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The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments is easily my favorite of all World Heritage Sites I've seen in Russia. This 300-year-old city was wrested from swamps to become a capital, much like a city started later that century half a world away and much closer to home for me. Saint Petersburg is a feast for travelers, replete with history, culture, and architecture.

Saint Petersburg was a dream made manifest by Peter the Great, who envisioned a great European city built upon the Neva River delta looking westward. This city is a joy to explore on foot, from the broad avenue of Nevsky Prospekt to the grand square in front of the Winter Palace, home to the renowned Hermitage Museum; from Vasilievsky Island to the Peter and Paul Fortress; from St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Bronze Horseman statue, commemorating famed poet Alexander Pushkin's ode to the city founder, to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, built atop the site where assassins finally succeeded in killing Tsar Alexander II, a tsar who sought change too fast for some, but too slow for others. Change and revolution are common themes to Saint Petersburg. Palace Square may hold a column celebrating Russia's defeat of the French during Napoleon's unsuccessful 19th century invasion, but it was the site of significant scenes of internal revolt, such as Bloody Sunday in 1905, when demonstrators were fired upon by Tsar Nicholas II's guards, and the October Revolution in 1917, when …

In March 2020 I visited the Belgian locations of this transnational tentative WHS nominated by Belgium and the Netherlands. From a visual point of view, what I experienced was a similar landscape of Beemster or the Par Force hunting landscape with a hint of the Belgian béguinages. The central focus of this tentative nomination is not religious though, it's agriculture.

Around 1818-1825, when Belgium and the Netherlands formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, Johannes van den Bosch put forward the idea of fighting poverty with agriculture which gave way to the construction of 7 agricultural colonies. There were so many paupers or vagrants at the beginning of the 19th century, that their size was that of sizeable hamlets or villages with their own chapel or church, pond, cemetery, housing and even their own mint.

The Merksplas colony, the last pauper colony built in 1825, was the only farm in the region to have more than 100 hectares of farm land. It also had a very large pigsty for as much as 95 pigs, which has recently been converted into a free informative visitor centre (top left photo). The various videos in Flemish with English subtitles were fundamental to help give context to the information I read in the nomination dossier. I parked my car for free at the parking lot near the huge church which has been converted in a prison museum. From Merksplas, I headed to my next destination, the Wortel colony built in 1822. On …

In January 2020, I spent an afternoon walking around the West Lake. It's a pleasant walk, albeit a long one at 15km. Surprisingly, I recall no extended stretch where I wanted to fast forward: The West Lake simply offers great views everywhere with gardens and pagodas dotted along its shoreline. What a massive feat of human landscape gardening.

From the lake you can regularly hike into one of the attached gardens of which there are plenty. Each garden has a distinctive feel, as the West Lake landscape grew over a millenia and new gardens were added or existing gardens remodeled regularly.

• Zhongshan Park is grouped around a rock and it quickly feels like you are no longer at the lake, but in the mountains.
• Huagang Park meanwhile takes you out of China towards Japan. I felt reminded of Hiraizumi.

There are many more of these gardens to explore. With more time I would have liked to explore the South West corner a bit more. The core zone extends here to cover a large area of parks (West Lake Scenic Spot) that are not directly tied to the lake.

The closest similar site to the West Lake I have seen so far in China is the Summer Palace in Beijing. The Summer Palace dating from the 18th century is clearly based on the landscape gardening developed in Hangzhou over a millenia with a lake forming the center of the site.

What also …

As my last stop in China in January 2020, I visited the Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou. The people of Suzhou must have a sarcastic streak: Whoever created the garden was anything but humble. I guess "humble" was code for "hugely corrupt".

The garden is a large Chinese garden with water being the defining landscaping feature. What I enjoyed most were all the small detours and hideouts the garden offers. On an area of 5.2ha it manages to squeeze in so many viewpoints that I regularly thought I was in a new location. But then it turned out I had been there before, just on a different side with a different perspective. In total, I must have circled the garden twice to take everything in.

A pleasant surprise were the many Bonsais on display. We nowadays think of Bonsais as a Japanese art form when they actually originated in China. The same also holds true for landscape gardening in general.

Visiting in winter had the downside that many trees were not carrying leafs and the garden wasn't as green as it would have been a few months later. On the other hand, I did not need a reservation and the crowds were way less. Still, they were too many for my liking. The garden was not intended for the public, but for the rich owner to relax and appreciate the intimacy.

