“Nan, those are your shoes?” Me and two colleagues stood outside our company’s headquarters in Stockholm and they were having big grins on their faces. I was wearing sneakers and was desperately trying to get back into the building.
They knew what I was planning to do: Go hiking in Northern Sweden. In my hiking shoes. But those were in my bag, seven floors and one impassable security gate away. After some lamentation and plenty of cursing, I resigned and off in sneakers I went.
When researching how to visit Laponia, I settled on Muddus National Park and Stubba Nature Reserve. Both are located in the lowlands and easiest to get to and from. The other parts are more remote and more mountainous.
In addition, I found a historic trail running from Gällivare to Porjus, the Rallarstigen, which is closely related to the founding of my company: Vattenfall. Vattenfall means waterfall in Swedish. The Swedish state founded the company at the beginning of the 20th century to electrify Laponia via hydro power plants. In Porjus is one of the earliest hydro power plants built. The construction workers for Porjus hiked along Rallarstigen. And now I wanted to follow their footsteps.
To be frank: It was an amazing hike. I really enjoyed visiting and will try to come back to see the other parts. But next time in hiking shoes.
Getting There
The hub for Laponia is Gällivare. The town has an airport …
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August 2018 - I am a bit surprised that this site has such a modest rating. It is one of the most marvelous cathedrals in Europe. It can be seen from far away and is the hub for the whole area. After the highlight of Mt. St Michel we made a daytrip to chartes. Nothing really interesting on the way, but due to the hot weather we made some more stops. The cathedral is being renovated on the inside, unfortunately in such a picky manner, that it doesnt look autentic anyloonger. the patina of hundreds of years has vanished from the figures next to the altar. I dont think, that was the best idea. Chartres itself is a nice cosy town, but nothing great apart from that. Next stop from here was Fontainebleau. Also in the middle of nowhere.
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August 2018 - in the evening we arrived at long-awaited Mt. St. Michel. Yes it was just as beautiful as from the pictures, the sunset was putting it in a perfect light. We took our bikes at the vening and went from the nearby campground to the actual Mount. There you can walk further, i the evening the resutaruants were filled and it looked cosy and nice. Before it got completely dark, we went backto our campground. The next moring we took the bikes again to Mt. Saint Michel, walked further around the "town" and due to low tide, walked around the mountain through the tideflat. It was perfect, that we visited in the morning and evening. During the day, you mustnt use your bike, and can only go by bus. With many other tourists.
We regret not visiting the chapel, but it was just to expensive, and we were about to see some more marvelous cathedrals on our way, for free. We can recommend the campground nearby, it was reasonably priced and just in walking distance.
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August 2018- In the evening we reached Provins. There was only one campground, that wasnt really inviting and friendly. However for one night it should be okay. On every trip we do we always have a bad day, where we wiosh we were home again. Unfortunately it was exactly here in Provins.
There are not many people and the town seems to be in the middle of nowhere. It seems rather poor and underdeveloped for french standard.
But its streets, timbered houses, gardens, small shops, it was a very cosy and nice town. There was even a small carussel and we thought we were in a french romance movie. We spend the evening as long as we could in the old town. "under" the old city, there is a nice rosegarden. They also charge an entry fee to visit and walk around, but you can also just sit in the garden and drink selfmade lemonade.
Too bad we had to go back to the campground. The next morning we left the town already in the early morning, to vist the Champagne.
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August 2018 - what would be the best way from Fontainebleau to Provins, the next Whs? We took a small detour via Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte.
We thought that we might enter the park and walk around just like in Fontainebleau, but no, you had to pay entrance, and that was really high, something like 20€? No we had already seen a lot and were planning to see even more. So we took a foto, ticked off the site and went frther on to Provins. We didnt want to reach that town in the dark, since we still needed to find a capground. So again a nice little castle, but definietly not worth to stand on the list on its own.
But it seems to be a busy spot, close to Paris, many toursist are visiting that one.
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August 2018 - on our way back from the Normandy along Ile de France we finally came to Fontainebleau.
It is a small nice town where we visited the local market. With some food we bought, we made our way to the gardens of the castle and tried to find a nice spot. There are numerous nice spots with views at the castle and we changed the viewing spots.
It was tremendously hot that day, and we actually preffered to had stayed at the sea shore. But we ticked this nice park and castle. One of many in Europe but certainly of bigger importance in cultural history.
