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I feel the need to push the opinion about this WHS back to “dirty, dusty and dilapidated”. Oh, and noisy too! Except for a variety of religious buildings (which were included to show the city’s multiculturality on a neighbourhood level, not because they are that scenic or significant otherwise), the OUV is all about the residential quarters (pole) and the domestic wooden architecture within these. 

Once you have left the hustle and bustle near Bhadra Fort and the Darwhaza Gate behind, the street scenery does indeed start to change from tacky shops and frantic horning rickshaws into normal living communities. It’s fun to try to navigate through the ‘pole’ to a connecting major street – sometimes you may stumble upon kids practicing cricket in the street, or even half a dozen cows resting. 

What’s “authentic” here is the urban plan. However, it’s anyone’s guess which plans the City of Ahmadabad has with the housing. Somehow you’d expect at least a certain upkeep as part of the conservation (they don’t have to be all turned into boutique hotels), but only a few structures have seen some TLC in the past decades and living conditions can’t be good (I noticed a real plague of squirrels for example). 

My visit immediately brought back fond memories of the Old City Centers of Lahore and Peshawar which I visited last year. They still house bazaars that ooze history and plenty of wooden havelis. They have great monuments you can enter …

I came across Ston by accident really. I was holidaying in the area and searched the WHS list and tentative list for any interesting sites nearby and so I "discovered" Ston. What is remarkable is that I have reached retirement age and never heard of the place before I did that search, I say remarkable, because the walls that surround Ston for 7 kms, are the second longest fortified walls in the world, after the Great Wall of China. The Croatians need to have a quiet word with their tourism marketing people.The town itself is quite small but has some nice streets, a castle and an interesting church but the draw is definitely those 7 kms of walls that surround the town and were built to protect it's major asset, salt.You can walk the walls if you want, it was far too hot for that while I was there so I confined myself to the town. You can see everything in the town in an hour but it is worth a visit if you are in the vicinity.

Visited in May 2023.

The WHO is located in the territory controlled by Hezbollah, so you need to be careful when planning your trip, there may be bombings in the surrounding area.I got here by bus from Beirut, not without adventures, I had to pay extra and change to another bus, but you can do without a taxi.Mysterious in its monumentality, the temple complex was built on the easternmost edge of the Roman Empire. A grandiose sacred complex was built here in the first century AD, which is considered to be one of the largest in the ancient world. The temple-sanctuary of Jupiter on a massive stylobate, the temple of Bacchus, the temple of Venus, there was also a temple of Mercury on the neighboring hill, but it did not survive.At the same time, it is not very clear who built it, for whom, why exactly in this place. Even dating is done by indirect signs. Meanwhile, it is obvious that a pilgrimage center of such a scale had to have an imperial significance. Perhaps a role was played by ancient traditions of religious worship in Heliopolis, as Baalbek was called under the Romans.In the nearby quarry, a giant thousand-ton block is still preserved, which was never completely processed, and in 2014 it was further excavated by archaeologists.The temple inspires respect, first of all, for its scale and a fairly good degree of preservation.

Drottningholm Palace is an accessible UNESCO site to visit, about an hour by public transport. If you make your way out, I would spend a good half day exploring the palace and grounds as they are quite extensive. When I visited in July of 2024, I booked a tour of the interior of the palace. Having explored many castles in London and Scotland, it wasn't the most impressive interior to a royal building that I've seen, but the history of Sweden is rich, and you get to experience that through the architecture, art, and stories that you hear. My one complaint was that the site to book tours on is difficult to navigate and did cause us some issues. However, we had a lovely tour guide who made the experience quite enjoyable. 

What makes this site so impressive is the large amount of land that this palace sits on. We spent a couple of hours walking around and exploring the gardens and neighboring woods. If you come to visit, I would dress for the weather as the best part is the grounds. 

