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Our family spent 4 nights in a cabin in Gatlinburg, which is the Tennessee entrance into the park. Because we had little children with us, it was nice having our cabin so close to the town center. We took in Newfound Gap, which has a beautiful overlook and the site of the World Heritage Site plaque. Also worthwhile was Cades Cove. We were fortunate that even though we were there during the first week of June, summer vacation had not yet started for school children so it was not as crowded as it can be later in the season. We were also excited to see bears in the woods as well as in the meadow. The highlight was watching a black bear play with her three cubs. It was especially wonderful to share this moment with our 3-year-old daughter!

I not only visited the site, I used to live there from 1956 to 1971. The place is a beatyful sample of the arquitecture of the time, although it has been modified during it´s working time, it still keeps the flavor of the past glory.

It is a shame that the people encharged of it´s preservation haven´t done anything to prevent it to collapse. It needs an external help desperatly. I hope you could do something to protect it

There are some people who have been working for the last three years. You can contact them in the following mail: fotovisa@yahoo.com.mx

There was almost no reason to visit Bourges, since the city was quite off the beaten track for normal tourists and the nearby Loire Valley was far more attractive; however, this city had a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it was the sole reason to bring me here to admire the beautiful Cathedral of Saint Etienne.

When my train approached to Bourges, I could saw the Cathedral dominating the city skyline like I had seen at Chartres, but when I was in the city itself; surprisingly quite hard to find this big cathedral since it was well hidden behind the rows of old buildings, really easy to bypass this giant without notice it at all! The cathedral was really beautiful, its stained-glass windows, vaults, pillars were just all amazing, a real masterpiece, truly one of the great cathedrals. Not only was the Cathedral, its formal French garden also lovely and very photogenic.

If Bourges Cathedral was in other country, this place must really be a great tourist attraction, but France was a country with load of beautiful Gothic cathedrals and if seeing Notre-Dame or Saint Chapelle in Paris or the one in Chartres and Amiens or even Strasbourg before, all were WHS, those places definitely made Bourges to be just another nice cathedral for visitors’ opinion.

Since Bourges Cathedral was really beautiful, but this was my sixth WHS Gothic Cathedral I saw in France, I believed this was too much for just one country and all were …

The Petrified Forest is surreal. You might imagine the surface of another planet would look like this. The landscape is desolate yet beautiful. The fascinating petrified wood is scattered everywhere. The Petrified wood being hundreds of millions of years old it's a humbling display of our ancient world. The park could be separated into two unique sections, the petrified wood landscape in the south and the Painted Desert in the northern section. You need at least 2-3 hrs to visit the park properly. Enjoy this wondrous place, and if you go in the summer bring an umbrella and sun tan lotion.

Recently, the park has expanded to include large areas to the East and West. This area includes countless petroglyphs and a section of Route 66 is protected in the park. The proximity of this NPS site is near Navajo Nation, which should be on anyone's itinerary if you have the time. Flagstaff is the nearest location for a central point to make trips in this part of Arizona.

I love Riga, specialy the World Heritage Site, yours nice buildings Art Nouveau. Each detail is so special. I saw a video in the Riga Art Nouveau Museum about the buildings and their architects. I'd like to buy on DVD like that.

I wish every old building will be restored.

Since ancient time Sankt Gallen, the capital city of the canton of the same name, was well known for its magnificent abbey which was one of most important monastery in this region and was on my wish list to see for a long time. During my Switzerland tour, I took the Voralpen scenic train from Lucerne to Sankt Gallen, the scenery of pre-alpine region was really pretty and I highly recommended using this train as a mean of transportation to enter the city.

From the train station, it was very easy to reach the abbey by just walk along the lovely car free shopping street until you started to notice the huge complex on your right. The complex was very large with many buildings built encircled the cathedral. Actually I was quite disappointed with the complex's exterior, apart from the cathedral; these buildings were really plain with nothing significant to mention. The unbelievable greenish lawn and the two towers of the cathedral apse were the things to see. However for cathedral's interior, I was really impressed with the beautiful Rococo style and in my opinion, the green stucco decorating the naves were very unique as I had never seen this color in Rococo decoration before.

