All our reviews

The Namib Sand Sea is the most extensive example in the world of a coastal fog desert. It’s the kind of place nature documentaries rely upon. In David Attenborough’s ‘Planet Earth II: Deserts’ several scenes were filmed here such as the gecko licking its own eyeballs - where thaw had formed in the early morning - to get liquid. The site was inscribed on all 4 natural criteria and it is the undoubted highlight of a trip to Namibia.

The designated area is enormous – about 75% of the size of the Netherlands. But only a small part of it is open to regular tourists. The common access point is at the east, at Sesriem and the Sossusvlei. Only a few tour operators have permits to venture deeper into the Namib Sand Sea (they are named in the nomination dossier).

We stayed overnight at the Sossus Dune Lodge, which is the only hotel within the park’s borders (there’s a campsite as well which has this privilege). This means that you’ll be in the park before sunrise and have all the nice spots to yourself for at least an hour or so. At 5.30 a.m. we were the first to start the climb of Dune 45, at 150m the highest of the red sand dunes along the Sossusvlei access road. Sitting at the top ridge we watched the sunrise, giving the surrounding dunes a deep red colour. Getting down from a sand dune of this height also is great …

After recently visiting Chernigov in Ukraine, I’ve had an urge to write about my admiration for this related city of Veliky Novgorod in Russia. I have visited this city twice, in summer 2005 and winter 2009. I like this city more than any cities in the Golden Ring of Moscow simply because it seems to be historically more important and there seem to be more variety of attractions here.

I can’t remember how I got there from St. Petersburg, except that one of the two times I got on a bus from the main bus station in St. Petersburg, which was somewhat far from any of the train stations in St. Petersburg.

Veliky Novgorod is the oldest city in Russia. The so-called first capital of Russia was created by the Vikings (as the theory goes) in 9th century before the creation of Kievan Rus. The Millennium of Russia monument was erected in 1862 to celebrate one millennium anniversary of the Russian statehood.

It seemed that Novgorod had the greatest density of churches of all the places I have ever visited.

The most important church of them all in Novgorod is the St. Sophia Cathedral in the Kremlin, the oldest church in Russia, with the mysterious icon called “Our Lady of the Sign” as the centerpiece, often considered to be the National Icon of Russia! (although one might counter this claim by bringing up the Trinity by Andrei Rublev, stored at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.)

…

A couple of years ago we visited the German part of the Wadden Sea WHS with stops in Dorum (where you can have a look inside the Obereversand lighthouse) and Dornum (where you can make a walk along the Wadden Sea following the Heller path).

However, to get a proper feel of this WHS we decided to participate in a ‘wadloop’ (mud hike) in the Dutch part of the Wadden Sea WHS. There are various agencies offering such hikes using different routes. We opted for the one starting from the little village of Wierum to the Engelsmanplaat (Englishman sandbank) and back to Wierum.

In total it’s about 12 km which takes about 4 hours, a short break on the sandbank included. A guide is recommended (or even obligatory?) since the sea currents can be very dangerous.

The hike itself is quite exhausting as you are walking in the mud all the time and for a fair amount of time also knee/waist deep through the water. Nevertheless it’s a special sensation and in the future we might also try out other routes.

Spectacular New Year’s Day visits are starting to become a habit of mine: it was Virunga in 2016 (gorillas on New Year’s Eve, chimps the next morning) and the Rock Islands of Palau in 2017. On the first of January 2018, I woke up at the edge of Namibia’s Fish River Canyon. I had only been sleeping intermittently because of the strong, howling winds blowing through the canyon and along the chalets of the Fish River Lodge which has been built exactly on the rim. From my bed I could see the sun rise above the canyon, constantly changing the illumination of the rocks.

This canyon in the far south of Namibia is one of the world’s largest (often advertised as the second largest), although a precise ranking of canyons is as difficult as that of waterfalls. Are we counting length, width, depth or total area? We have 26 different canyons within WHS already inscribed in our connection, including Capertee Valley (Greater Blue Mountains) which also is said to be the world's second largest canyon after the Grand Canyon.

Anyway, the Fish River Canyon is a spectacular natural creation. It actually consists of two canyons, one inside the other. The outer canyon, the first level of terraces, was created when a tectonic rift made a wide gap in the earth’s crust. The Fish river afterwards eroded the second canyon along the valley floor, creating the 270m deep inner canyon.

