All our reviews

The city of Alta is the highest up north that I have ever been – 80km closer to the North Pole than my previous record, Greenland’s Ilulissat. I had come just for the day to see its Rock Art – fly in on Friday evening, fly out Sunday morning. I made a half-hearted attempt of visiting Lille Raipas as well, one of the Struve sites on a hill just 5km out of town. But it rained for most of my stay in Alta so hiking was out of the question.

Alta’s Rock Art - consisting of 4 locations with carvings and 1 with paintings - has been ‘discovered’ relatively recently. In 1966 the rock paintings were found at Transfarelvdalen, and the rock carvings followed between 1973 and 1978. The sites were inscribed on the World Heritage List only 7 years later – it makes one wonder why so quickly before the dust had settled so to speak.

Much more carvings in the same areas have been discovered since. Conservation practices in this harsh landscape have also evolved a lot: they now regularly ‘clean’ the rocks with alcohol to avoid overgrowth of them by lichen (they apparently did not do that yet in 1987, when Solivagant visited). There wasn’t a management plan until the year 2000, sites those days got in because of a certain Wow-factor I guess.

Only the site at Hjemmeluft is open to tourists, that's where also the Alta Museum is located. Here I paid …

The cliffs are near the Nova Scotia border with New Brunswick. 

Although we were told to book a day or two in advance to get the extensive tour, we were informed it was booked up when we followed that advice. However, when we arrived they allowed us to join the fully engaged two-hour tour. It was a very hot day, and we almost regretted having taken that extensive tour rather than the half hour option which would have been sufficient.

The guide was patient and spent most of the time answering questions about whether various rocks were fossils or just rocks It is definitely important to have a guide as many of the fossils, mostly of plants, are not easy to find on one’s own. 

The seascape of the Bay of Fundy and its cliffs is attractive. Next time I would take the shorter tour because much of the time was taken up with questions from amateur geologists, including ourselves. 

The Visitor’s Centre was pleasant, and we saw the oldest living fossil reptile called hylonomus lyelli. However, as this was our third fossil site of the trip, we were perhaps not as intrigued as for the first two. Also, fossilized plants and trees are not as interesting as the fish remains and primitive animal forms of Miguasha and Mistaken Point.

Visited 19JUL 2018

Being born and raised in Schleswig Holstein, the Northern most state of Germany, I was made to visit Haithabu already at a young age. It features prominently in the local history lessons and we were taken there in elementary school as a school trip. My main memory was that it was fairly mundane: a big earthen circle and grass meadows. The reason the site is featured so heavily in the curriculum of local schools is that there actually is very little else of "early" history in Schleswig Holstein. 

Haithabu lay on the borders of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne. Being strategically located on the Schlei, a bay on the Baltic Sea, it functioned as a major trade hub between the Holy Roman Empire and Northern Europe. For a time it was probably the largest urban settlement in Northern Europe, albeit that doesn't mean much. It is assumed up to 2000 people lived in Haithabu at it's peak. To put that into perspective, Cologne had 15.000 inhabitants, let alone Constantinople with at least 100.000.

The most interesting story I remember from my history lessons in elementary school is that the vikings sailed the Schlei westward where they would land their ships and transport goods and ships via land for 18km to reach a tributary to the Eider river. Via the Eider they were able to reach the North Sea. This way they saved themselves the long and dangerous voyage around the Skagerak. Nowadays the sources are not …

I visited this WHS in July 2018. The day before my visit, the boat which took me to Drottningholm was berthed next to another one which was fully packed with people (mostly children) heading to Birka. In the summer months, not only does the island of Birka and its museum cater mostly for children but they charge an arm and a leg for it (almost 50 euros for a return trip) in what seems like an overpriced tourist trap. For those who still want to visit Birka in the summer months, a cheaper alternative at around 30 euros is to catch the daily ferry at 11:30 from Hovgarden but you'll only be allowed slightly more than 3 hours as the ferry back to Hovgarden is at 14:45.