Visited in May 2023.In this case, I was lucky, because the architectural project of Oskar Niemeyer received the status of world heritage in January 2023, at an extraordinary session, in a number of objects under threat, together with Odessa. The 1950s were a time of rapid development of Lebanon, which gained independence during WWII. One of the symbols of the country's economic success was planned to be a permanent International Fair Center in Tripoli, then a confident northern competitor of Beirut. The Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, who was at the peak of fame after the creation of the new capital of his homeland, was invited for the design. The project of the fair complex was ready in 1962, but the implementation was delayed: it took a long time to buy the land, the objects were technically difficult for local engineers and contractors. Nevertheless, by 1975, 15 buildings and structures were erected in varying degrees of readiness: the entrance group, the main 750-meter boomerang-shaped pavilion, the Lebanon pavilion, a dome theater, an arch, an amphitheater, a helipad, a prototype of a collective residential unit, now quite unsuccessfully renovated into a hotel. All the buildings of the complex are made of concrete, Niemeyer's signature style.

But in 1975, a 15-year civil war began in Lebanon, then a Syrian military base was located on the territory of the exhibition center, and then Tripoli was gradually marginalized and fundamentalized, and the facilities fell into disrepair. Nevertheless, it is a typical, well-recognizable Niemeyer, with national …

Every once in a while, a little-known, off-the-beaten-path site manages to outshine the already inscribed sites of a country. It's rare; most of the newly inscribed sites are below average (Els had a blog post on this). But Unjusa is just that: a hidden gem.

We arrived from Gwangju and spent two hours exploring Unjusa. The site consists of a temple complex, pagodas lined against the valley and along the hillsides, tombstones of deceased monks, and several rock-hewn Buddhas. It also features a representation of the Big Dipper, supposedly one of the earliest. An explanation given by wikipedia for all the stone masonry is that this was a school of ... stone masons. 

You can easily spend more than two hours here, as the site offers many hiking trails. They also have a small, and at the time of our visit, very idle cafe.

OUV

Unjusa was the most iconic temple, we visited in Korea, even outshining established World Heritage sites like Bulguksa, Tongdosa, Seonamsa, and Haeinsa. It offers the serene natural beauty typical of Korean temples, but with the added benefit of fewer crowds due to its lower profile. And I may be mistaken, but it felt that the temple was in a more original state and more carefully renovated than the other, heavily reconstructed WHS we saw on our trip in Korea.

Unlike the other Korean temples, the valley at Unjusa is adorned with remarkable pagodas and statues lining the hillsides, adding a …

Varanasi deserves a place in the list and it surprises me that no one has reviewed it yet. Being one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, which remains to be a most central place of worship as the holiest place in Hinduism, its history and value to the world cannot be understated. It is also considered sacred in Buddhism and Jainism. Being historic is one thing, and being iconic is another -- the cityscape of Varanasi is easily one of the most recognizable. While it is easy to be critical about the site as to whether it is clean or not, the judgment, in my opinion, plays little to nothing to the cultural value it offers. It would be hypocritical to take against it some practices that make it unique, and admittedly the very reasons why many travelers go there to begin with. This is not to say that it does not need further "care" as it, by all means, does.  

On the day that I arrived in Varanasi was the day when 2015 April Nepal Earthquake took place and it was strongly felt in the city. I first went to Sarnath to visit one of the four most sacred sites in Buddhism, and then spent the rest of the day back in the center. The best way to appreciate what Varanasi has to offer is to take the sunset boat ride that leaves on various ghats in the afternoon. The boat tour takes you past …

I visited the Beemster polder in April 2024 and April might be the best month to do it as you get to see the stereotypical tulip fields in full bloom and I was also lucky with sunny and warm weather. I think the polder has bit too negative reviews here! Yes, it looks just like anywhere else in the Netherlands but at least I enjoy that landscape. Also, for me the farm houses in the polder looked older than usually so it did have a bit more historical feel to it (or I just imagined it so that the polder would feel more special).