The monastic library was another highlight of this abbey, hiding in the very plain building both exterior and interior which made me not sure that I was in the correct place, but when I worn the big slippers, for protecting the wooden floor, and entered …

Reichenau is a small island in Lake Constance. It can be reached in a short bus ride from Konstanz. On a sunny day, it is very pleasant to explore the island, which is about 5 by 2 km in size, by bicycle or on foot - as I did. You walk through fields and small villages, and along the scenic lakeshore. The 3 WHS-inscribed churches are located in the northern, central and southern parts of the island. All 3 were inscribed because of their medieval murals and the role the island played in the spread of Christianity in the Middle Ages. The Benedictine convent of Reichenau was closely connected to the one in St. Gall, which is only a short train ride away. The best murals can be seen in St. George, while the other 2 are less impressive. The biggest church is in the centre and has a nice treasury. The inscription on the WH list seems to be justified because of the historic importance of the island, but today there is not that much to see anymore. There is a small and very interesting museum in the main village, but today most people come for hiking and cycling.

When my flight to Malta and its 3 WHS was canceled because of the volcano, I made a nice train trip instead to St. Gall in Switzerland. It is a medium-sized town with a very pleasant centre full of historic buildings and half-timbered houses. The religious complex in the immediate city centre, consisting of the cathedral and the convent, is a World Heritage Site. Both buildings have a medieval (Carolingian) origin, but were heavily rebuilt in Baroque style. Both are quite nice, but the unmissable part is the library. You can actually only visit one room, but it is full of books and manuscripts that are up to 1,200 years old. A must-see for any history buff.

Regensburg's nomination dossier seems to document every single structure in town. This will make great historical material in a few hundred years! ICOMOS however was not amused and complained that it's not about the number of sites but about the themes they represent.

I made good use of the lists of structures from all ages and plotted the most interesting sounding ones on a map of Regensburg. I visited the town on a day trip from Bamberg. A good place to start is the historical museum, which holds a large exhibition on the local Roman history. It shows how the Roman military camp developed into a town. All are very well displayed, although signs are in German only. The entrance fee is 2,20 EUR.

I then checked out two of the most prominent tower-houses, something that I never expected to see here. Most of the buildings here look very new, they have been restored extensively in the 1990s. They all have signs telling their historical value. Some sites I couldn't link to the description in the nomination file however, for example I noticed no wood at all at "the oldest completely preserved wooden building in Germany" (Keplerstrasse 12).

Back on my way to the train station I had a quick look at the Monastery of St. Emmeram. It still has very old frescoes on its facade. In all, I spent about 3.5 hours in town and I had to rush at the end to catch my train.

I'm afraid I will not second the raving reviews below. However I might just have caught Bamberg on a bad day: there were streams of tourists milling around (some of them even aboard pseudo-Venetian gondolas), a number of stag/hen parties, some drunks occupying park benches, a couple of homeless. I even encountered a loud group of whom one person used the Nazi salute. There's a jail sentence for that in Germany.

The city itself reminded me a lot of Strasbourg - its riverside location, typical German construction style and the cathedral. But of course, there are some worthwhile things to see. The former City Hall is the most prominent of these. It has splendid frescoes on the outside. I also liked the courtyard of the Old Palace.

This Old Palace now houses the Historical Museum. It has a number of not too interesting exhibitions. Currently, there's also a photo exhibition about WHS in Nepal, Cambodja and Thailand which is worth a look at. I almost had to stay forever in the historical museum as I kept going around in rounds without finding the exit. Fortunately, an employee came to my rescue...

lumbini a nice place to be .

i went there 10 years with my brother, sister-in-law and their kid. At that time a new temple were being made. We did sightseeing through Rikshaw . We conducted puja and gave a little bit of remarkable thing which we have still in home.

It is simple but it's simplicity is very unique as it adds the historic panoroma to the world. Lumbini is the place for meditation it's quite surroundings will let u be there forever.

We took several pictures it was truely a sparkling place to be. If u are looking for a nice and beautiful place to do meditation or to see historic place be there. Can't express in words how nice it is """LUMBINI - in NEPAL"""

I visited the Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall. There is an informative website (how to get there, opening hours, etc.) at http://www.geevor.com/

I took bus no 17 from Penzance. There are a couple of buildings one can visit and a very interesting underground tour to a mine tunnel - highly recommended.

