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The Tentative Site of Ugarit (or Ugrarit) lies just outside the Syrian coastal city of Latakia. The archeological site is fenced, staffed, has some information panels in Arabic, English and French and requires an entry fee. It is foremostly known for its revolutionary role in the history of writing: the scribes in this trade city invented the first phonetically based script, the first alphabet of 30 letters, to cater to the speakers of many different languages passing through that needed their services.

Their city flourished in the late Bronze Age, in the second millennium BC, when the Ugaritic Kingdom controlled lands deep into what is now northwestern Syria. Of course, as WH Travellers we know what to expect visiting a site as old as this, but my four trip mates bailed out at the first sight of this field of stones. They waited in the shade at the entrance for me to finish my private tour with a local guide.

The site was only rediscovered in 1928 and is largely unexcavated. Still, the outlines of the vast Royal Palace complex are easy to see: it had no less than 90 rooms. Much of the grounds is now overgrown with weeds – more a sign of the fertility of the ground here than a lack of maintenance, I was told. We even found the discarded skin of a snake, so from that point on, we tried to avoid areas with high grass.

The archive room where the clay tablets using the …

The Santa Barbara Mine was one of the most important mines in the Western Hemisphere in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The mine provided the mercury to separate the silver that was mined in Mexico and Bolivia. The mine was also k own as the mine of death, as numerous laborer, mostly indigenous died during the mining operations.

The mine is located above the very pretty colonial city of Huancavelica, which was one of my favorite cities to visit in Peru. Huancavelica is rarely visited by foreign tourists, as it is off the main tourist route. I reached it from Ayacucho. You can reach it through infrequent buses, that usually requires a transfer. I hired my own vehicle and driver. An expensive option, but a beautiful 4 hour drive. Huancavelica is much more accessible from Huancayo - which is where I went after, there are also a few overnight buses to Lima.

the mine site is located 7 kilometers from town by a very pretty, and not too strenuous walk. There is also a good dirt road - which is about 15 kilometers in distance. There is no public transport, but it would be easy to hire a taxi in town. I walked the trail (which connects to the road) there and back.

I had the site to myself. There are a few signs mostly in Spanish, with some English translation. The first place you encounter is the now closed, concentrating plant. This actually was built in early 20th century. …

We based ourselves in Ohrid old town for 1 week in September 2025 to explore the town as well as the eastern coast of Lake Ohrid. We did not get an opportunity to explore any of the Albanian side of this inscribed site. There are many sites within Ohrid itself to visit in the old town and there are a significant number of 'small' Churches and Mosques dotted throughout the township. The significant sites though that we found were Samuel's fortress, the Church of Saints Clements of Ohrid, located in the Plaoshnik Archaeological Park, Church of Hagia Sophia and the iconic church you see in all the photos, Church of Saint Jovan. Much of the old walls remain around the old town.

It was interesting to arrive in Ohrid after the near miss that this UNESCO inscription received in 2025 about nearly being Listed as in danger, in the main due to the lack of infrastructure planning (and approvals) in the Region with the degradation of its Natural and Cultural Heritage. You can certainly witness the construction boom in the area. It is evident. It may be only a slight thing, but even in the beautiful little courtyard area we stayed in the old town, you can see modifications to buildings and structures that definitely are not keeping with the historical context of the building themselves. I am hoping that this jolt of a near miss by them this year, that this is rectified going forward. A week in Ohrid …

Let's start this sobering review with a Fun Fact: Apamea was named after Apamee, the first wife of Seleucid ruler Seleucus I Nicator (c. 358 BC – 281 BC). His second wife, Stratonice, also had a Tentative Site named after her: Stratonikeia. If he had had three wives, that would have made a great connection!

Although it is not as well-known, Apamea comes close to the regional biggies of Ephesus and Palmyra in terms of the importance of its Roman remains. It first blossomed during the Macedonian-Hellenistic Seleucid period, and later became an important Roman provincial capital with 117,000 inhabitants. It was damaged (by earthquakes and wars), rebuilt and restyled many times in its history.

Apamea gained some recent notoriety due to its “lunar landscape of looters’ holes”: evidence of large-scale industrial looting that occurred during the Syrian Civil War, as observed in satellite views by researchers from afar. They were dug by local treasure hunters seeking ancient artifacts when archaeological site protection fell apart. More background on its war history can be found here. From the sky it looked like this:

I shared the image beforehand with my Syrian guide, who had not been to Apamea since the war, and he was shocked. More recent satellite views show that some of the holes are overgrown now, but at the site itself, they still stand out. Directly to the left of the start of the Great Colonnade, we saw a big hole that still held a …

I was not going to do a review on this site as Frederik Dawson had only just completed one not more than 2 months ago, which I read prior to visiting. His experience was not great, so my expectations were low. That being said, it informed my decision making and I had a better visitor experience than Frederik thanks to his review, so wanted to share my tips to assist others.