As had been the case for a few days now, it was raining heavily (again). …

WHS#44

Rabat was one of the most memorable short city visits I made in my trip to Europe and Morocco in May 2017. My family and I took a side trip from Spain to see Marrakesh, so we made our way to Tarifa, took the ferry to Tangier, and managed to strike a deal with a taxi driver to take us to Rabat. After driving by the "King's palace" and the famous Hassan Tower, he dropped us at a hotel, where we decided, due to our very small time budget, to take the night train to Marrakesh instead of staying the night. My family was content to laze around at the train station while waiting for the time, but I sure wasn't. I wasn't gonna have this WHS slip completely through my fingers. With the very little time I had, I decided to visit the one place I had wanted to the most: the Kasbah of the Udayas. Before the tight schedule had been implemented on Morocco, I had planned to visit Chefchaouen, so when I saw pictures of the Kasbah in Rabat, I figured it would be quite similar, with its picturesque old lanes covered in blue. Obviously, I can't say if it actually was similar, but it was a great experience. Just riding that taxi was a great experience in itself, with our talkative taxi driver pointing out another, much less convincing "King's palace."

While I imagined Chefchaouen to be like an idyllic fantasy, the Kasbah …

We visited the Divriği Great Mosque (Ulu Camii) and Hospital (Darüşşifası), an extraordinary example of Islamic art, twice in recent months. Once in spring amidst a deep green landscape coming by car from Sivas, which is about a three hour drive away. It is an important historical site in its own right with some of the most impressive Seljuk monuments like the Şifaiye Madrasah, an important medical school in the 13th century, and the Gök Madrasah and the Double Minaret Madrasah or the Subaşı Han, an Ottoman-period Caravanserai still used today as spice market. Sivas is also the place where the 1919 Congress was held, one of the stepping stones in establishing the Republic of Turkey. On the way to Divriği we passed through Kangal, the home of Turkey’s famous shepherd dogs. 

The second visit took place in February 2020. We had come overnight from Ankara on the fabulous (Doğu) Eastern Express Train via Kayseri and Sivas. We arrived at Divriği station in the early morning. The scene was winter wonderland with a good half meter of snow at minus 15°C. After a hearty breakfast close to the railway station we went up to the Great Mosque of Divriği passing several kumbets (small mausoleums with a pointed dome) and the citadel. The mosque and hospital complex is currently undergoing restoration work; there is a lot of scaffolding and a metal roof covering the building. The site is likely to reopen in the course of 2020 or 2021.   

Like …

When visiting Huangshan I managed the incredible feat of being completely penniless twice in a time span of roughly 2.5h.

It was a rainy day in January and I had come by bus from Hongcun. My clothes were already miserably wet when I arrived in Tongkou as it had been incessantly raining all day. I had known (and forgotten) to pick up cash for my trip, but figured it should be an easy thing as Tongkou is really touristy. My first mistake. There were no (international) ATMs anywhere near and my stress level was already high (never good), as I felt short on time and wanted to finally ascend.

Eventually, a Chinese drove me to the closest (international) ATM and I got the much needed money. Or so I thought as 10min later I had lost my wallet with the money and my credit cards. The pessimists will say that the guy stole it. I don't think this is what happened as he stuck around and even helped me talk to the police; I doubt your regular thief would do that.

My personal opinion on the matter is that my clothes were all wet and sticky and it was still raining heavily. When I put back my wallet in my trouser, I didn't notice that I had missed my pocket and just dropped it. And then someone else picked it up. There were also no attempts to spy on my PIN or use my credit card in …

The “Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie” (New Dutch Waterline) is a proposed extension to the Defence Line of Amsterdam, which will be discussed at the 2020 WHC. It comprises another series of defense works, stretching out a further 85km from the southeast of the Defence Line of Amsterdam across the province of Utrecht into Gelderland and Noord-Brabant. Both used water – a 50cm layer of it, “too shallow for ships and too deep for men on horses” - to keep invaders out. The new name of the combined WHS shall become: “Dutch Water Defence Lines”.

The New Dutch Waterline actually is the better known part of the two among the general public. I had visited one of its components before – Loevestein Castle, one of the most interesting castles in Holland – but last week I headed out for a hike in the area of Fort Ruigenhoek. Ruigenhoek and 3 other forts in the vicinity were especially built to protect the city of Utrecht, which established itself more and more as a railway infrastructure hub in the 19th century. These forts replaced an earlier defence line which had become too close to the city due to its expansion in the 1860’s; hence the “New” in New Dutch Waterline.