All the mines in the area were family businesses, with just 10-20 employees. The Geevor mine is about 300 years old and was just recently discovered.

If you stay in Penzance, there are lots of other great places to visit in the area: St Ives, Minack theater, Scilly island, etc.

"Major Mining Sites of Wallonia" consists of four separate sites: Le Grand-Hornu, Bois-du-Luc, Bois du Cazier and the mine of Blegny. They represent coal mining in the 19th century when Belgium was the 2nd most important industrial nation.

I set out to visit Le Grand-Hornu and Bois-du-Luc on a day trip from my home in the Netherlands. These two former mines are located about 30kms apart, in the same region as 2 other Walloon WHS (Spiennes & the Four Lifts).

Le Grand-Hornu already is a pleasant surprise at first sight. It stands out as an architectural diamond in a poor-looking neighbourhood and looks very well-maintained. This former mine complex now houses a couple of exhibition rooms, a restaurant, and the Walloon Museum of Modern Art. The entrance was free today, as was the pretty good audio guide that is available in several languages.

During the first minutes of the one-hour tour, the narrator of the guide already tells you: this is not really a visit to a mine: there's nothing left of the works underground. You come here to see the neoclassical buildings, modelled after Arc-et-Senans. Unfortunately, I've never seen this French WHS, so I cannot compare how much they look alike (and if this prevents its Belgian counterpart to become a WHS also).

The main area of Grand-Hornu is an amazing oval square, surrounded by former ateliers, offices and a building that housed the steam machine. Most of the construction is made of brick. Henri …

Quite how this ended up on the World Heritage list I’m not sure. Whilst it is a fairly pleasant place, it seems to be pretty unremarkable. When we visited there were fairly large crowds of Russian tourists waiting to clamber up one of the Towers, we joined the queue and were left wondering why. There was almost nothing to see inside the castle and you couldn’t even get a good view out. The rear side of the castle has gone through some pretty heavy restoration, in preparation of being turned into a hotel.

The most impressive thing about the castle was the exterior, especially when viewed from the other side of the ornamental pond.

To pick up on Christer’s comments below, I would say I was in full agreement with this. Whilst the sites we visited in Belarus were quite some way from being ‘World Class’ the country itself was a bit of a surprise. We visited it partly to see ‘the grim last remnant of the Soviet Union’, but actually found a fairly prosperous, very modern and extremely friendly country. The roads leading to Mir from Minsk and Nesvizh were absolutely superb, and by far the tidiest highway I have ever been along.

Mir was not a particular highlight of our trip, however getting to see something of the country outside Minsk made this a worthwhile day trip when combined with nearby Nesvizh.

This was the second WHS we visited on our day trip from Minsk. It was certainly more impressive than Mir, the castle was complemented by a large park and lake and also several sites in the town proper.

In 2010 there was still a fair bit of (re)construction going on, but it has evidently progress since Christer’s photo was taken. One wing of the castle was open and contained a small exhibition on the castle as well as items from the Radziwill’s extensive library and some unremarkable reconstructed rooms. There was a little more to see than at Mir, but still you would not be missing out on much if you were to forego the castle interior.

By far the most impressive thing we saw was the interior of the Corpus Christi church which is located in the town just before heading out on the causeway to the castle. The Fresco’s inside were incredible and a real surprise. It was like being suddenly transported to Italy, if you have made it this far then this is something that really should not be missed. There was also a crypt containg the remains of many members of the Radziwill family. The influence of the Radziwill family can be found across many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and the layout of the town and castle have also had their effect.

