buildings of Zatec.

With at least 10 grape sites, wine is overrepresented in the …

There’s a Dutch proverb that says “Aachen and Cologne were not built in 1 day”. It means that a lot of time and patience are needed to accomplish an extensive task – the equivalent of “Rome wasn't built in a day” in English. Aachen and Cologne were random old, distant places in the imagination of the medieval Dutch and feature in several proverbs. The “not built in 1 day” is very fitting for the Cologne Cathedral, as it took over 600 years to complete. I had visited the cathedral already in the year 2000, but after a pleasant revisit to Aachen 2 weeks ago Cologne also seemed like a good option for a return trip. This of course while my action radius is still limited – effectively till June 15 – to Germany.

Both Aachen and Cologne are easy day trips from Holland – Cologne takes about 2 hours and 45 minutes of driving from my home. A thing both cities have in common as well is that they host a modern art museum based on the Ludwig collection, very much recommended if you’re into that kind of art. But while Aachen is a quaint and midsized university town, Cologne is a proper big city with over 1 million inhabitants. It is generally less likable.

To get to know Cologne better I took part in a Free Walking Tour. I choose the one in English – where I was accompanied by 14 others hailing from Colombia to Belarus. …

Lockdown may be over, but self-isolation continues. At this time what can be more relaxing than reminiscing about one of my favorite trips of all time? (Please note: Info contained here is 14 years old.) 

Upset that I was not invited to Bill Gates' 50th birthday party thrown by Paul Allen (the other founder of Microsoft) aboard his luxury yacht cruising the Glacier Bay National Park in 2005, I set out to visit the park in June 2006 by myself. It was the only year between 2000 and 2015 when I did not come to Europe and decided to finish off the continental USA. I was living in Los Angeles at that time (and moved to Europe in 2015). 

The Panhandle section of Alaska is in my and many others' mind the single most beautiful area of the USA but also one of the rainiest. So I decided to make this trip in June, the least rainy month of the year in this area. It was the right decision to make, as I was totally lucked out that during the one week in the Panhandle it did not rain once. Even the locals were surprised how lucky I was. 

My first visit to Alaska was to the Denali National Park back in 1991. This time I took the so-called Alaska Marine Highway, which is a ferry service running from Bellingham near Seattle through Juneau, Alaska's capital, in the Panhandle to Whittier near Anchorage, and vice-versa. AMH is …

There is no doubt that Villa d'Este is a beautiful site, a fine house with gardens sloping down a hillside overlooking the Italian countryside. The town of Tivoli itself, surrounding the villa, is rather spectacularly set in the Sabine Hills east of Rome, overlooking the falls of the Aniene River. It is quite easy to see why this area was favored as a retreat by church and state in Rome -- it feels a world away from the eternal city.I visited Villa d'Este in November last year. Perhaps autumn is an off season, but I had to adjust my hopes for this site when I arrived at the ticket office and learned that none of the fountains would be running, as they were under repair. For me, this was a bit like my first visit to Versailles, a weekday with no grand fountains on display. Except that the villa is in no way comparable to the richly ornate Palace of Versailles. The fountains are the main draw to the Villa d'Este, and without them, I was left wanting more.

That said, the gardens on a fall day were beautiful to walk through, and I could imagine what the fountains would look like were they operating in their cascades and grottoes. The gardens also weren't terribly crowded in November (perhaps because visitors knew in advance the fountains were not working?), so I never felt crowded wandering the grounds. Still, just like the Palace of Versailles, I know I'll have to …

When reading about Huascaran before my travel, I learnt three important things:

1. Those mountains look incredibly beautiful.

2. They can be visited on multi-day treks or day hikes.

3. January and February are the rainy season.

Points 1 and 2 made me plan for six days in this mountain paradise as I am an outdoors enthusiast and an avid hiker. However, as I was there by the end of February and the beginning of March, point 3 made me choose for day hikes rather than treks. I don't really care about getting caught by the rain on day hikes, but spending four or five days on the Santa Cruz trek, doing camping and being constantly soaked didn't seem like an enjoyable experience. Like everyone else, I based myself in Huaraz and booked almost all tours with an operator in town. I booked everything from a single operator and bargained a bundle with him to get a better price. However, they share clients in between companies, so I ended up with a different one each day. The only activity I've done by myself was Laguna Churup on my last day.

I spent my first full day acclimatizing at the altitude. Every travel blog online keep urging you to do it, so I followed their advice and didn't have any syndrome of altitude sickness. I visited Huaraz, where the last day of the Carnival was going on, bought food and stuff for my week there and …

To get this out of the way first: I think Jay is the only one who visited the same Blue Mountains I visited back in late December 2019. Everyone else must have been somewhere else. Where is the fog/smoke on your pictures, Clyde, Ian, Els?! ...

When I planned my big trip to Australia and New Zealand, the bad news kept rushing in. New Zealand had plenty of rainfall and mudslides with roads breaking down. Australia on the other hand endured a catastrophic dry spell with large parts of the country being eaten up by wildfires as a consequence. Doing only a short stop over of three nights in Sydney, my time was limited and I did not want to miss the opportunity to tick the site off.

With the visit approaching, I installed a wildfire app on my phone, contacted our resident Aussies (Shandos and Joel) for advice, and read the local weather and fire forecast on a daily basis. Eventually, it was confirmed that you could go to the most touristy spot, the Three Sisters, but hiking deeper into the Blue Mountains was dangerous.

On my arrival day, the weather in Sydney had already been weird. There was a large temperature drop in the evening with strong winds. But the fires were still at a distance.

The next day as we made our way to the suburbs of Sydney, the fires kept coming closer and you could see many trees along the road scared …