Initially I had planned to cover both islands, Birka and Adelso, which is why I left Drottningholm for a separate visit (it's really easy to combine the palace with Hovgarden if you have a rental car), but after the noisy crowds I saw departing from Stockholm to Birka during my stay, I decided to call it a day after Hovgarden. After an early departure from Stockholm, I reached the free unmanned ferry point which departs every half hour and takes only a couple of minutes to get you and your car on the island of Adelso.

Once you reach the island, brown signs with the unesco symbol show you the way to the Hovgarden church and burial mounds, together with several …

There is some so beautiful about this site - but it obviously suffers from the problem of too much tourism. There is very little authenticity left in the economy of the villages, which now rely almost exclusively on visitors.

However, having said that, I visited in April and was quite lucky with the crowds. Although there were a lot of people around, it wasn't nearly as many as you would get in the peak summer period. And the weather was absolutely perfect for hiking. I would highly recommend people consider going in these shoulder periods.

I found a lot of the visitors just focus on the towns and don't want to do too much hiking. It wasn't overly busy on the trails and I found it really relaxing. As well as doing the main path, I also did some detours so I could see a bit of the agriculture on the hills that are one of the reasons it has been listed.

If it helps, I have put together this guide for hiking Cinque Terre. One of the recommendations I make is to stay in nearby La Spezia and use that as the base to explore - including to Portovenere.

Arriving as it opened, we largely had this massive complex to ourselves. Not that there weren't other visitors, but the structure swallows you in its vastness and very quickly you can find yourself completely alone. 

The highlights are surely the painted ceilings and the royal crypt. Both are stunning in their detail, yet they are also more than that. At certain intervals they produce a feeling of grandeur that demands silent attention. I could not help whispering in the crypt, though I need not have since we were alone. Perhaps, if I was more religious I could better explain it, but the artwork and scale remain with you long after you depart on the train back to Madrid.

We enjoyed our visit, but were also surprised that it did not take longer. I believe we spent 2-3 hours exploring. The garden is fairly standard as far as European royal palaces are concerned. Once we finished, we grabbed a bite to eat before heading back. The nearby street, Calle Floridablanca is filled with excellent places for food or drinks. 

I visited this WHS in July 2018 on a bright sunny morning. Like most I arrived to this WHS using the very convenient metro. It is just a short walk round the block, to the right hand side of the metro station exit of Skogskyrkogarden (thumbs up to meltwaterfalls for suggesting to make sure to keep track of the metro stops as this word's pronunciation is definitely not what most non-Swedish speaking people would expect!).

Skogskyrkogarden (or woodland cemetery) made it to the WH list as it is an outstanding example of a designed cultural landscape which blends the landscape itself and natural vegetation with architectural features. The 20th century creation of Apslund and Lewarentz established a new form of cemetery that is believed to have exerted a profound influence on cemetery design worldwide.

That said, does this mean that it possesses OUV? In my opinion, even though I enjoyed my visit, there are several other cemeteries around the world which are as unique and arguably possess OUV, for example the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan, Italy or the La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For a non-modern architecture affecionado like myself, I struggled to appreciate this cemetery's OUV and felt its inscription on the WH list was stretching the cultural landscape argument a bit too far.

In any case, the cemetery contains over 100,000 graves and more than 2000 funerals are held every year in the cemetery's 5 chapels. Needless to say, consideration and respect should …

It's hard to even know where to start with a colossal site like Mount Etna. We decided to base ourselves in the town of Trecastagni, and as luck would have it, our Airbnb host recommended a fantastic local guide, a Sicilian named Dario Vaghi. We'd hoped to do some hiking and really explore the upper reaches of Etna, but unfortunately the day we visited there was a heavy blizzard near the top and the cable car wasn't running! No problem for Dario - he knew several other fascinating spots for us to visit and explore. As you can see from the video, we really got to explore all the different facets of Etna: its climates, ecosystems and various habitats. What a magnificent spot.

This was quite a tricky site to visit, as it's a fair way off the usual Norwegian tourist itinerary. We spent two nights in a small campground in Salhus, halfway between Bronnoysund and the departure point of the Vega ferry. The archipelago itself is largely uninhabited, and only the main island of Vega seems to be occupied year-round. We drove around for a while looking for some interesting highlights to film and coming up fairly short. Obviously it wasn't duck season, so we couldn't find any nesting eider ducks to look at. The highlight was definitely the eider duck museum near Holand on the northern coast of Vega - there is a World Heritage centre here that was opening "very soon" when we visited in June 2018. 