Ruigenhoek lies so close to the city of Utrecht that it attracts lots of visitors at any moment. With all schools closed and so many people working from home due to the COVID-19 crisis, even during the weekday afternoon that I visited …

In China, most sites are huge. Huge palaces, huge gardens, huge temples, huge fortifications, huge mausoleums, huge Buddhas, huge old towns ... As impressive and deserving of inscription as these sites are, I also enjoy the smaller and more intimate sites you find in other countries and was wondering when/where I could find one of those in China. Turns out, Hongcun fits the criteria.

Hongcun is a traditional folk village in the Anhui region that together with Xidi is the most representative and best preserved example of the local traditional villages. Note: There are more similar villages in the area.

Hongcun village dates back to the Ming dynasty and is largely intact, ignoring the tourist shops that have opened up in the old houses. It's remarkable intact and a joy to explore on foot with plenty of houses open for visitors to explore. The best bits to me was seeing how the city dealt with water, with water flowing below the walkways.

Getting There

The main transport hub for the area is the bullet train station at Huangshanbei (North Huangshan, the town, not the mountain). Around the train station, a small tourist town has developed with hotels and some restaurants. It's just a bit tricky to get to the hotel area on foot, even though it's just a 5min walk. You need to pass below the railway tracks via one deserted looking tunnel. In addition, google maps had it all …

The Romans left a mark on northwestern Spain that can still be seen today in bridges, ancient villages, gold mines, a lighthouse, and, most spectacularly, the Roman Walls of Lugo. I visited the latter when hiking parts of the Camino Primitivo in May 2019. This is one of two World Heritage Sites I visited on that trip to Spain that were famed for their walls (the other, Avila), and I have to say I preferred these walls. I circumnavigated Lugo twice, once following the perimeter at ground level, and once on the ramparts. Both trips gave a good perspective of the walls' height and width, which really must be seen to be appreciated. In the evening, quite a lot of locals come out for exercise jogging or walking around the walls. There's really not a lot more to say about this site -- the walls are remarkably intact and they so far have stood the test of time.

The history of Lugo, however, gave me a greater appreciation for how this corner of the Roman empire fits into world history. Lugo was likely originally named after the Celtic god Lugus, since Gallaecia, now known as Galicia, was home to the Gaels who settled Ireland (and, in fact, you can still hear bagpipes played in Galicia). The town was renamed Lucus Augusti when the Romans came to Galicia to mine gold for use in jewelry, art, and coins. The town became the most important for the Romans in Galicia, and …

First things first, Dengfeng to me was a site I couldn't place at all when reading past it. But everyone who has seen a single kungfu movie knows what this includes: the fabled Shaolin Temple. So my proposal to Unesco and the Chinese authorities would be to rename the site. Spitballing some ideas here: Shaolin Temples, Shaolin Temples of Dengfeng, Shaolin-Dengfeng, ... Probably, the authorities don't care about the name recognition of this site as much, though, as it is really popular nonetheless.

I made my way in January on a day trip from Xian. My day was fairly packed as I also visited the Longmen Grottoes the same day, another Buddhist monument nearby. Both sites were a nice combination as they presented different angles on the Buddhism in China topic. 

Reading the other reviews, many seem to prefer other parts of the site. Visiting in off season and the temple still being plenty crowded, I can see the point. Still, I wanted to visit the Shaolin Temple and I did. Had I had more time, I would have loved to visit more, most specifically the observatory. In sum, I felt I did not spend enough time with the site to get a full picture. That's why I rated it 4* instead of 3.5* which I would have awarded the Shaolin Temple on its own.

Getting There

Arriving from Xian at Longmen Luoyang bullet train station a driver contacted me when I left the station. We …

The Longmen Grottoes are a huge area of Buddhist caves and statues carved into the hillsides of two opposing hills along the Yi River. Longmen means Dragon's Gate. There are more than 100.000 statues ranging from tiny (2.5cm) to huge (17m) in size. The site was built primarily during the Tang dynasty (600-900CE), but first carvings were done a bit before (493CE).

I came on a day trip from Xian. Honestly, I didn't expect much as the title is really not helping. But after I came and saw the scope of the area and the sheer abundance of carvings, I was very glad I came. This is a stellar site and should be included in a visit to Xian.

Getting There

Via fast rail you can easily travel to Xian and Zhengzhou, the next major cities. Xian is a must see for any reputable WHS traveller for the Terracotta Army.

The fast rail station in Luoyang is aptly named Luoyang Longmen and is located South of town (as so many other fast train stations in China). While included in the name, the Grottoes are yet even further to the South and you will have to get some transport (cab, bus).