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August 2018 - we decided to do the tour along the WHS sites south of Paris. Coming from Chartres we drove through the Foret de Fontainebleau to finally reach the castle.
We only did one single stope to take a short hike to some rocks. From the street, it appears like a nice deep forest. If its an old beech forest, it should be included in the beech forestst of Europe.
the area is pretty oslated, not many town, or tourist spots. But The castle is worth a trip.
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Porto is a colorful city that has become an instant favorite. Although its core area is fairly compact, it is not for weak walkers: the city is built into hillsides, you cannot go more than a couple of minutes without ascending or descending a non-trivial slope or staircase. For those who can take it, the city is very walkable: we did not use any public transport aside from the Gaia cable car for our entire stay there.
Most of the key points of interest in town can be visited in a loose loop (the starting/ending point can be adjusted to your liking). Let's say we start at the incredibly tiled rail station of São Bento. Next stop is the Cathedral, with a possible detour to take a closer look at the façade of Santo Ildefonso and also at the São João National Theater. The church of Santa Clara is also around the corner here. Next, cross the bridge of Luís I on the upper level; the views are amazing. The monastery of Serra do Pilar is at the end of the bridge on Gaia side. The best way to descend to Gaia waterfront from here is by taking the cable car (comparatively expensive but mostly worth the cost). Walk along the quay back to the bridge; some of the most popular wine caves are here, if you'd like to visit.
Next, cross the bridge back on the lower level and enjoy the Ribeira colorful and bustling riverside district. …
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The TWHS registered as Chobe Linyanti System comprises the Chobe National Park and adjacent private wildlife reserves such as Selinda and Linyanti. Chobe NP itself actually already consists of 4 different zones, of which I visited Savuti and Chobe Riverfront (aka Serondela). Both were on the itinerary of my 6 night mobile camping safari, so I stayed in private camp areas inside the parks.
Chobe NP ranked 13th in the latest poll of best African safari parks and destinations: before Kruger and Etosha, but behind Serengeti, Mana Pools and South Luangwa (and its Botswana neighbours Okavango and Moremi). It is characterized as “Boat and classic safari, Big 5 present (rhino very rare), abundant elephants”.
Our first 2 nights were spent in Savuti. Savuti is named after the Savuti Marsh, a former large inland lake whose water supply is fed erratically by the Savuti Channel. It last overflowed in 2012 and in one of the artificial waterholes around the park you can see a breathing reminder of that: one hippo could not get away in time before it all dried up again, and he now spends his time alone in a little pool. A sad story, but he looks healthy.
From the 3 locations the mobile safari covered (Moremi, Savuti and Chobe Riverfront) this was the one with the most scarce wildlife. Or we were just unlucky. Our guide/driver kept on persisting, following leopard tracks (a mother and a young!) in the early morning around the so aptly …
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Visisted May 2019. The Baiheliang (White Crane Ridge) Hydrological Inscription is located in the town of Fuling (涪陵) which is conveniently linked with ChongQing – you can go there by train, but no direct buses. The trains depart from ChongQing North and you can end up in Fuling City train station or Fuling North train station. The trip takes between 30 minutes and one hour and a half, depending on the train. To get to the museum where the hydrological inscriptions are kept underwater take a direct bus 119 from Fuling North or bus 102 Fuling city train station to the city centre and change to bus 302. The bus stop is just across the street from the museum.
Believe it or not, but when I got to the museum on Sunday morning, there were no other tourists! As Zoë said most of the informative panels are in Chinease, but now you can get an English audio-guide with pretty detailed information about the rock itself, the inscriptions on it, the fish symbols in the water measuring system and about concept of the museum and its underwater part which looks like fish (of course you will not be able to see it, but there’s no reason not to believe). And another good news is that some people working for the museum do speak English.
As you enter the museum you’ll notice two big multilingual boards stating that “UNESCO supports our heritage” and “Our future world heritage site to be …
Keep reading 0 commentsJakob Frenzel
D-Day Landing Beaches, Normandy, 1944
D-Day Landing Beaches, Normandy, 1944 (Nominated)
August 2018 - after visiting Caen and Bayeux in the morning and noontime, we finally made it to the D-Day beaches. Since we still wanted to arrive in St. Michel that day, we ony visited Omaha Beach and Point du hoc.