Previous reviews left me not expecting much from Aranjuez. However, when the sky is perfectly blue, the gardens are a lush green, and my only alternative was to join my wife shopping? Aranjuez turned out to be a delightful couple hours! Originally, I did not even include this WHS in my itinerary, since Segovia and El Escorial were my primary focus. Nevertheless, the train was simple, affordable, and the weather was superb (though hot). 

I spent most of my time exploring the gardens, which really are quite extensive. There are so many small treasures to be found, from playful fountains, to an aviary, and even a "Chinese" pond. Overall, I am pleased I made the trip.

The cultural landscape pull of this world heritage site makes it unique enough. To summarize, the water landscape (rivers, ponds, dams, ditches), the agricultural landscape (orchards and nurseries, stock-breeding farms, meadows), and the landscape for leisure (ornamental gardens) all make up a rich component to Aranjuez that is best appreciated in beautiful weather.

I visited Pulacayo as part of my Bolivian trip (Sucre-Potosi-Uyuni-La Paz) to tick off the WHS (and TWHS) in that area. Pulacayo isn't on many itineraries but it's just 20 kilometers from Uyuni. Most tours go to the train graveyard of Uyuni but I think Pulacayo is much better.

The entrance fee is small and I do recommend taking a guide there (just a small fee) or if you're with a driver like me who speaks spanish and is local take him. I was able to get into the Aniceto Arce house as there was a historian doing research / cataloguing all the papers. Bedrooms, livingroom etc etc are all in good order with furniture still. Also it was interesting to see (in my case from 1944) a book with the results of the mine.

There was a lot of reconstruction going on at the site. They are preserving it well and i think it deserves to become a full WHS soon. Yes there are other sites maybe in other countries, but as this is important for Bolivia I think they deserve this nomination.

I recommend everyone to go; plan half a day either from Uyuni or if you drive from Potosi to Uyuni (which was what I did).

L'Anse aux meadows lies at the very tip of Northwest Newfoundland. Nearby is the small town of St. Anthony, where we saw several icebergs and met some bikers, who were also exceptionally friendly and personable, like all Newfoundlanders.  

The Viking site of L’Anse aux Meadows is scenic, enabling you to believe that the Norse chose it partly for its beauty. Three icebergs were visible in the distance. Tall grasses, tiny wildflowers and horizontal forests brought Mistaken Point to mind. The Visitor’s Centre was beautifully done and informative with a lovely Viking ship replica. The UNESCO Plaque is very impressive!

On the long but easily walkable path, there was not much left of the actual Viking remnants, marked with red flags or they might have been missed, and they had a model of what the village might have looked like in days of yore. Further on were replicas of what the town might have looked like with various buildings, such as an outhouse, a slave room, a blacksmith room and other areas with costumed people walking about. The roofs were rustic and nicely done with great woodwork, but in general, this part of the site rang a bit false.   

To get to the site, just take the Viking trail (route 430) to the end, which is a long, beautiful drive. The journey is 5 hours from Gros Morne, and it is well marked and easy to find. Some people recommended staying in St. Anthony as it is inexpensive, …

We visited the national park in late June. We approached the park from L’ans aux Meadows and took this scenic route all the way to Woody Point where we stayed.

It turned out to be a great location to see the Tablelands, one of the highlights in the park. Woody Point is a small heritage community inside the park with nice wooden houses by the fjord.

The park has everything, mountains, waterfalls, fjords, beaches, rugged coastline with sea stacks, heritage communities and wildlife. We stayed two nights and it was too short period to cover it all.

We did three hikes in the park, all very different. The hike to tablelands is a must, a walk on the earth mantle. Interesting and rare landscape. You should do an off-trail hike to really enjoy this bizarre and beautiful landscape. Hiking boots are needed. The Green Garden route trail takes you down to rugged coastline with sea stacks. The last hike was up to a lookup point with magnificent views of the fjords and tablelands, well worth the effort to get up. We wanted to hike up Gros Morne mountain, but it was still winter closed until the next day.