It would have been lovely to do a hike through part …

I visited 3 out of the 8 inscribed components of this site on a day trip in early December, namely Hetsu-miya on Kyushu, and Nakatsu-miya and Okitsu-miya Yohaisho both on Oshima. I of course could not visit the main attraction of this site and its attendant islands. As for the tombs I found them to be a hassle to reach and so skipped those.

There are a few direct buses to Hetsu-miya from Fukuoka, and the first one of these on Saturdays (maybe on Sundays too but I did not check on that since I made the visit on a Saturday) goes all the way to the Konominato Port from where the ferry to Oshima can be taken.

Nakatsu-miya has an associated shrine all the way up on the summit of Mt Mitake. Although this is merely a hill a little over 200 m tall, it was still quite a lung-imploding and leg-vein-exploding climb for unfit me. The reward at the top is a little shrine and a lovely view of Kyushu and much of the very green island itself. If the weather is clear, the island of Okinoshima can also be spotted if one knows where to look.

The best place on the island to try to spot Okinoshima however is probably at the back of Okitsu-miya Yohaisho. After all, this shrine was built precisely for people to worship the sacred island without actually having to be there. The shrine therefore appeared to be empty (it was closed but …

The first problem regarding our intended visit to Thungyai - Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuaries (HKK) was where exactly to enter this very large site, most of which is remote and inaccessible. The 2014 map on the UNESCO web site is described as a “Clarification”. It may indeed be better than the even worse one of 1990 but is pretty useless for identifying roads which go into the inscribed area or even for relating the park boundaries to those on other maps which did show roads such as Google or our paper “Reise Knowhow”! In the end I found this (and click on “Open Map”) which showed just 2 entry points to HKK from the East. These would seem to be the same as those referred to by Frederick Dawson in his review below. The northern entrance leading to the park HQ (marked “I”) on this map fitted in well with our general driving route from Mae Sot, through Khamphaeng Phet (part of Sukhothai WHS) and on south towards Ayutthaya, and also guaranteed that we would have entered the inscribed area. Whether it would provide “good” wildlife viewing only time would tell.!

We did consider whether to enter the Thung Yai element of the WHS (situated contiguous to HKK to its West) which may be more “scenic”. As Frederick also indicates, it does appear that official entry is possible from the North at the end of the 1090 road 50 kms south of Umphang. This road is described as …

One doesn't have to look any farther than the city walls of Kotor in Montenegro to see they are part of the Venetian Works of Defence Between 16th and 17th Centuries World Heritage Site. On the wall near the Maritime Gate to the city is a carving of the Lion of Saint Mark, symbol of the city of Venice. Above the city walls are fortified defenses snaking up a mountainside to the Castle of Saint John. When I visited Kotor in October this year, my first goal was to hike the fortifications to the castle for a view of the old town and the bay. There are many steps and switchbacks along the ramparts leading up the mountain, but there are also ample opportunities to stop and enjoy the views. Somewhere around a third of the way up the mountain is the Church of Our Lady of Remedy, which is small but scenic. From the church, the castle with ravens circling overhead looks deceptively close; it is not. Once I reached the fortress, however, I was rewarded with views of red-tiled roofs of the old town of Kotor and the beautiful Bay of Kotor. I highly recommend the hike for anyone visiting Kotor.

Logistics: There are at least two entrances to the fortifications found at the back of the town of Kotor; there is a small fee for entrance to the fortifications.

Oh, how I love WHS like Ban Chiang (BC) - It may not offer iconic monuments but it is relatively infrequently visited and uncrowded and covers a lesser known but interesting/significant historical period/culture. It also has plenty of “issues” regarding its inscription and recent history together with opportunities for “post-visit investigation”!! At the time of its discovery in 1966, BC experienced world-wide fame as the cradle of a “newly discovered civilisation” which had independently developed its own bronze making technology. This was followed by archaeological controversy and revision of timescales. Meanwhile its treasures suffered looting - leading to international action to try to recover them. As a result, its pottery artefacts fill private collections Worldwide and grace musea in USA, London and Berlin.

I report (at some length!!) on some of the “issues” below in the light of our visit in Nov 2017. Press articles from the period give a flavour of the excitement which initial assessments of the place of BC in World history engendered. NYT (Jun 8 1975) - “If dates indicated by recent technical analysis are correct for BC pottery then, by inference, the bronze found in the same graves was made in 4500BC too and that’s 1500 years earlier than anyone ever expected it could be made and in a part of the World where no one ever expected to find metallurgical practices at such an early time”. See - this article. Similarly, this Washington Post article of Sep 8 1975.