If you plan to combine the Grottoes with a visit to the Shaolin Temple (Dengfeng), you should get a driver at the train station and negotiate a fixed price for the whole day. I paid 500 RMB I think. A driver (not …

Bac - what phonetic consonance best suited this place steeped in history, surrounded by a world of waters. There are lakes, but also a river.It is almost the border of Vojvodina, a stone's throw from the Karadordevo Reservation. The muddy soil has attracted the man of ancient times here, taking him practically from the middle of nature.It is practically the area of ​​millennial symbiosis that we can call agricultural archeology - it is so bidding to expose to the viewer the diversity of tools and storage vessels from the darkness of history until relatively new times.The granary between the waters has thus sustained populations that have prospered, no matter how they were called the masters of the place.We are talking about the invisible border of the West with the East, here are mixed elements of the old world (with most nations, stately or migratory) with the medieval one (from Romanesque to Byzantine, from Renaissance to Baroque) but also with Eastern influences.Initially, it is a settlement from the Iron Age, evolving into the Bronze Age, as the first population of the Celts.In the Middle Ages the massive investment in the defensive system of the area begins, considering that here it was wanted to draw the western demarcation line against the Ottomans.The proximity of another temporary empire made the place under Habsburg control (first Austrians, then Hungarians), but the region becomes part of the Serb-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom.In order to imagine how complex the defensive element had become, we took the castle-fortress, so not …

This is very poor TWHS on the Slovak list. It is quite clear that the trick with the lenticular shape of the historical Košice is just a substitute to the fromer unsuccessful proposal of St. Elizabeth Cathedral as the eastermost gothic cathedral in Europe. Well, similar tricks worked somehow in the case of Augsburg, and also Bologna is promising candidate for that. But I cannot imagine that it would work for Košice...

The city of Košice is very nice as already described by others, but the claim that it is outstanding and unique because of its lenticular shape is not very convincing. Even in the eastern part of Slovakia, I visited many histrorical towns of diverse sizes with very similar shape to Košice such as Prešov, Sabinov, Hniezdne, Podolínec, Kežmarok (merge of two perpendicular lentils), Spišská Sobota, Poprad, Spišská Nová Ves, etc... From this list, I liked the most historical core of Prešov, which is more relaxed than busy Košice. To name at least some historical towns with this shape that are already on the list: Speyer has very prolonged shape, and also Litomyšl and Telč, where we can see interesting bifurcation on one end, are examples of this concept. Besides that, there is a plethora of ancient towns and villages with just one street in their center in Italy, France, and western countries, shape of which was not certainly derived from Košice probably the opposite is true.

Thus, it is not true that towns of the lenticular …

We visited Strasbourg today and whilst I enjoyed what we saw very much, I left feeling a little disappointed.

As we travel by motorhome, we parked over the Rhine and the border in Germany and entered the city via tram. The Trio ticket was good value for up to 3 people for 24 hours, for EUR 6.90.

We first explored the Grande Ile, which is undeniably pretty, especially around the Petite-France area. I liked the Vauban Barrage a lot and enjoyed the views of the Ponts Couverts from the terrace on top. From here you get a very good impression of the height and dominance of the Cathedral over the town. It really is astonishingly high, very impressive indeed. Despite it being out of season, the whole area was reasonably busy, certainly not overrun but busy enough to have some atmosphere.

From here we looked around the area near the Cathedral, leaving the church itself for last. This was a mistake however, as during this period the weather changed and high winds meant that the viewing terrace on the Cathedral closed and we missed out on this. Of course we still visited the Cathedral, which is lovely, but somehow just missed the mark for me. Having visited Metz the day before, I found I preferred the Cathedral there. Here the stained glass seemed duller, less light entered the cathedral and thus it felt dark and dismal by comparison. The famed Astronomical Clock was popular but underwhelming.

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This is very confusing nomination, because it is not clear what is exactly included to the proposed area. The official text on the UNESCO web pages mentions mostly the inundation landscape of river Morava between borders with Czechia and Bratislava. In other texts, I found that the nomination is focused on certain parts of the inland delta of river Danube between Bratislava and Komárno on the borders between Slovakia and Hungary, which is kind of unique on the European level, but the original natural character of the delta was partly destroyed by Gabcikovo dam during the communist era. Thus, parts around river Morava are better preserved than that of Danube.

The nomination is divided between cultural and natural heritage of the Danube region. The natural part consists of several strict reserves and protected landscape areas of marchlands and sands around rivers Danube and Morava. As it is mostly impenetrable landscape, I could see it only from distance during my trips to southern Slovakia and northern Hungary. The problem is that the natural part of this nomination is under strong pressure of development, and I have doubts about its qualities on the international level.