We had great lobster dinner at a seafood restaurant in Trout River while enjoying the most beautiful sunset on our trip. On our way back to Woody Point, the full moon was shining on the fjord - really amazing.

The Unesco plaque is located at the visitor …

On our US road trip in may 2018, we spent a day going south to visit Paquime. From Tucson we crossed the border at Aqua Prieta and we had no trouble crossing the border. We bought Mexican car insurance from Thrifty, one of the few car rentals that allow driving into Mexico. We had very few expectations to the Mexican road trip but were really surprised. The first 100 km along the US boarder was very scenic, with mostly good roads.

Paquime was very calm. On a Saturday there were a few other Mexican tourists around, but “none” foreign. Paquime is largest pre-columbian site in North America. The visitor center was informative and explained well the city and people living there, and had a small, but nice exhibition of pottery and figurines. The people of Paquime were excellent craftsmen. The city was established in 1100 century by people coming from north. The citys construction was made up of innovative adobe techniques. They built multi-familiar complexes, some of them counting four floors and more than 1700 rooms. That’s why the Spaniards called the place Casas Grandes. It was called Paquime by the natives who lived there for about 300 years. The multi-family complexes and the T-shaped doorways is significant to the city. Later we also found traces of those doorways in Chaco Canyon, but not to the same extend.

There were also open plazas for markets, ceremonial structures, mounds with architectural features in the form of decapitated birds, ball …

From the perspective of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, the town of Tarrafal is located exactly on the opposite side of the island of Santiago. Although the distance is only 60 kilometers, it can take as long as 1.5h by car and even up to 3h by minibus, called here aluguer. We chose the latter, adding to the adventure. You have to ask the driver to stop near the camp, which is in the outskirts of the town of Tarrafal, near the main road.

The Camp was founded in 1936 in the times of the exemplary Catholic, dictator of the Portuguese empire Antonio de Olivieira Salazar and functioned (with a 7-year break) until April 25, 1974, the memorable day of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution. The location was not accidental, because at that time Tarrafal was the real end of the world - the islands were completely isolated, but at the same time they were almost in the middle of the empire, at the junction of sea routes. The nearest neighborhood was rarely settled, and most importantly, the water sources were extremely scarce and easy to control. Therefore, escape was very difficult, hence there were no such cases in the history of the camp. Tarrafal was a place of isolation of the opponents of the regime from all over the empire - except for the Portuguese, independence activists from Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde itself were also imprisoned here. In the camp, basically, everything was designed to make …

I visited this WHS in July 2018. To get there and back, I took the Drottningholm Ferry from near the Rathaus jetty as it was included in the Stockholm Pass (not recommended!) together with the Heritage Ticket which included visits to the Drottningholm Palace, the Chinese Pavilion and the Theatre. The gardens are free to visit.

Having visited several palaces around Europe, WH listed and not, I wasn't too impressed by the palace interior and if you don't have much time you won't miss much by skipping it and heading directly towards the gardens. The exterior is quite similar to the Augustusburg Castle in Bruhl, Germany and is rather plain to be considered a miniature version of Versailles. It is still used as the residence of the Swedish Royal Family and some parts are obviously out of bounds. The overall visit of the Palace interior and exterior was a way comparable to the Blenheim Palace in the UK. The best light for photography of the palace facade is in the afternoon.

Approaching the palace by boat was rather pleasant and the sunlight in the morning is great for photos of the rear part of the palace. After visiting the palace interior, I passed through the iron gate with the golden royal emblem to visit the huge gardens. I had already got a glimpse of their size from my window seat upon arrival in Stockholm. The highlights of the gardens were the empty aviary, the Chinese pavilion and the …

Visited 15JUL 2018

This is a huge park situated on a vast body of fresh water, which makes it not officially a fjord, although the soaring cliffs and rock formations make it seem like one. We took the Western Brook boat tour to take in the dramatic rock formations and occasional waterfalls. It is good to book in advance with BonTours as this is a popular activity. 