We are staying in Saranda, so noting the carparking issue and the visitor experience, we wanted to visit as early as we could. A local bus leaves on the hour from Saranda. We caught the bus 200LEK one way ($3.50AUD) at 8.00am to coincide with the opening time of 9.00am, arriving at 8.45am, we lined up with about 30 others to enter the Park and Archaeological UNESCO site. It costs 1000LEK for entry ($18.50AUD) which was very reasonable with a number of free pamphlets supplied in different languages that provide a map of the site and highlights key parts of the ancient city and a brief history.

September was much cooler walking around the open aired site and visiting early allowed opportunities to visit key areas in the site without too many other visitors present to detract your experience, views or ambience of the area. I actually got photos and videos with no other persons present. After about 2 hours though, you started to see the large tour groups and visitors grow expeditiously, even in the shoulder / off …

The Ancient Villages of Northern Syria have been inaccessible during Syria’s Civil War due to their proximity to the front line between the Syrian Army and the “rebel” capital of Idlib. With the former rebels now in control of the entire country, this region is also open to tourists. I went to Serjilla, supposedly the best-preserved village, but the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites (further north) had also been visited by my local guide recently with a foreign tourist. The 2025 State of Conservation report states that some villages, including Serjilla, were still off-limits due to the presence of landmines, but this is apparently no longer the case (although we were warned not to stray from the paths).

Serjilla is remote for West Syrian standards: it lies at the far end of a large limestone massif. Limestone is still mined in that area from open-pit quarries. It’s a harsh region with only some olive trees growing. The narrow access road is bumpy. We were welcomed by the sight of a shepherd with a large herd of sheep crossing the site – it would have been a classic picture if the sun had been on the other side!

The site is, as with so many now in Syria, unsupervised. My 2006 Bradt Guide of Syria speaks of a “ticket office”. But now there is none. The state of the buildings, considering they were built in the 5th to 7th centuries, is excellent. It’s one of those “Frozen in Time”-WHS (like Pompeii), …

As others have said already said: Ouro Preto inhabitants must be pretty fit to walk around the inner town. Sure the town has its flatter part but you won't get anywhere on foot unless you are prepared to hike up and down. The cobble roads aren't even that great for long walks. The other downside for me was that I actually drove here. A bus would be better because you can just get off from Belo Horizonte and then do your sightseeing, return when ready. It took me a good 20 minutes to find a parking space that didn't seem illegal. While some just parked at the bus stop and resident plaques aren't always kept in line I was sure the spot (down the hill) was actually legal. So with that out of way I first had to hike up to start looking around. The central square (pictured) is clearly a good spot to start. Unfortunately there was some renovation going on at the churches and they looked covered up. No big deal because there is plenty of stuff to see and I feel the scenery around town is another highlight.

The other downside I had, as you can see from the picture, is that the weather wasn't playing nice. It was grey and dark so the scenery wasn't as wonderful as I was hoping for. It's still nice and the drive to and from the town is already a highlight. Thus the main thing I saw was the colonial …

Along with Palmyra, Aleppo presents the saddest story among Syria’s WHS. Tours in the past would allocate two days to it, spending the night in one of the traditional Syrian houses converted into hotels, like those still found in Damascus. Unfortunately, the latter were as flattened as the rest of the Old City due to fighting during the Civil War and the 2023 earthquake. Like most other foreigners and business people, we stayed at the modern Riga Palace Hotel just outside.

There is still enough to see, however, to fill a full day. We started our walking tour at the Baron Hotel. The interior of this famed establishment was severely damaged during the earthquake. On the outside, it still looks fine. It has been closed for months and is up for sale.

The Maronite Cathedral was hit by a bomb, which destroyed the wooden ceiling and one of the clock towers. It has been restored with Italian money and looks splendid again. Like in the rest of Aleppo, marble is the main building material. The Cathedral serves 200 Maronite families in the city. We were warmly welcomed inside and got a “tour” from the caretaker’s young son, Tony, who was about 6 years old.