As concerns the cultural part of the nomination, this part of Europe has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, and every culture has its imprint there. The most important is probably Danube Limes, which has been nominated as separate TWHS with high chances for inscription in 2020. I do not understand why the …

I arrived at night in the very cheap but nice Toca Madera Hostel close to the Bus Terminal and the Barrio Historico which is the WHS on a small peninsula. The rest of Colonia lies aside the peninsula, but I didn't visit. The Barrio Historico is really full of nice looking restaurants and cafés which lie below the many poplars all around the place. In the Deli de las Rosas I ate a really nice yoghurt with muesli and fruits for low price. Really recommendable. In the evening I also had a nice but expensive dinner in a beautiful patio in the nice summer air. But enough of the food ads- I of course had a walk around the Barrio also. However I did not take use of the two tourist information centres. A small one is on the south side of the peninsula and a larger one just at the Ferry Terminal. The are some signs spread around the city explaining some things about the original settlement. At the Plaza Manuel Lobo there is the church and the foundation walls of a Portugease Government Building. After visiting the church I went to the yacht harbour and had a look around. Then I walked all the way along the water to the ferry terminal, which is nice and a few historic remains can be seen like the old defensive building of San Miguel. On the way back from the terminal I went through a re-built town gate with a draw …

The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is the UK’s nomination for 2021. It will be a serial site with 7 components. Each of the components consists of a number of ‘elements’ – the most noteworthy “physical features which embody the attributes of Outstanding Universal value”. That value is to be found in (ii) the technology transfer to continental Europe and the USA, (iv) the dramatic impact of large-scale exploitation of natural resources and (v) the legacy of the industrial workers and their settlements. Its official name has been changed from “Slate Industry ..” to “Slate Landscape”, obviously emphasizing the cultural landscape approach.

I visited one of the components, the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, on my way to the Gwynedd Castles in 2011. I’ve got a couple of photos left, but I must admit that I did not write up anything about the side trip and I can remember almost zero. What I see when I look at those photos again is a town that could only be in the UK: straight rows of similar stone houses (cheap housing for the quarrymen), a fish and chip shop, an Anglican church (they call it “Church of Wales” over here), a WWI memorial. It is surrounded by steep natural hills and man-made waste dumps. All photos appear to be taken in black-and-white as grey is the prominent colour of it all (including of course the slate roofs).

At the center of the town lies a railway station, which is the terminus …

My visit to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in the St. Lucia area was in February 2020. This is summer and off peak for tourism. We were a party of 3, and self driving. The small town of St. Lucia was tourist friendly, affordable, and easy to navigate. We had come from the Drakensburg area, so it was a long drive to St Lucia, but the roads are good and this posed no challenges. We had one experience of being overcharged for snack items at a gas station.  

The wetlands park covers a large area, and we visited the region over a course of 3 days. The first visit was on the Hippo tour boat. This was easy to book via our BnB host and pay with a credit card. The boat tour people picked us up at our BnB and took us to the boat launch area. The launch area was through a former industrial area, but we were on the water quickly and uneventfully. Immediately, we paused to enjoy colorful yellow weavers building nests. The flock was large and appeared to be thriving. After the photos were taken, we headed upstream to the first pod of hippos. The hippo pod was of perhaps 20-25 visible members, and the captain maneuvered the boat very close for many photo ops. The second pod was about the same size- 20 or so individuals visible-- and at that juncture one more boat was on site. We also saw a few eagles, egrets, …

I agree with the previous review that this is the most promising site from the Slovak tentative list, and I fully support the inscription. It would be a kind of satisfaction for the Jewish community of Slovakia, which suffered a lot during WWII. The authorities of Slovakia acted against them very actively and fully independently from the German Nazis.

I visited the monument during my day trip to Bratislava in February 2020. Just after my arrival from Prague by train, I simply called the number I found on the web pages and arranged the appointment. It should be OK to call the guide around 30 minutes prior the visit. The monument is opened every day except Saturday from 11am to 5pm. One can walked there from the city center or take a bus and get off at the stop Chatam Sofer just in front of the monument. When traveling by tram (Nos. 4 or 9), be aware that only trams in direction to the city center stops directly by the monument, but the former tram stop from the city center was canceled during the last reconstruction works and one needs to walk a bit from the next stop. The entrance fee was 6 EUR, and the guide told me the history of the place and explained its importance to the orthodox Jewish community (described already by Martina Ruckova). It took around one hour, and I could enter even to the sacred place, it means what is remaining from the …