…

[ ] was added in January, 2023

I initially visited Chernihiv (Chernigov in Russian) in winter 2017-18.

The provincial city of 300,000 people 100 miles north of Kyiv was surprisingly modern, well, at least the center was. It was filled with pleasant cafes and was completely devoid of the physical turmoil in the east of the country or the political one in Kyiv, at least to the eyes of this foreigner who stayed there only for 3 nights.

But this is a very historic city. In fact it's so much so that I'd call this city Ukrainian equivalent of Veliky Novgorod in Russia, which I have visited twice before. Indeed both cities played major roles in the formation of Kyivan Rus in the 9th century, which is the predecessor to both Ukraine and Russia of today, and come with the oldest church in both of these countries.

As such, all the main attractions of this city are religious edifices, the concentration of which also reminded me of Novgorod.

The UNESCO web page mentions only two of these edifices, but I'm assuming that the nomination covers all or part of the historic center, not just two churches.

Of the two churches the Cathedral of Transfiguration (top photo of this thread) in the Dytynets park (Chernihiv's former Kremlin) is regarded as the oldest church in Ukraine. The other church is the Borys and Gleb Cathedral in the same park. 

I also visited other main attractions, …

Before I visited Melbourne’s World Heritage Site, the Royal Exhibition Building, I had no expectation after reading few negative reviews and I already knew that I had no chance to see the interior since the university booked the building as examination venue for the whole week. I entered this UNESCO complex from the rear side of Carlton Park. This side of the park was peaceful with many lawns and big trees along the pathways, typical English styled garden, actually I quite enjoyed the park as I already gave up the idea of exploring its OUV on botany. Then I saw the gigantic complex of modern Melbourne Museum. Maybe there was no special exhibition during my visit, I did not feel that the museum got more attention from the Royal Exhibition Building. Actually, I deeply impressed the contrast of these two buildings.

While I was watching groups of skaters practicing their moves in front of the eastern gates of the Royal Exhibition Building, suddenly all the gates opened and people came out, maybe the morning exam was finally over. Fortunately, I got a chance to peek inside to see the interior of the building! From a quick look the building did surprisingly remind me Wartburg Castle’s famous Sängersaal but much bigger, simpler and more industrial looking. Then I continued to see the famous Hochgurtel Fountain in front of the building. This side of the garden was really lively with many people, locals and tourists. I even saw many tour groups …

The Fortress of St Nicholas outside Sibenik in Croatia is probably the most decrepit WHS I have visited. Not in the sense of simply being a ruin, but in that it feels entirely abandoned, with no significant attempts at developing it for ‘safe’ tourism. This will probably change over the next few years. The general area seems to be a reasonably popular picnic destination, with a newly constructed EU-funded walking trail along the coast allowing for an easy afternoon walk from the car park, but few bother to actually go inside. This is understandable, as there are two ways to manage this, neither of which are especially practical. Firstly, from the land-side, there is a long wooden plank leading up to a hole in the fortress’ upper walls. This plank is held in place by a rock, and only manages to get halfway up to the entrance. From there, there are two half-metre pieces of timber with footholds loosely nailed to the side that you pick up from the ground and place precariously on the end of the long plank. As there is nothing to really grip onto while you’re up there, given that the wall itself slopes smoothly outwards in a bulge, this felt unsafe, so I did not manage to enter this way. Working together to support and hold each other, a group of three men achieved this goal, so it is not impossible.

Instead, however, there is a sea entrance around the east side, closest to Sibenik. …

I visited Mount Athos in November 2017, staying three nights. While I certainly enjoyed my visit, it is also something of a cautionary tale, as I definitely did not get the most out of the experience as I could have.