As with Mosul (Iraq), which I visited earlier this year, the churches and mosques seem to be restored first, but the houses and shops are still in rubble. The Great Mosque is not accessible at the moment – it suffered heavy damage, but at least …

When I started preparing for a visit to this WHS, I was wondering why this site is not limited to the famous Crac des Chevaliers only, but also includes Saladin Castle. They are very far apart (160 km), and the Crac seems to be the truly outstanding one. It turned out that Syria in 2006 even saw potential for a serial nomination, as the original name of the nomination was “Castles of Syria”. As suggestions for further extension, it mentions the castles of Marqab, Qal’at al-Mudiq and Shayzar. They probably wanted to shift the focus away from solely being from Crusader times and honouring Byzantine and Islamic periods as well. In their heydays, these hilltop castles communicated with each other by lighting fires.

The Crac des Chevaliers still stands proudly in the center of Syria. It has suffered little damage from the recent war and earthquake. It’s also well-established as a tourist site, with entrance fees (foreigner pricing!), explanations in English and even a plaque. Everything about it is enormous, as it was made for horses. The soldiers stationed here could survive for two years without needing replenishments from outside. A visit nowadays requires a fair number of stairs to climb all over the place.

Although there is little decoration in the interior, the castle is impressive because of the ingenuity of its design. There’s the almost impregnable outer wall, then a moat, and then another full castle inside all of this! It held a mosque, baths, the Hall of …

And there they were. The deer. Probably around twenty of them, resting unconcernedly on the short-cropped grass of… a local football field. I checked my map. Yep, they were definitely within the Core Zone of the World Heritage Site. I had spotted deer at a World Heritage Site devoted to deer-hunting. Could I count this as a tick? Only one problem: I was not in the World Heritage Site. I was sat on a train returning from Kronborg Castle. As the train rushed on the last thing I saw was a doe chewing placidly, staring at me through the goalposts.

Pity the hunter of World Heritage Sites! A limited time in Copenhagen, and yet I still had that itch to properly visit – to actually set foot inside – the Par Force Hunting Landscape of North Zealand, a site with a lowly 1.94 star rating on this site. And that meant dragging my family with me. So, three days later, there we were, partially retracing our steps to Klampenborg station. A quick crossing of the road found us entering the Jægersborg Dyrehave through the famous (among this community) oxide red-painted wooden gates. We turned right and – within five minutes – found our first deer. Just as the herd on the football pitch had been completely unfazed by the presence of the double-decker train passing 200m away, so too this doe and her fawn picking their way through the undergrowth were unbothered by the four tourists gawping at …

The waterwheels of Hama are one of the most iconic images of Syria. With their history of lifting water and supplying it into aqueducts to be used for irrigation since the Middle Ages, they should be a shoo-in whenever they get nominated, as every WHC loves a bit of water management. In addition to the technology, there's a whole traditional system of skilled noria carpenters behind it as well.

On the ground, however, they are disappointing. At least when you visit out of season, as I did: the wheels only turn in winter and spring, as only then is there enough water. The Orontes River in September was almost empty, except for the heaps of plastic trash that are unfortunately so common in Syria. It is also hard to see the large wooden wheels up close or to get to good viewpoints to take pictures. The best point in the city center is from the bridge.

We saw five of them in the city center; the other twelve or so remaining ones are scattered around the countryside near Hama. According to my guide, they are more impressive as they have a finer natural setting.

Hama itself has preserved its small historical urban zone quite well (at least that part that was left after the 1982 anti-Assad uprising, which was brutally ended), and you can follow the trajectory of the aqueducts. All but one of the waterwheels have survived the war (one was burned deliberately in 2014), but they suffer from …

I visited the Tabon caves together with my adopted Norwegian family (Randi & Svein) as part of our Tubbataha trip in April 2025. There are 7 caves you can visit on a guided tour. We were the only English-speaking visitors and thus got a guide just for the three of us. Even though it is a cultural site, about remains of early humans, it is probably the natural beauty of the caves, that strikes you first. The caves are reached by a board walk along the coast. They are connected by steep paths within the forest and each one is somehow unique. Most remains (especially burial jars) were found by Dr. Robert Fox. One of the caves still has the platform and digging holes of his last mission. There are a few replica jars in the visitor centre, but if you want to see the real deal, go to the Nation Museum of Anthropology in Manila (free entrance). After the cave hopping, we walked back to the visitor centre via a path in the forest. It was very hot and humid, but luckily there is a beach right next to the visitor centre, straight out of a dream holiday ad.