This site was by far the better of the two WHS we visited on this day trip from Minsk and hopefully will …

My journey to the Citadel started with a young lady in 1979. I had barely heard of Haiti and we had only enough money for a one-way ticket from St. Maarten to Port au Prince. What a fine adventure! A bus ride to Cap Haiten where she knew of a delightful hotel of windows with no glass. Riding on top of Tap Taps we eventually got to the donkeys for the trip up to the Citadel. Children appeared out of the woods to serande us up with long-tubed wooden horns (much longer than they were tall) that bellowed like fog horns. We were "welcomed" to the fort by what was once a dog now being washed for dinner as it hung outside a tower window. The forts' chamber were ghostly beautiful; ornate cannons ready to fire mounds of cannon balls at French phantoms. We were told that syphilis-mad Henri Christophe once ordered an entire regiment to march off the fort's wall to their death. Thanks to Kippi Dupont and his plane, we were able to leave Haiti but I'll never forget those three days or the magnificent Citadel!

For some reason I really liked Minsk. It isn't rammed full of must see sites and isn't really the prettiest place in the world, however I enjoyed the three days I was based here.

This proposal for World Heritage listing was what is now called Nezavisimosty Avenue (but in all likelihood this will be renamed at some stage in the future when the Political whim has changed to something else) this is the central street in the city and one that was mostly built in grand Soviet Architecture, following the cities almost total obliteration during the Great Patriotic War (WWII to those of us from the west). It is actually a quite a long ensemble, about 3km, taking in many fine edifices and large sweeping squares. There are still remnants of the Soviet Union; Statues of Lenin, KGB headquarters and GUM Centralised Shop (best place for souvenirs and a taste of shopping soviet style) but these now sit alongside modern capitalist facades, including a huge McDonald's (on the intersection with Lenin Street of all places).

We spent a great day walking from Nazalezhnasti Square, decorated for the upcoming 65th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, all the way through to Victory square. We then ducked of into Gorky park to 'enjoy' a cool glass of Kvass and watch the May Day festivities with the friendly population of the city. This gave us a look at the roofs on the pedestrian subways that supposedly led to it being rejected …

In the beautiful Jura mountain of Neuchatel canton near French border is where La Chaux-de-Fonds located, the third largest French speaking city of Switzerland and one of the most unique world heritage site in terms of inscription reason. There were many world heritage sites under the category of urban planning, La Chaux-de-Fonds’ nomination was dedicated to watch making industry city which in my opinion, a very interesting way to introduce the city as Cité Horlogère.

Admittedly La Chaux-de-Fonds actually was not in my original Switzerland plan, due to severely bad weather in the Jungfrau area, I had to cancel and need to go somewhere else instead, and La Chaux-de-Fonds was the chosen one since it was only 1.30 hour from Zurich by express train. The scenery between Biel and La Chaux-de-Fonds in May maybe one of the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in this country, the Heidi land with countless hills of beautiful alpine flowers, a great compensation to Jungfrau.

When I reached the city, I directly went to the famous international museum of watch making. The museum was great for watch enthusiasts and its collections easily could keep everyone inside for hours from early industrial clocks to futuristic ones or from heavily gilded watches with jewels to colorful plastic ones, one of the best museums of this region. However apart from the museum, I could not find anything special from the city except a city was well designed in block pattern liked New York’s Manhattan, and few pretty …

I just returned from a visit to Kathmandu this April. I was hugely disappointed to see that Kathmandu was no longer the "lush tropical paradise amidst the Himalayas" that I had pictured it to be, but rather the worst example of uncontrolled urban sprawl and air pollution that I have ever seen. When I arrived in the valley after crossing through the hills we could practically cut the air with a knife! I asked one of my tour guides about air pollution controls and was told that these were in place, but that the police who were supposed to enforce the "green sticker" policy for vehicles in Kathmandu regularly accepted bribes in exchange for the green sticker on the windshield of vehicles permitted to drive in the city.

Nevertheless, I loved the people and spirituality that permeated every street and alleyway of Kathmandu. It is practically impossible to walk anywhere without stumbling over a stupa or some kind of shrine, no matter how small, and the people were some of the kindest and gentlest people I have met on my travels.

I will definitely visit Kathmandu and other parts of Nepal again in future and can only hope that some of the conditions will have improved by then.

Idanre hill is fantactic in all ramifications. The rocky nature and mountainous terrian make the hill unique. It is a place for fun seekers and who seek to appreciate but,cannot stop wondering the wonders of nature...

Its indeed a place to be for a lifetime experience.