We visited the polder with car but you can get here also with bus from Amsterdam. We drove through the polder starting from north at Avenhorn and driving to south towards Middenbeemster. Besides tulips, the fields were full of birds so also for birdwatchers this is a great place to visit. Unfortunately also many birds had been hit by cars and the road looked like a killing field at points. We stopped for short time at the tiny village of Noordbeemster to take photos of the tulip fields and some of the old charming farm houses (pictured). Next we drove to Middenbeemster, the centre of the polder. Middenbeemster hosts the polder visitor centre which was worth visiting. The visitor centre is kept up by volunteers and had many free brochures about the polder and the surrounding area (I picked up great map of defensive water …

As I had been to the Bangladeshi Sundarbans already in 2007, the visit to its Indian counterpart felt superfluous: this should be one transboundary WHS of course. And it felt even more like a chore because the visitor experience on the Indian side doesn’t come exactly recommended: I scouted for a “better” lodge to stay the night or a more imaginative tour, but all come with mixed reviews (or worse) online. So I settled for a private day trip from Kolkata. This one also suffered from poor communication beforehand, but fortunately, the logistics on the day itself worked perfectly.

A driver picked me up at 5 a.m. from my Kolkata hotel. The drive to Godhkali this early in the morning takes only 2h15 minutes (on the way back, it would be 3 hours). When you leave Kolkata’s city limits, the typical landscape dominated by creeks and channels begins. 

In Godhkali, I was handed over like a postal package to a ferryman who put me on land at the next island, and on his turn delivered me to a waiting taxi that drove me in 15 minutes across the island to another dock. This is a densely inhabited island, it looked quite idyllic but it has suffered greatly from the devastating cyclone in 2020 and is also at risk due to rising water levels. It is protected by a low mud dike covered in plastic that looks very sketchy.

My private boat was waiting at the second dock …

I visited Alvaro Siza's Bouca housing complex as well as the faculty of architecture of the university of Porto on oct.the 20th,2024. I had already visited his designed tea house and the pool/piscina das Mares in his native Matosinhos a few years ago.I have also been several times to the portuguese pavillon of the expo 98 in Lisboa-Oriente(now closed to the public due to renovation works).

I even live only about 10 minutes' walk from one of his works, the Bonjour Tristesse building in Berlin, but it should better be called Welcome Tristesse because it is a pretty unsightly and unpleasant building that reminds you of the banlieues of Paris or the big and gray social housing projects in West Germany in the 1970s.

Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira, is one of the most important contemporary european architects. In Portugal, Siza is considered the main representative of modernism. No doubt that he is an important architect of our time, but I don't see any OUV in his work. And in contrast to the famous Bauhaus architects, his buildings did not found a new movement or lay the foundation for a new look for many cities. There are important architects like him in many countries and regions on our planet-there are a dime a dozen. I dont see why his works should be considered something from another planet. Personally, I don't find his Expo pavilion, teahouse or pool in Matosinhos to be from a different dimension. The architecture …

We visited Sitio Roberto Burle Marx in Sep 2022, when Rio was experiencing several days of torrential rain. I had to cancel our first two attempts to visit due to the weather, but the rain hadn't stopped even on the day we finally went. Although this review is two years overdue, I thought I'd document my experience visiting the site and share some thoughts about Burle Marx, whom people have both criticised and revered.

Getting started

We took an Uber from our accommodation in Ipanema to the site, and the trip took a bit longer than the usual hour-long journey. As previous reviews have emphasised, it’s essential to book ahead since the guided tours have limited capacity. We checked in at the gate and waited at the administration building. I took a copy of the visitor's guide, which proved helpful when trying to remember our tour.

The tour started on time and lasted for about 1.5 hours. The guide gave us the usual introduction to the site and the life of Roberto Burle Marx. As expected, the guide praised Burle Marx’s contributions to modernist landscape design and pointed out that the dude is more than just landscape architect–he was also a painter, printmaker, and jewellery designer. The guide also told us that the visitable area is just a small portion of the property, which includes forested areas at the foothills of Barra de Guaratiba. Walking through the gardens it was clear that Burle Marx had planted various …

I visited the Convent of Christ in the portuguese city of Tomar on the 13th of oct,2024.

I entered the convent early in the morning exactly at the moment when a big american tourist group left their bus and had the same goal....I was totally surrounded by those elderly american tourists so that I missed the ticket counter and entered the area without paying the admission fee. I feared for the worst ....a totally overcrowded tourist place....but the convent is huge. Therefore after fleeing from that group with its loud guide by just skipping the first two rooms I had the luck to be alone in almost all rooms for the next 30-40 minutes.