I don’t need to go into particular detail about the practicalities of visiting from Thessaloniki, as they have been readily outlined by the previous review. As I was with only one other visitor, our request for a diamonitirion for entrance about four months later was granted by email within a couple of hours of requesting it, no issues whatsoever. One point, however, is that all ferries from and to Ouranopolis seemed to ‘require’ advance booking. Upon arrival in Ouranopolis, there was almost an hour before the next ferry. When I tried to get a ticket at this point, the ticket office wrote down my ‘reservation’ and declared that I should come back 15 minutes before the ferry departed. Returning at that point, there was a confusing scrum to try to get tickets, involving a lot of pushing and yelling. A monk was refused a ticket because he had not ‘reserved’, so it was greatly reassuring to have my name called immediately after all phone reservations had been collected. Similarly, the ferry back from Daphni ‘required’ a reservation, and we were told it was full when we arrived an hour before its departure. We were put on a waiting list that ended up being maybe 50 people long, all who managed …

Kaeng Kratchen Forest Compex (KKFC) consists of 5 contiguous parks and reserves (including Kaeng Kratchen NP) situated along Thailand’s border with Myanmar at the very top of the Malay Peninsula which, together, have been badged as a “complex” for this nomination. KKNP itself figures significantly in commercial birding and butterfly tours in Thailand. Such specialist tours, however, allocate several days to the park and the big question for us was whether we could gain value from a much shorter visit as part of a whistle-stop tour by self-drive car of Thailand’s inscribed and tentative list sites.

A further incentive was that a KKFC nomination had been considered at both the 2015 and 2016 WHCs and was still “alive” after consecutive referrals. Even though we had already taken in Thailand’s 2 existing natural WHS (at Kao Yai and Huai Kha Khaeng) the possibility of a future inscription was enough to tip the balance in favour of a visit to a third!

The previous 2 visits had already shown us that Thailand’s natural WHS don’t give out their “value” very easily and KKFC wasn’t particularly different. The iconic mega-fauna is difficult to see in a forest environment within a short visit and the birdlife is best seen at dawn and dusk which means either staying inside the park (if allowed) or at least arriving very early and departing as late as the rules will allow (i.e just after sunset at best), leaving the rest of a very hot day to …

Visited the Historic Silver Mine in December 2017 and I have to say it was worthwhile. If you plan to visit it, I would recommend you to make a reservation, it made our situation easier. I can confirm that the minimum number of people is 4, we were 3 but as I agreed to pay for 4 we were allowed to visit, for which I am very thankful to the personnel.

The tour start by watching a movie about history and the site in a small cinema. Later it continues in a multimedia museum with interesting details about history, tools and machinery. After that follows the visit of the site itself.

Our guide was a very good and her enthusiasm was a big part of the overall positive experience.

Although it was rainy during most of my visit, I found the city of Santa Ana de los Ríos de Cuenca to be the most charming of the cities I visited on the Ecuadorian mainland this past June. I arrived at night, but the room in the former monastery I stayed in had a magnificent view of the illuminated blue-hued domes of the New Cathedral. The next morning I ventured out in the rain to see both the New and Old Cathedrals and the Plaza Calderon, in the heart of the old city. The Old Cathedral is now a museum, and worth a visit, but I appreciated the architecture of the New Cathedral more. Later in the day, as the rain cleared, I embarked on a sightseeing tour via a double-decker bus departing from Plaza Calderon. I chose the southern tour route, which I highly recommend, as it includes the Mirador with its fine view of the city. The upper level of the tour bus offers an incredible view of the cobble-stoned streets and colonial architecture of the old town. Also not to be missed in Cuenca are the Panama hat factories, where you can watch some of Cuenca's more famous exports being made. I would have loved to have had more time in Cuenca.

Logistics: The downtown section of Cuenca is pedestrian-friendly. There is a local sightseeing bus with regular departures from Plaza Calderon, offering tours of the northern and southern parts of the city.

The reviews on this site about Bern are positive, but not exactly glowing, and I don't have much to add, except to confirm that it is a very pleasant city for a nice long walk. From the beginning of the Old Town to the Bear Pits, you basically follow one long street (with a small detour to the Minster) and admire the well-preserved medieval and Renaissance architecture on each side, especially the fountains and arcades. From the Bear Pits (recently renovated and well worth a visit - free of charge), you can enjoy a great view of the Old Town and the Aare River. On a crips and sunny autumn day, I enjoyed a few hours of sightseeing in this pretty city, and my stay was enhanced by a surprise Open Day at the Swiss Parliament (happens only twice a year). Bern can be easily combined with La Chaux-de-Fonds or the Jungfrau-Aletsch site, and is just a 1-hour train ride from Zurich and Lucerne.

After the WHS-gettogether in September 2017 we had a Sunday drive ending in Cordoba where we spent the night. When leaving for Malaga airport we decided to make the detour of 8 km to the archeological site of Madinat al-Zahra. It was Monday and we knew the museum and the site itself was closed, but we defied that. It is a former city - something must be possible to see!