Coming near the sites, the area is flagged with US-American and Canadian flags. Numerous military museums, tanks, and shops for souvenirs are paving the roads. It looks a bit like military disneyland. The beach itself is nothing special. People are relaxing on the sand, there are some flags and monuments next to it. At point du hoc, it looks more authentic. You can visit the old german fortifications and batteries and really can imagine how difficult it was for the allies to reconquer Europe and fight Nazi Germany.
As of WHS status, I am not sure. The WW1 memorials are too much based on cemetaries, WWII has "only " Auschwitz and Hiroshima so far. Definitely these two historic events need more recognition on the WHS list. But than maybe on an international scale, with memorials that commemorate the warfare and crimes.
Keep reading 0 commentsZoë Sheng
La Maddalena and Islands of Bocche di Bonifacio
La Maddalena and Islands of Bocche di Bonifacio (On tentative list)
I'm always up for a marine reserve. A lot more waters need protection. Most people don't realize that if the seas are screwed up the rest will go with it. A lot of oxygen comes from the ocean plants, marine life is the core of the planet and it's not just a piece of blue water. With my eco speech out of the way, I only went to the underwaters of Italy and not in France. The cliffs or Bonifacio are great but I assume the marine life is similar seeing that they are in close proximity. I took a day trip to Maddalena which I don't think should be included as half the island is a town. Immediately I moved on to Caprera via a small road plus bridge. The entire island is a national park - great! I stopped at the first long beach and snorkeled around. It's pretty but I cannot speak for unique. I then drove to the east side to hike to Cala Coticcio. It's only 1.2km but it will take a good 25min with the boulders and steep “steps” between the oddly marked parking lot on the map and the tiny beach. It is a nice and popular hike and if a bit warmer would have more people at the beach. I find the ghoulish rock formations the best part of the island but I am sure this isn't the part they want to inscribe.
There is also a sign that all hikers …
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Victoria Falls is an easy add-on to a Botswana trip because of its proximity to Kasane, the starting point or endpoint of most safari tours throughout the country. From Kasane, I was swiftly delivered in about an hour to Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe. I saw the smoke and heard the thunder already the day before I visited the Falls itself – at the Ilalla Lodge where I was staying there is a constant noise as if there was an airport nearby. But it is that huge waterfall making itself heard 24x7.
My 'official' visit to the Falls started on the Zimbabwean side. I walked there in less than 10 minutes, that is how close they are to the town of Victoria Falls. Here you walk down a path with 19 vantage points. You hike for a bit, then make a small detour to a lookout point and then you continue on the original path. Due to a large amount of water falling down and the spray that creates, it was especially hard to see anything in the central part of the Falls. The best photos can be taken from the side, at viewpoint #2 for example. At viewpoint #12, it gets really wet.
On the following day, I did a 'breakfast cruise' on the Zambezi river. There has been little rain this year and the Zambezi - although still very wide - is not exactly a roaring river. We navigated to approximately 2 km from the Falls. …
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Time for my first review! I didn’t start writing my own reviews because a lot has been told about most of the WHSs by fellow WH lovers, and there’s really not much to add. Great job, guys! However, judging from the only reviews on Lushan by Els and Stanislaw, I suspect that most people might have missed the highlights of this site, and feel obliged to share my experience with it. Hopefully it will give you an alternative perspective of this great mountain that has become an integral part of Chinese culture over 2,000 years of history.
First, some background information. The name of Lushan was first used in Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) around 94 BC, to describe the shape of the mountain as dwelling of the immortals. Since then, countless literary works have depicted and praised this mountain, and many architecture and inscriptions have been added to it. If there was tourism in ancient China, Lushan would have been a top 5 destination. Lushan served briefly as the summer capital of Republic of China in the 1930s and witnessed several important conferences of the Chinese Communist Party in the second half of the 20th century.
Before we start, I need to point out that tourism in Lushan is rather poorly administered and causes quite some confusion even for Chinese visitors. If you arrive by train, you should get off at the station of Jiujiang instead of the station of Lushan (a typical complexity caused by …
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Coming in from Malta, my first stop in Sicily was Palermo. I had seen some Norman architecture in Bari (T) and was wondering how Palermo would be different.
I started my day by taking a train to Cefalu. Frankly, I wasn't as smitten by the town or cathedral as previous reviewers. I have seen prettier towns in Italy. And the church and artwork, while great, are not unique for the period.
On my return from Cefalu, I got a short view from the bus window of the Admiral's Bridge. It's surrounded by large roads and loads of traffic passes by. I returned later that day to explore the bridge a bit more. Interesting, but not too stunning and more of a side note to the inscription. At this point I started wondering why the site had received so much admiration by the community.
