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I visited the two north italian sites in 2014. Luckily, they are close together and can be combined easily.

Bergamo is a very beautiful city by itself. The old city sits on top of a hill, with the city walls all around, lots of medieval towers in the middle and the alps in the background. The defense ring is quite prominent, with an impressive entrance ramp. Still, most visitors will spent more time in the streets of the old city with its various churches, towers, shops and restaurants. I have no clue if the defense works here are significant from the military point of view, but they at least provide a splendid sight, both from the outside and as a viewing platform. I can highly recommend a visit to Bergamo as a whole, ticking off the WHS is just the icing on the cake.

Peschiere del Garda on the other hand is rather unremarkable. Most tourists come here for the access to Lake Garda. The fortifications are easily accessible and can be viewed while walking around the village core. Without any special interest in military history however, they will not capture the attention for very long. On the positive side, Peschiere del Garda is located conveniently on the train line between the WHS cities Verona, Brecia and Bergamo, and the old core can be reached by walking from the train station without a problem. I spent two hours here before proceeding, and had lots of time to spare.

Visited May …

My wife and I visited Durham Castle & Cathedral in June 2017. I actually found this site to be quite a disappointment. The cathedral is impressive, but I didn't think it was more impressive or interesting than York Minster which isn't on the UNESCO list.

Likewise with the castle, most of it is actually comparatively recent in construction - the beautiful keep is actually from the 18th century, and the buildings around the main square are mid-1600s. Only one small Norman chapel survives from the earliest days of the castle.

Also very disappointed to find that neither the castle nor cathedral allowed photography or filming inside, which makes producing a video review a very difficult task! Prior requests to the management for a permit went unanswered.

Overall unless you have a specific interest in this area or either of the buildings, I wouldn't recommend it over say York or Oxford.

See below for my full video review!

The road through Sangay National Park is a fait accompli, providing a quicker route to the Ecuadorian city of Macas, east of the Andes. I can't speak to the ecological impact of the road on the park, but it did provide an easy way to access the Atillo Lakes region of the park, where I spent a couple of hours hiking in the Andes last month. The weather was not the most promising, with low, grey clouds obscuring the volcanic peak of Sangay; rain held off, however, and at times the sun did its best to disperse some of the cloud cover. My driver arranged for a local guide, Dora, to lead a hike through a high mountain valley to the first of the Atillo lakes. The region serves as a watershed for the western Andes, and the hills were marshy and covered with grasses and wildflowers; I was very glad my tour company provided rubber boots for the hike. The lakes themselves are very popular with local fishermen, and with all the rain the Andes have had this year, there were several waterfalls flowing on the mountains above the valley. Although the park has some larger species of wildlife, including spectacled bears, foxes, and tapirs, the largest wildlife I saw were ducks. While I would have liked a better day for the hike, I enjoyed my brief tour in the upper reaches of the Andes Mountains. Maybe if I return one day I'll get to see Sangay mountain on …

In June 2017 I made a day trip by train from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station to Suzhou Railway Station and then took Suzhou Rail Transit to Binhe Lu Station since it was the nearest station to the Suzhou Fengqiao Scenery Spot, one of the more scenic and easily-reachable parts of the Grand Canal of China UNESCO World Heritage SIte. From the Suzhou Fengqiao Scenery Spot, it was a 30-minute walk along a canal to the Lingering Garden, one of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou. But the best site was the plate of xiaolongxia (spicy crayfish), only available during the summer season and perhaps the most flavorful dish I've ever eaten.

Drottingholm is a very easy and (weather permitting) enjoyable half-day trip from Stockholm. After visiting several palaces and castles during my time in Denmark and Sweden, the main interior (however nice) was not my main draw. So after about 45 minutes within the palace, I was ready to explore. I was most interested in the gardens and Chinese Palace.

I was surprised to learn only 9 staff manage the enormous grounds! Believe me they are larger than they initially appear. The views of the palace from the water and the gardens are splendid and once again I was lucky enough to have excellent weather. During our walk to the Chinese garden, we felt completely relaxed and alone, since we were at the palace as it opened. With only our thoughts, the sound of birds, and the fresh smell of flowers we cherished the mild warm of a Swedish Summer.