We arrived just after noon and the museum parking lot was empty and the museum closed as expected. We looked for signs to archeological site – but there were none. Anyway we chose the most likely direction and drove – and in 5 minutes we discovered something that we agreed had to be the Madinat. It was slightly uphill so we got a nice view and with the camera lens we got a couple of nice pictures.

We could see no city, but building-structures and arcs that still are standing upright tells some of the story of what it has been. The site is the capital of the caliphate Abd al-Rahman III founded in 940, abandoned in 1010, then slowly buried in a meadow. By the years it turned into a myth of a faraway western point of Islam, then revealed in 1911.

We got the overview, but missed the archeological details. When it becomes a true world heritage site we have to revisit this place.

On my way back home from Pécs I had a few hours to spare in Budapest. As I had been to the Budapest WHS already, I had a look at Hungary’s Tentative List for something else worthwhile to visit. And yes: there’s another site in Budapest waiting to be included in the WH List. Ödön Lechner's independent pre-modern architecture comprises 5 buildings, of which 4 are in the Hungarian capital. Given my limited time and the freezing weather, I focused on the 2 easiest of this batch: the Postal Savings Bank and the Museum of Applied Arts.

Ödön Lechner was a Hungarian architect of the late 19th and early 20th century. Coming from a family that owned a brick factory (which engrained a love for ceramic materials), his artistic education occurred in Paris and London. He lived in both cities for a few years, and there became acquainted with Art Nouveau and the Arts & Crafts Movement. Returning to Hungary and inspired by these modern developments, he developed his own particular style – hence the “independent” in the TWHS name I guess. It also relied heavily on the Hungarian nationalist notion at the time that their roots lie in Asia (Persia, India) and not in Europe.

The Postal Savings Bank is situated in the city center of Budapest, just a few minutes’ walk from the landmark Hungarian Parliament buildings. It’s an upmarket area with many large classicist buildings. This bank stands out in its street because of its Art Nouveau …

The Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs represents a mix of three categories of sites: it's a Burial site, an Archaeological site of Ancient Rome and a Christian religious structure. Its OUV is mostly derived from its wall paintings. Pécs is a midsized city in the south of Hungary, and I went there for a weekend trip reaching it via a 2-hour flight to Budapest and then a 2 hour 50-minute direct train ride. The town was very quiet, but it had a cosy Christmas fair in front of its landmark (former) Mosque of Pasha Qasim.

The core zone of this WHS lies in front of Pécs Cathedral and mostly underneath cathedral square. On my first approach, I walked across the glass ceilings from where you can look into the Roman site, but I could not find the way in! So I walked on to the mausoleum which fortunately has a clearly visible structure remaining above ground. It’s all out in the open, this is the only part that you can see without paying the entrance fee. That fee by the way is 1100 forint, about 3.5 EUR, and it covers both the mausoleum and the Cella Septichora visitor center.

The mausoleum burial chamber is just a few square meters large but has all the nice features: a sarcophagus (pieced back together again), colourful murals with recognizable biblical themes and some abstract figures such as a red disk.

Via the map on the entrance ticket, I found out …

Finally visited in November 2017. Quite difficult to reach but doable with some preparation.

Of course it is not the place you can go on your own. There are number of dangers that are real (smugglers, narcotraffickers, guerillas, paramilitares), presence of many armed representatives of Panamanian police (Senafront) only acknowledge that. But all the efforts and difficulties are rewarded with what you finally see in Darien. Untouched rainforest, pristine rivers, diverse wildlife, endemic species –everything you will find there.

With no doubt the most efficient (and expensive) way is to go there with an organized trip. There are several agencies specializing in making Darien tours. The majority of them offer multi-day trips with everything well organized (food, accommodation, transportation including stay within national park boundaries) but most of them avoid November as it is treated as wet period. Anyway searching before travel there I found several agencies that - despite rainy season – were eager to organize individual trips there but apart from costs they were stressing on staying more days in Darien (minimum 5 days altogether). If interested let me know and I will send details of what I found out.

Knowing that I tried to organize trip for myself. Bus from Panama City Albrook Terminal to Meteti (9 USD per person) than changes to minivan Meteti – Yaviza (5 USD per person), if you start journey in the morning (Panama) you should arrive to Yaviza late afternoon. On a way there are 2 check-points – …