The convent is huge,very huge. I needed some time to find my way forth and back as I didnt follow the official route as I urgently needed a coffee after around 10 minutes of my visit there,and the cafe is quite far away from the entrance gate.

Anyway! After having had a coffee and a pastel de nata I went to the adjacent garden as I heard some strange noise from there. To my surprise, I encountered large groups of people dressed in medieval clothing with crossbows. It turned out that on that day in various places in the outdoor area of ​​the various gardens and the adjacent castle with its gardens (there is direct access between the castle and the convent, but it was not passable for normal visitors) a competitive shooting …

Visited in May 2023.It should be understood right away that the city is located in the south of Lebanon, a region controlled by Hezbollah, so this factor should be taken into account when planning a visit. I visited this city when the situation was more or less calm.Although these political factors are not particularly felt in the historical center, there is a specially designated area with recognizable symbols, but in the tourist zone tourists walk in shorts and short dresses, alcohol is sold, and no tension was felt.Also, I covered some gestalt, because in the last couple of years I visited several Mediterranean colonies founded by Phoenician Tyre, the most famous of them are Carthage and Cadiz. And from school, I remember the story of how Alexander the Great besieged the Phoenicians' fortress on the island for seven months, built a special dam and finally destroyed the city when he managed to capture it.The archaeological complex in Tyre occupies a huge area, divided into two zones, but it belongs to Roman times, the Phoenician city practically remained under the attack of the sea.In one zone (Al-Mina) there are an arena (for some reason rectangular), a palaestra, and baths. Theoretically, the foundations of the Crusader cathedral, where Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was supposed to be buried, should also be located there, but they cannot be reached.The second area (Al Bass) is more interesting as it has a giant necropolis with many different types of burials and a huge hippodrome with the remains …

I visited the Forbidden City in June 2024. You need to buy the tickets for the palace beforehand online. I did it through the official site and had no problems with it. Tickets become available 7 days in advance and if you plan to visit on weekend, on public holiday or during the morning slot you need to be on the website right when new batch of tickets become available. I found the afternoon tickets to be available even for next day on some weekdays but I scored for myself morning ticket during a weekday.

This site will be busy no matter when you visit and it becomes apparent already at the Tiananmen East metro station as you might need to queue even to exit the station. After exiting the Tiananmen East metro station the info signs will guide you towards eastern entrance to Forbidden City but I followed the masses to the Tiananmen Square. From there you walk through the Gate of Heavenly Peace with Mao looking at you peacefully from his iconic giant portrait. After multiple ticket and security checks you finally arrive to the Meridian Gate where the actual Forbidden City palace complex starts.

After walking through the Meridian Gate you are already stunned by the view of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the Golden Stream that flows through the courtyard. Through west side of the courtyard you can visit Hall of Martial Valour that housed ceramics exhibition at the time of my visit, …

I guess I should do justice to the city my father lives in and write a review for this site, even if i doubt it will ever be inscribed.

I have gone to Plasencia more times than I care to count. Tbf to my father, who took me there every 2 weeks, It has a rather monumental historic centre which has been preserved pretty well. The city has kept a big portion of its medieval walls, there's multiple civil and eclesiastical palaces and of course there's the cathedral. Overall it's a pretty solid medieval small city, with a lively atmosphere and an enormous half finished cathedral. It's pretty though rather unremarkable.

Trujillo takes us to another period entirely. Extremadura was one of the poorest regions in the kingdom of Castille during the 15th century. It was also a heavily militarized region as it marked the border with Portugal. As such, when word spread around that a new route to the indies had been found and that the crown needed young adventurers to tame the land, extremadura was one of the first regions to respond. In short, many of the most famous conquistadores were extremaduran. This is the case of Hernan cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Nuñez de balboa, Pedro de Alvarado, Pedro de Valdivia, Hernando de Soto, Francisco de Orellana, etc. And it turns out that one of the most succesful (Francisco Pizarro) was born in Trujillo. When he came back to his hometown, he built a four story palace …

I apologize for all the other reviews that compare Robben Island to other sites including Alcatraz. Robben Island just like all those other sites are separate entities that have their own unique history. Its like comparing coffee to tea because they are both liquids. The deep history, if you listen to the guides and former prisoner is immensely chilling. Africans were still political prisoners into the mid 1990's. They didn't even get the right to vote until 1994. 