The Chinese Palace, while not particularly reflective of Chinese architecture is fascinating. The interior is mostly bright colors of green and pink. There are artifacts and furniture from China and Japan specifically. It is a curiosity in the 21st century, 17-18th century European views of the East are on full display here.

Drottingholm did remind me of Versailles, but the size is on a much smaller scale. I enjoyed my visit and would encourage travelers to explore the grounds and Chinese palace as well. I also wished to visit the theatre, but time and cost persuaded me to skip it.

After visiting San Salvatore-Santa Giulia in Bresia in 2012, I never paid any more attention to Longobards in Italy.

In July 2017 I went to Spoleto to see two productions at the Spoleto Festival, perhaps the most important annual performing arts festival in Italy, and stayed there overnight.

I was pretty impressed with the town of Spoleto itself, complete with a Roman theater, a cathedral, a fortress and even an aqueduct behind the fortress that "almost" looks like Pont du Gard.

Walking from the lower tier to the upper tier of the old town, I was suddenly jolted by a sign that says "Spoleto the World Heritage City." "What??? How low can they (tourist office) go to call their city a World Heritage City when it's not?" was my first reaction, but the rest is history.

As it turns out, the Basilica of San Salvatore is in the core zone and the entire old town is in the buffer zone of this site, one of the 7 components of Longobards in Italy. But the Basilica is outside the old town center.

When I travel these days, I'm almost completely dependent on Google Map with the blue dot of my own location and with its search function. So locating the Basilica of San Salvatore was not a problem. But I noticed that while I saw many signs in the old town touting the Basilica as a WHS, once I tried to get there, I did not …

In June 2017, I spent five days visiting Kosrae, one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. With my visits to Yap in December 2008 and Pohnpei and Chuuk in December 2015, I have now spent at least a couple of days in each of the four states and each of them has at least one site that either has been, or should be, inscribed on the list of World Heritage Sites. Kosrae might be the most underrated of all of them. While it might lack a world-renowned site like the stone money in Yap, Nan Madol in Pohnpei and the wreck diving in Chuuk Lagoon, there is plenty to do in Kosrae and there is at least one site that should be much better recognized, especially by UNESCO.

I stayed at Kosrae Nautilus Resort (KNR), which changed ownership by way of raffle to a 27-year old Australian last October. KNR and its neighbor, the Pacific Treelodge Resort, are the two best places to stay on the island. The restaurants at both are great, and I had lunch (usually fresh tuna sushi and sashimi) everyday at Bully's, the Pacific Treelodge's restaurant, which sits along a mangrove channel at the end of a long boardwalk. Dinners were taken at KNR.

The best site on the island is Lelu Ruins, which I visited a couple of times. It's reminiscent of Nan Madol, but Lelu is not as well maintained and is inland. It can be reached by passing between the …

In June 2017 I spent a couple of days visiting Jeju, where I stayed at Hotel RegentMarine, which is located in Jeju City on the waterfront between Black Pork Street and Raw Fish Street (those are the actual names in translation). On my first day, I visited Jeju City, where I had lunch on Black Pork Street at Restaurant Dombedon, probably the world's only Michelin-starred pork barbecue restaurant. For dinner, I ate on Raw Fish Street, where my abalone was likely harvested by a Haenyeo, free-diving women who can descend for up to three minutes and reach depths of nearly 65 feet. For my second day, I arranged for a car and driver (Kimi9461 (at) hanmail.net) and visited the Manjanggul lava tube and Seongsan Ilchulbong tuff cone, components of the Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes UNESCO WHS. I also visited two museums, Jeju Haenyeo Museum (which tells the story of the Haenyeo, who plunge to the sea floor to catch crustaceans, mollusks and octopi) and Jeju Loveland (an outdoor, sexually-explicit sculpture park). Mr. Kim also arranged for us to be quickly seated, avoiding the typical hourlong wait, for lunch of abalone porridge at Myeongjin Jeonbok Abalone Restaurant, probably the most well-known and popular on Jeju. Across from the restaurant, I was able to watch many Haenyeo dive to catch crustaceans and other sea creatures (the attached photo is of a Haenyeo, who were far more interesting than the WHS).