My next stop was at San Cataldo and Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio. It was here that I grasped the uniqueness of the site. The Arabic influences with the red turrets and other architectural elements are clearly visible on San Cataldo. Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio meanwhile offers stunning Byzantine mosaics. To me, these two combined are the most representative sites for the inscription. They are listed as two separate locations, but for all intents and purposes, they are one location. Apart from ticket fees which you have to pay twice.
I then continued along the main tourist road to the Palermo Cathedral. From the outside, the …
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The Museum in Meride was busy with School children on the day I was there. It is updated and very informational. I came by motorcycle from the Balcone d'Italia from where the picture of Monte San Giorgio was taken. There is a 4 1/2 hour loop trail from Meride called Sentiero geo-paleontologico, and another that goes to the peak with 3 hours up and back. With a lack of time I took the 1 1/2 hour trail from Serpiano to Alpe Di Brusino.
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Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is a strong contender for the oddest named World Heritage Site I've visited, though its name makes sense after learning its history. On a cliff in western Alberta, this site was historically used by the Blackfoot Nation, who lived a nomadic life on North America's Great Plains, to secure food, clothing, and tools for their people by driving buffalo en masse over the cliff's edge to fall to their death. In today's world, buffalo jumps seem rather cruel, but the Blackfoot (like most other Indians) used every part of the buffalo that died. I visited Head-Smashed-In at the end of June 2018, and as I walked up to the visitor center, I took note of the prairie grasses below the cliff's edge where many buffalo must have met their unfortunate end. The visitor center, which was built into the cliff, told the story of the Blackfoot and their buffalo drives well, and I spent a lot of time in the museum reading about the life of Plains Indians. Afterwards, like others, I took an hour walk outside on trails along the site of the buffalo drive to the cliff's edge, and down to the prairie below. I felt I learned a lot about First Nations life on the plains, and I've enthusiastically recommended this site to family and friends traveling in Alberta.
Logistics: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is approximately two hours south of Calgary and a half hour west of Fort Macleod, and requires private transportation to …
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I visited this WHS in May 2019. Even though I was short of time, I was determined to drive on from Durdle Door to visit the rather remote mining landscape around St Agnes. I will surely be revisiting this WHS in the near future and next time I'll focus on other sites closer to St Just.
This time round I made the most of a gorgeous bright Spring day (although chilly and windy) to hike from St Agnes Beacon to Tubby's Head. Obviously my primary focus weren't the military remains along the Cornwall and West Devon Coast but the industrial remains of this rather complete and unique mining landscape.
Even though I'm certainly not a fan of industrial heritage, this WHS is one of the best examples of a huge mining landscape - where nature has been exploited and the landscape has been shaped into a once productive industrial landscape which is still aesthetically pleasing to see and discover. The surface remains around the Wheal Coates area include a boiler pond, stamp and whim engine houses, the Towan Roath shaft pumping engine house, a stack serving flues from whim engine houses and calciners, gas engine foundations, dressing floors, an exposed section of flue from a calciner which was used for roasting tin ore (the shaft is so deep that if you throw a rock down the hole, you won't hear a sound!), a double-bayed calciner, etc.
Nature is taking over once again and several sea birds, passerines …
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Coimbra University, founded in 1290, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the Portuguese-speaking world. Its recognition as a WHS links it to the city as an example of an integrated campus. The core part of the university high up on a hill above town feels like a standalone monument complex, though. The focal point, Pátio das Escolas, is home to the Royal Palace, the university tower, the main university chapel of Saõ Miguel, and the university library.
They are all worth visiting if you go for the "Program 1" combo ticket (ascending the tower requires a small additional fee). The Royal Palace housed the core university spaces from the reign of João III onward; the 16th century monarch greatly expanded the Portuguese possessions abroad as well as made Coimbra into a leading center of learning by establishing a new college of liberal arts and bringing to it many of the Portuguese scholars of the time. There are a few impressive rooms inside, of which the most impressive might be the Great Hall of Acts. The Chapel of Saint Michael, in the west wing of the architectural ensemble of the plaza, is incredibly tiled and decorated. The tower views are not breathtaking, but anyone who generally enjoys going to elevated viewpoints will likely enjoy getting to the top.
The biggest jewel in the university complex is the Biblioteca Joanina. It takes effort to see – entry is at timed intervals and advance ticket sales do not exist …
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