Yes, lining up early might not be your and ten getting into a crowded bus to tour the island is not first class. One has to remove themself from a complaining mindset and instead think about it all as a learning experience, it would have been a lot more enjoyable for you. We need to appreciate everything that these folks have gone through and fought for that we as citizens of other countries take take advantage of.

I went there today for the third time, and finally was able to see the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. You have to go through Gate 1, instead of 4 or 5 that lead you to the Pyramid of the Moon or the Pyramid of the Sun. There aren’t as many tourists as there were at the other pyramids, which is a good thing. I climbed up a fairly well-maintained set of stairs to the platform, which was a pyramid build in front and on top the Feathered Serpent. The newer pyramid thus shielded the lower portion of old one from damage throughout the past 1,500 years or so. The platform itself has solid rails and was quite safe.

As to the sculptures, they are spectacular and give the whole site another dimension. I would recommend a visit to the Anthropological in Mexico City to see the fully colored replicas before going to the site to truly appreciate it.

I visited the Torre do Tomba building on oct.the 9th after having visited the whs palace in Mafra as the buses to and from Mafra start and end in the bus station of Campo Grande which is very near the Lisboa university area. The Torre do Tomba is almost in the middle of that area.

The metro station "Citade Universitaria" is also just a few minutes away from the Torre do Tomba.

I had already been several times to the Belem area of Lisboa so that this time I decided not to visit it again, even though it seems to be part of the tentative serial world heritage site.

The Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (shortly and officially until 1823 Torre do Tombo) is the portuguese national archive in Lisbon and is one of the oldest continuously existing institutions in Portugal.

Since at least 1378, the most important documents of the portuguese royal crown were housed in the Torre do Tombo, the main tower of the Castelo de São Jorge. .

The tower was destroyed in the Great Lisbon Earthquake in 1755. Most of the documents were saved. In 1757 they were transferred to the monastery of São Bento in Porto.

As part of the Liberal Revolution in the 1820s and early 1830s, relations with the Holy See were broken off, the monasteries were dissolved and the monastery archives were confiscated. The documents stored there were transferred to Lisbon, which significantly increased the …

If you're staying on the Istrian coast then an excursion to Motovun (30-40 minutes away) makes for an enjoyable couple of hours. My suggestion would be look for a few other interesting hilltop villages and make a trip combining them.The problem with Motovun is its size, it's a very small village and once you have walked the defensive walls, stopped in the village square for a drink and mooched around one or two of the many shops selling local wine, you're struggling to keep yourself interested.Possibly the best thing about the village is view from the approach road, where the walled village sites magnificently on top of the hill and surveys all around it.A word of warning for the less mobile, cars, busses and taxis are not allowed up the final stretch that takes you into the village and it's quite steep and, being cobbled, quite uneven too.It is lovely, just don't expect too much.

Visited in February 2023.

Like Havana, Santiago de Cuba is built on a bay that goes deep enough into the land. Like in Havana, the fairly narrow entrance to this bay was easily protected by fortification systems. The Spaniards spared them no money. The island was a transshipment base for armadas of galleons loaded with precious metals from the New World, and pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries began to attack cities with the aim of extracting booty from them.The fortress on the rocky promontory of El Morro, 10 km from Santiago (easy taxi ride), began to be built in 1638 under the leadership of the Milanese engineer Giovanni Battista Antonelli, and it was done intermittently until the end of the century (and then expanded further). As a result, a powerful four-level fortification came out, descending in tiers from the top of the cape to the surface of the water.When the pirates got out, the fort was used as a prison, and then it was completely abandoned. But in the 1960s it was restored quite carefully and is considered the largest and best preserved example of Spanish-Italian Renaissance bastion fortifications in the Americas. The most pleasant impression is the opportunity to observe the harbor from the fortifications, and then you understand the idea of ​​the creators of the fortress.