In June 2017 I visited Nagasaki, where I stayed at Hotel Monterey Nagasaki, which is located a very short walk from the departure point for the Gunkanjima Concierge Company (https://www.gunkanjima-concierge.com/en/). I joined one of their tours to visit Hashima Island, commonly called Gunkanjima (or Battleship Island), an abandoned island lying 15 kilometers from Nagasaki. Its nickname comes from the resemblance of its profile to a Japanese battleship. The island was known for its seabed coal deposits, which were mined, sometimes by forced labor during World War II, from 1887 until 1974, when the mine was closed, leaving the island abandoned. The island was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2015 as one of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution, and has only been open to tourists since 2009. Battleship Island served as the villain's lair in the James Bond film Skyfall.

Most of the serial World Heritage Sites include what I would characterize as "strong" and "weak" components, and I typically don't tick a site unless I have visited a strong component. Battleship Island, in my view, is the strongest component in the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution. (On my same trip to Japan, I visited the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, one of the Architectural Works of Le Corbusier that's been inscribed on the list of WHS, but to me it was too uninteresting to justify a tick of that site, which I will only tick after I visit Notre Dame …

I tried my best to really enjoy this castle, I achieved middling success. After already visiting Frederiksborg and Rosenborg, my efforts to visit even more castles were not filled with much excitement. Nevertheless, I started the day walking to Copenhagen Central station and getting on the train to Hillerød. After the exquisite Fredericksborg, we took the train to Helsingør.

We spent about 2.5 hours at Kronborg. The views from the tower were stunning and one of the prime locations to understand OUV as the layout and elaborate fortifications were all on display. The next primary site of interest for me was the sub levels of the castle, in which food/drink was stored, protection during a siege, and some of the oldest components of the castle. You can enrich your visit to this portion of the castle by waiting for the guided tour.

Lastly, I should mention the Hamlet connection. Actors are usually on-site. There are scenes that are (somewhat) spontaneously orchestrated throughout the castle interior and exterior at different times. We viewed one scene by the fountain, and I would say it was enjoyable enough and added a bit of fun to the visit.

Most of the interior of the castle is not particularly interesting, and little is on display. Once again, the castle is covered with the Copenhagen Card, which is convenient. Kronborg is very much worth visiting, but it suffers in comparison with other Danish castles both in North Zealand and Copenhagen.

I fondly remember a comment made by Ian in his review of Telc: In a country that has plenty of pretty town squares this one has to take the prize for the prettiest.. Those words rang very true at the time as I stood on the Telc town square and accompanied me along my travels in Czechia.

These words echoed again in my mind as I visited a few more of the Belfries on a short weekend trip to Belgium and Northern France. But... Instead of inscribing a representative subset of Belfries - let alone the single best one - it feels like the Belgian and French authorities went the opposite way: Put each and every Belfry on the list that there is. This includes rather simple examples such as the one in Kortrijk. Or very modern structures - looking at you, Lille - that are more of an architectural quote than an original Belfry. You also find reconstructions such as the one in Arras which was destroyed during World War 1. Finally, multiple places are WHS on their own or closely tied to one (Brugges, Tournai).