How to visit

There are daily tours at 9am and 1pm. You are supposed to prebook. This is oddly done via their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/nmptaboncaves. We did not prebook, but arrived shortly after 9am and were graciously included into the group, that was already watching the safety video. The …

I visited Ahmadabad twice. First was just to go to the wild ass sanctuary and I spent a quick hour in the city to "tick" this off, not even knowing where exactly the core zone was. You can see the old style building fronts all over town center so it wasn't much different. On my second trip in the area I wanted to tick this off better and did the entire core zone walk, which actually takes less than an hour.

There also many packages for this Heritage Walk. Those are not more than 2h and if it involves guiding that's not a lot of time. I think it was maybe a mile of walking overall. I took a auto-rickshaw to Jama Masjid aka Jama Mosque which also meant sitting around for a while. It's a relaxing place, quite pretty, even the caretaker let me take pictures inside even if it wasn't allowed. I would say this is nice but not exactly the part Ahmadabad would be inscribed for. From here you can leisurely walk along the hike. It has a few signs and is generally easy to follow. Not everything here is worth checking out. I would have a quick look at the Fernandes Bridge (inscribed as Fernandez as if there was a latino person in the area in the 19 hundreds), then Dalpatram Chowk and eventually the Swaminarayan Temple which is definitely the highlight of the tour. When I was there it was a bit under renovations but …

Ask a child to draw a train and they will draw the Bernina Pass train for you.

Everything is there to remind us of our tender childhood and the archetype of electric miniature trains: the railway track, the red locomotive, the tunnels, the bridges, the snow-capped mountain peaks reflected in a lake... the Swiss train that makes us dream in all its splendor!

We had already crossed the Bernina Pass once when we went to Italy in 2019. In Tirano, after having to let the red train pass in front of us on the road like a common tram and not at a conventional level crossing, I swore to myself that I would come back because I found it so strange that a train could take a street normally reserved for cars in any other place.

Beyond that, among the Alpine passes I know, the Bernina Pass is, in my opinion, the most beautiful. We had stopped at the parking lot of the pass inn with Wilson I (today's Wilson is Wilson II). From there, a footpath descends to a small lake and a small railway station.

This year, when planning my trip to Tunisia, I thought my first stop would be the Bernina Pass, but I overestimated the distances and stopped early. This wasn't a bad thing because it made me realize the very essence of the site's inscription: the need to open up a region that is difficult to access by train, with all the technical complications that …

Somehow Damascus felt very familiar: it is the quintessential Old Town of the Middle East, with narrow alleyways and busy souks selling everything, from spices to lingerie. Numerous comparisons came to my mind: Baghdad's Old Town, which is a 'new' construction, Tabriz has a similar covered bazaar, Cairo has more monumental mosques, and Istanbul has more imposing stand-alone buildings. But Damascus still has the fully intact historic fabric, and it is in authentic use by its population.

Behind small, unassuming doors, whole worlds open up. This both counts for today’s pleasures as well as past splendour. The weekends and evenings are very lively here: there are so many cafés (selling coffee, berry juice and ice cream) and shisha lounges in the courtyards of elegant converted townhouses. These are frequented by women as much as by men. It is no problem at all roaming around on your own in the Old City during the day or the evening.

I stayed for two nights in Dar Al Mamlouka, a traditional townhouse converted into a boutique guesthouse (a bit similar to those you find in Morocco or Tunisia). We visited two of the largest former townhouses as well. Maktab Anbar is a mid-19th-century mansion, built in the traditional Damascene way with three courtyards (one to receive male guests, one for the females in the family, and one for the servants). Especially the second one here is splendid, with ornate designs in the Damascene style. A garden with flowers and lemon trees, and the …

Palmyra is pretty far ‘out there’: on the 3-hour drive from Damascus, the only thing we saw was desert. It still needs a special permit to access (I visited in September 2025), but once you’re at the archaeological site itself, there is nothing: I guess it is “under control” of the Ministry of Tourism somehow, but there is no oversight, no tickets are being sold, etc. Five Bedouin men await the daily trickle of tourists with camel rides and souvenirs to sell. They are quite desperate and will follow you around.

It's a huge site, ruins everywhere. We spent 2.5 hours there, and although I made it to 12,000 steps, we did not see it all. We arrived around 9 a.m. to beat the scorching heat in this area, but at 11.30 the sun was so fierce that I retired to the shade inside the bus. And there were few other tourists, of course, only some Syrian daytrippers from Damascus. It was like having the Acropolis all to yourself.