One aspect that is not so well-liked is the 3-kilometre walk from the park to the dock on rough gravel through the bog-like but attractive scenery. Beware those black flies if the wind isn’t blowing. It seems like there are plans to have some sort of transport in the future for those unwilling or unable to make the trek.  

The tiny town of Rocky Harbour is a nice base for visiting the park with several hotels, upscale cabins and some eateries. The only real pub in town is nice but doesn’t take advantage of its great view. The Parks Welcome Centre is only 10 minutes away. 

Another notable area in the park is the Tablelands, an exposed section of mantle rock from the Earth’s crust, which looks strikingly barren in contrast to the greenery of Gros Morne. There is an easy hiking trail which enables enjoyment of the unusually coloured rocks from deep within.

One thing to note is that the size of the park means you have to allow time, for instance, if you have booked a …

On my way from Trebic to Brno, I made a detour to visit the Pilgrimage Church of St. John of Nepomuk near the city of Zdar nad Sazavou on early April, knowing that it was closed to the public, so my initial idea was just to look around the peaceful church landscape which reportedly to be located on the picturesque green hill. From a far the unique church structure on the green hill was really eye catching, I planned to drive around the hill with a hope to find a perfect spot for photographing and discovered that the cemetery next to the church was in full swing of Easter graves visit which caused unexpected traffic jam around the church! I noticed that there were people who entered the church, so I decided to follow them.

It turned out that those people I saw was contractors who were rushing their jobs in order to complete the church restoration before the summer. There was no guard, so I just entered the compound with no problem. Inside was a complete mess with restoration materials almost everywhere, the design of five-pointed star shape church was really unique and look a bit confusing in design and I was curious for its interior. Unfortunately, the doors were close, they seemed to just repaint the doors and put plastic sheet to cover all wooden parts. I also noticed the recently move gravesite, a thing that I read before that church is in the process to remove …

Visited 13JUL 2018

Getting to Labrador requires a very long drive (8-10 hours) from the east coast to the west. Another option would be a flight into Deer Lake, but check on whether any rental cars are available first as this was an issue for us as were the drop off charges that were exorbitant?  

Enroute to the Ferry that goes to Red Bay, take the Viking Trail (route 430) which goes through gorgeous Gros Morne National Park, also UNESCO, which we planned to do on the way back.

Also, consider a brief halt at The Arches Provincial Park along the way. It features a very photogenic Rock formation!

Our GPS didn’t recognize tiny St. Barbe, the ferry town to Labrador, but just keep on the Viking trail and you will get there. Check out the ferry schedule carefully; we found that Friday had boats that allowed us to do a return day trip, unlike other days. The ferry is a pleasant two-hour trip. From the ferry dock in Blanc Sablon (actually in Quebec), it is a daunting one hour drive to Red Bay. The road is mostly potholes. A local quipped that we would wish it was a gravel road. In mid-July, we could see patches of snow near the highway. The weather was sunny but winds ranged from brisk to near gale force. 

The charming town of Red Bay is situated on a sheltered sea, which made it ideal for whaling in days …

We visited this northern outpost in June 2018. This world heritage site is not the greatest, but our effort getting there, and the coastal surroundings made it one of the most memorable places on our Canada trip. We drove the inland route from Quebec along the St Lawrence Bay up to Baie Comeau and then route 389 some 590 km to Labrador. Further on the Trans Labrador Highway back to the eastern coast. It’s about 1600 km through desolate land, mostly paved but about 600 km is still gravel. At the most there are about 4oo km between settlements and gas. The isolated settlements or towns were fun to visit. We stayed overnight in Wabush close to Labrador city and in Happy Valley Goose Bay on the way.

We arrived in Red Bay with cloudy weather and 8-10 degrees. A reservation at Red Bay Whaling station turned out to be a cabin – a small strand house with view to Saddle island, within the core zone of the world heritage site. During dinner at the only restaurant in town, the whaling station, the weather cleared, and the view became just fantastic. It greatly reminds us of the nature and small communities of northern Norway, except for the icebergs passing by😊

The next morning the wonderful weather continued, blue sky, no wind, perfect for exploring the site. The morning views from our cabin to the Saddle island was amazing.

From the whaling station there is a boat service …