Still, I had a very pleasant time seeing yet more Belfries. Flanders is a blessed area of the world rich in culture and history. Drop me off in any Belgian city and I will enjoy myself. But this also holds true for most Czech cities of which not every one boasts a WHS market square. …

I visited Gulangyu (Kulangsu) in 2010, during a weekend trip to Xiamen (and the Fujian tulou), flying in from Hong Kong, where I was staying for a few months. In a sense, Gulangyu delivers what Hong Kong or Shanghai only promise: the fusion of West and East in a late 19th century / early 20th century international settlement established to trade with China. Gulangyu is surprisingly big and quite well-preserved (though when I visited in 2010, a few of the mansions were in the process of being "spruced up"). Its architecture has a distinctive Western flair to it, but Chinese elements also appear here and there (and it includes at least one fully-fledged Chinese garden). A few parts, such as the giant statue of Koxinga, are of a younger age, and it's a bit strange that they have been inscribed too. As should be expected of most tourist sites in China (in particular those in the middle of a city), it is quite touristy, but (at least in 2010) still bearable. The lack of traffic is definitely a plus - one can just stroll aimlessly around the island to discover its various corners. Overall, it was a very pleasant visit, and a break from the general hubbub of modern Chinese city life.

Roskilde, as a former capital is well-worth the excursion from Copenhagen. The dizzying cathedral is a towering structure that should be admired by a full 360 degree exploration of the surrounding grounds. I photographed every corner of the interior, and viewed the cathedral from several different vantage points. During my visit the Summer weather was excellent, so it made the visit that much more pleasant.

The amount of royal tombs/caskets located inside the cathedral itself is surprising. Certain areas within the cathedral are quite different because of the internment of a particular monarch. More prominent personas and the century they died all create a varied interior that is quite different from the monotonous interior of many other cathedrals.

I spent half-a-day here visiting the cathedral and the Viking Ship museum, which is also worth exploring via the forested road directly across from Roskilde Cathedral. I should mention, the Copenhagen card is quite useful for a multi-day visit to Denmark. Trains outside Copenhagen are included, as well as admission to Roskilde Cathedral, and several other important sites in North Zealand.

Ekamra Kshetra - Bhubaneswar is unique in the sense that its monuments are not restricted to one large temple complex. Rather, the temples and caves are spread over a large part of the city and there are people living all around. Yet, the monuments are beautifully preserved. Unlike many other temples and pilgrimage sites, Bhubaneswar is extremely clean. What is more, even in the modern central city, the heritage of the state is clearly visible

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Paris, Banks of the Seine World Heritage Site, one of the most famous and visited sites in the world, is that 16 French World Heritage Sites were inscribed in previous years before it was finally added to the list in 1991. Paris is easily one of the most picturesque cities I have ever seen, with amazing views from the heights of Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and Montmartre (of which the last is not part of the inscribed site), as well as at street level, with grand boulevards and squares. Even the underground sewer system (so thoroughly described by Hugo in Les Misérables) and catacombs are tourist attractions, though I believe the official site boundary stops at surface level. Of the inscribed properties in this site, I particularly appreciated Sainte-Chapelle, with its beautiful stained glass which glows in morning light, and the Musée d'Orsay, with its impressionist and post-impressionist art displayed throughout a former train station. As alluded to in previous reviews, the Seine is the heart of Paris, and a walk or a boat ride along it, at any time of day, is highly recommended, and one of the best ways to appreciate the feel of this world-class city.

Logistics: Walk along the banks. Take a tour boat, or, if you prefer a cheaper, non-narrated option, buy a pass for the Batobus river boat shuttle. Explore, but take time to relax and enjoy this beautiful city.

This site contains four fortified places on the Spanish-Portuguese border. Most of them were built in XVIth century or after. Out of four location of this proposal, one is already on the main list (Elvas), so if the whole proposal is inscribed in this shape, for most it would be an easy tick. We managed to visit another one – stronghold of Almeida and it was one of our biggest surprises in this marvellous country.

What stroke us the most is that the stronghold remained practically untouched for more than four centuries, despite the fact that there is still a living town inside. It means that the town can be accessed through several, quite narrow, historical gates. Stronghold walls, moans, ramparts are in the excellent condition and are really picturesque. Of course it all caused relative closure of the town and favored petrification of its architecture. Almeida is one of the nicest small towns we visited. I have never seen a complete fortified town like this and I think it justifies OUV of the proposal.