The Temple of Baal used to be one of Palmyra’s main highlights. It lies uphill from the main residential area. Its outer walls were converted into a citadel in Arab times and that has survived pretty well. But inside, now only one lonely arch can be seen, plus a huge pile of rubble where the Temple once stood. Even if you, like me, have never been here before and you don’t really know what you’re missing, the devastation is shocking. It …

I visited Cape Town during April of 2025, which is near the summer of the Southern Hemisphere. I created a Youtube video on my channel for a more interactive way of reviewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3sRuFqcAzY&ab_channel=MscBonbon

I visited Robben Island in April 2025. Tourists have to book an official tour to visit this island. I booked a noon tour which is a mistake because it is blazing hot in the summer. I'm not sure why the but local guide, who was an ex prisoner, decided to talk about his experience and the history under the sun in the courtyard with no shade for 20 mins plus. So I would suggest going for morning tours. When I lined up at the docks, I didn't have to wait in the dock for too long and got on the boat straight away. My advice is to not arrive too early at the docks. Overall it was a good experience, and one definetly should visit to fully appreciate the hardship the prisoners suffered here. I understand the need of a tour bus because it is quite a barren and big island and you don't want stragglers or people to wander and get lost, or worse cause damage to places. I learned about some more famous prisoners (because I think everyone knows about Mandela) but actually Robert Sobukwe was also a very influential figure in the movement. Visiting this site will take a full day of your itinery even if you start early because the ship schedule is …

I had kept something up my sleeve in Palermo to make sure I caught the night ferry to Tunisia at the right time.

I stopped in Cefalu, about seventy kilometers from Palermo, with Wilson the mobile home with the aim of visiting its duomo the next day, and then going to Palermo to visit other sites of the Arab-Norman serial UNESCO heritage site.

In Cefalù, I parked discreetly in the large car park of the Hotel Santa Lucia, some distance from the town centre. This is the good thing because when you walk there, the town gradually reveals itself, with a beautiful view of the cathedral, the village and the Mediterranean (the introductory photo).

This cathedral, like the other properties in the list, has the particularity of bringing together different cultures of the 12th century AD: Western, Byzantine and Islamic, which seems unique to me. After admiring the main façade of the monument and once I entered the nave, the beauty of the mosaics in the apse amazed me: Christ Pantocrator and the secondary figures (especially angels) are fascinating in their majesty and harmony. Could we, as a fusion of cultures, consider this cathedral as a symbol of tolerance on the part of the Norman king Roger II, its builder? Or is it the expression of an ego that wanted to bring together the most skilled architects and craftsmen of his time on the site of his future burial? I don't know, but today I was delighted.

It was my …

The commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb have always fascinated me, although this quirky site probably already has earned enough international recognition by its inscription in the Memory of the World Register (2005). I also saw such a passage in Saudi Arabia, at Jabel Ikmah, with more than 300 historically significant carved inscriptions in different scripts by different civilisations passing through. Nahr El-Kalb is definitely more “Lebanese”, a bit chaotic, commemorating various foreign invaders that marked the difficult passage of this natural obstacle on the Lebanese coast and political influencers that just wanted to make a statement.

The site lies just off the main highway between Beirut and Tripoli. The turnoff is signposted, and the cliff with the stelae and inscriptions starts right there: so you have to be careful where you park and where you walk while taking pictures, as many cars will come around the corner at high speed. It is good to bring your own map to see which inscription is where, as there is little information on site. I have added the most appealing ones as Points of Interest to our map.

We parked right in front of the Napoleon III stele; it is the easiest to recognize as well. It dates from his 1860–61 intervention in Lebanon. To the left of it are two very old neo-Assyrian ones – the script here is faded, but the distinctive relief depicting a person can still be seen. There’s no chronological order among the inscriptions; people just used …

After returning from Lençóis Maranhenses National Park it's nice to be back in the city, and the area around the São Luis airport isn't exactly what you want either. I got a driver to take me to the historic center which is still half an hour away but it was totally worth it. You get "old town" cobble streets, old buildings, it's basically like going to an old French city. It's also amazing enough that you get the French remains in Brazil seeing that most was Portuguese inheritance.

I didn't spend much time here. From the palace dropoff it was 1-2 hour max to see everything. There is a map to see where to go. The area is quite small and none of the buildings but churches were open. I was also not that interested in the churches if you want to know. The streets were colorful, quite clean, VERY smelly for some reason (there was also a line of thunderboxes...) but I was happy to be in the area. I had dinner here to enjoy the scenery and surroundings, atmosphere. You get the usual avoidable issue like penny pinchers and overpriced drink stalls but no biggie. I can't give you a suggestion of where to start but at some point you'll hit the park in the center which is when you want to stick west and also there is a very cemented park at the west side. Because everything here is still used for courthouse, presidential palace (ok local …