After a stop over in Wroclaw at a friend's I was stuck with the question, what to visit on my trip towards Cracow. Seeing Tarnowskie was on the way and scheduled for the WHC 2017 I figured, I may as well go and see it.

Frankly, what I got to see didn't really impress me at the time. I didn't even bother to write up a review, feeling this would be in vain. Yeah, yet another mine! The only unique feature I found was the boat ride they have on a canal deep in the mine which makes for a pleasant excursion. The picture is rather dark, but that's what it looks like. Still, pleasant does not indicate OUV.

Getting There

Tarnowskie can be reached by train from Wroclaw and Krakow. It is also connected via bus to Katowice. Bear in mind, though, that the mining museum is still quite a long walk away from the town center and train station. On the other hand, the town center has some historic buildings worthwhile visiting, emphasis being on some. Best transport information (as for all of Poland) are found at e-podroznik.pl.

At the museum there are regular tours that you can join, mostly in Polish, though. Check the schedule on their website.

While You Are There

You are in the Silesia and Cracow hotspots. For nearby Katowice two prospective sites are mentioned in our forum: the Cathedral of Christ the King and Nikiszowiec …

We visited Pendjari NP back in Jan 2007 during a tour of Benin, Togo and B Faso. It was interesting to experience a West African “wildlife park” but our conclusions were very similar to those of the previous reviewer! The real interest in W Africa lies in its cultures and peoples and, apart from the bird life, one would not particularly recommend it as a wildlife destination in comparison with many others across Africa.

Mind you - we didn’t give it a great deal of time. We drove up in the morning from Boukambe at the edge of the Koutammakou area and arrived at the much hyped Tanougou Falls for lunch. My experience across many years is that dry countries tend to make too much of such “watery” locations which, elsewhere, would pass without much notice. I have seen the falls described as “a beautiful multi-tiered cascade that flows from the Atacora Mountains. They are the highest and most beautiful falls in Benin, attracting more tourists every year as they become better known.” A bit OTT – but they make a pleasant stop. Whether these lie just outside or just inside the park is not clear but there was a stone stating - “Pendjari - Man and Biosphere Reserve 16 Jun 1986”.

We then passed the official park entrance and made an afternoon game run taking in grassland, river, marsh and light/heavy forest. There was a lake with a few hippos in it (but …

My wife and I visited Saltaire in June 2017, and given the frankly mixed experiences people seem to have at Industrial Revolution sites (and the disappointment we'd had at some sites particularly in the UK), Saltaire was surprisingly good.

The mill itself is underwhelming (mostly inaccessible, and the available parts are given over to shops, cafes, galleries etc). There is a small display in one area of the mill talking about Saltaire and why it was important.

But what I found fascinating was doing background research before our visit, so that I was already familiar with the ideas and concepts that were realised here in this small town, and how those ideas resonated around the world.

The buildings are generally in good condition, and it's great to wander around the church, Victoria Hall, the school building, the hospital and of course the neat rows of streets, even on a wet and cold summer's day like us!

See below for my full video review!

Taking the metro train to the easily accessed Skogskyrkogarden, I was immediately confronted by the awkward dynamic of being a tourist amongst grieving families. There were 2 different funeral parties I witnessed while walking the grounds. I tried to be discreet and avoid camera use in spaces that deserved some privacy, and the site is large enough where its unlikely you would actually become an annoyance to others.. Thankfully, much of my explorations were done in private.

I appreciated the modern architecture and the design itself which impacts the visitor. The wooded paths create an atmosphere that could be described as soothing. The chapels feel remote and isolated alone, but I imagine for families intimacy is more accurate. The hill or "mediation grove" is something in itself. Walking up the hill from the Southern side (opposite of the main entrance), there was a special sense of walking toward the sky. It felt otherworldly, perhaps because the sky was also a beautiful color, with thin delicate clouds.

I had a lot of time for my own thoughts here. My reflections left me relaxed and ready to continue my last couple days exploring Stockholm before returning to the United States. For most visitors 1-2 hours should be sufficient to visit Skogskyrkogarden.