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The occurrence of Montevideo’s Rambla on Uruguay’s Tentative List is an easy object of ridicule – haven’t we all seen Ramblas/Corniches/Promenades before at various places around the world? The List may even have enough already of them to warrant a (new) connection, depending on the criteria used: the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, Marine Drive in Mumbai (partly inscribed), the pedestrian-only Paseo del Morro in San Juan and the Terrasse Dufferin in Quebec are candidates. Havana’s Malecon I believe is outside of the core zone.

The Rambla of Montevideo stands out for two reasons: it is possibly the longest of them all (22km) and it is devoid of ornamentation. The Rambla was designed as a coastal bypass during the time the number of automobiles on the road surged (1920s) and as a means to beautify the city. ‘Ugly’, poor neighbourhoods had to go. “Stripping of ornaments, the regularity of the forms, the harmony of the proportions” were essential to the modernist design of the Rambla.

I walked some 4km of the part that is known as the Rambla Sur. It felt longer as there was no shade, and there were hardly any other people present in the early afternoon. Ramblas generally are better enjoyed approaching sunset. There indeed is no ornamentation – just a wide sidewalk for cyclists and pedestrians, bordered on the land side by a multi-lane road and on the riverside by a low wall that can be used as a bench. This wall, “a balcony …

Twentieth-century architecture is the main strength of Uruguay’s capital. Noteworthy examples of building styles from the 1920s to the 1950s can be found across the city. I visited a selection of them on a self-designed walking tour, divided into three clusters.

Cluster 1: Old City

The Old City isn’t the nicest part of town, especially outside of office hours. It does hold some fine buildings though:

• Edificio Centenario: its form fits its position on a street corner. Considered expressionist.
• Palacio Salvo (Photo 1): once the tallest structure in South America, and still its 95m tall tower is the landmark of the city center. Its eclectic style combines Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Neo-Baroque.
• Palacio Rinaldi: across the street from the Salvo, dwarfed by it but has fine Art Deco façade reliefs.
• Palacio New York: small building with a pretty Art Deco entrance.
• Palacio Lapido (Photo 2) also on the main boulevard, Avenida 18th July. 12 floors that curve around a corner.

Cluster 2: Parque José Batlle y Ordoñez

I then took an Uber to bridge the 5km to the area around Parque José Batlle y Ordoñez. This is the only cluster that is specifically mentioned in the official tentative site description:

• Parque: the park offers all kinds of sports and recreation areas, including a velodrome. It is also used commonly by driving schools – lots of corners to practice and hardly any traffic!
• Estadio Centenario: Uruguay’s …

It was already dark as my bus from Tupiza entered Potosi's bus terminal, a busy place where ticket sellers' loud sales announcements reverberated around the circular hall like monks' chants. The scene outside the bus terminal was even less impressive with busy traffic and vernacular buildings. First impressions of Potosi were not great.

Once the taxi entered the historic part of the city, however, the mood - both mine and the city's - changed. I remember how seeing the columns of Plaza 6 de Agosto being illuminated by lights made me feel happy. Going for a walk in the night, I found areas that were peacefully calm but also areas that were lively with people going out for drinks (or bubble tea) or had a musical parade going through it.  

During the day, I discovered a hardworking city with Andean Baroque architecture and overhanging covered balconies. Potosi's engaging colonial buildings and preserved history makes it more worthy as a two or more days destination rather than a day trip stop.

With respect to the mine tour of Cerro Rico, I did go on it. In the tour was just me and a Belgian tourist. The other tourist - a man probably in his late 20s - had a lot of difficulty breathing and keeping up and decided to quit the tour about a 1/3 way into it, which meant that I was left alone in the dark mine while the guide accompanied the other tourist out (I …

Sucre feels like a de jure capital city, that is to say, a city of civil servants and white-collar professionals. "Laid back" is a phrase you often hear to describe Sucre, and of the four larger cities (Santa Cruz, La Paz, Potosi, and Sucre) that I visited in Bolivia in 2023, I would certainly agree that it felt the most, well, pasteurized. To compare it to the other three cities that I visited, it's prettier than Santa Cruz, less dynamic than La Paz, and less interesting than Potosi. In summary, I liked it much better than Santa Cruz, but little less so than La Paz and Potosi.

Sucre's heart is Plaza de Armas 25 de Mayo. Surrounding the lively and family friendly Plaza are several museums, good number of restaurants, a Cathedral, and people dressed up as zebras. Casa de La Libertad - found on the northwest side of the Plaza - no longer requires you to visit with a guide. 

Near Casa de La Libertad is an attractive state government building. I went inside and just kept walking up the various stairways until I arrived at its roof. From the roof, I was then able to access the dome-like structure of the building. Inside this structure was a spiral staircase, which led to a cupola and a small lookout. To be honest, I don't know if a security guard or government worker would have prohibited me from getting to the roof had they seen me. Please also …

I visited this WHS in 2023 just before entering Sofia. Parking is free at the park nearby and it can get quite busy in the summer months, so calling in advance and booking a spot is recommended if you want to be on the safe side. Every last Monday of the month after 15:00 there's free admission too. Small groups of around 10-15 people are allowed inside and "locked" in for around 20 minutes to view the frescoes inside.

While waiting for your time slot, there isn't much to do. The church exterior's best view is towards its nave and southern facade. The rest is either covered by the tall trees surrounding it or by the ugly metal staircase leading to the tiny cupola. Next to the entrance on the western facade is the UNESCO WHS inscription plaque. On the opposite side are a few simple gravestones (one of them of Eleonara Queen of Bulgaria) and a remarkable tall redwood tree. Make sure to visit during opening hours as you won't see much of the exterior otherwise either.

Located on the outskirts of Sofia in the southern foothills of the Vitosha mountain, the Boyana Church actually consists of three buildings. The eastern church was built in the 10th century, then it was enlarged at the beginning of the 13th century by Sebastocrator Kaloyan, who ordered a second two storey building to be erected just next to it. The frescoes in this second church, painted in 1259, make it …

I hadn’t planned on doing a review for Santo Domingo, but after my visit in February 2024, there are two things I’d like to highlight.

The first is the widespread restoration works. Several beautification projects are going on at the same time, causing monumental facades to be covered, the Calle Las Damas broken up for street repairs and the Ozama fort to be closed. I don’t know when it all will be finished, but given the scale of it I’d say it will last at least til the end of 2024 (they started early 2023). A visit is still worthwhile, but the Cathedral is about the only place you will be allowed to enter. The colonial center ( "a diamond that needs polishing") was already upgraded as a whole in 2017 and looks quite neat and safe already.

Also, I was surprised by the wide range of ratings this site got from our community members: from 0.5 – 5 stars, with Zoë (1 star) and Solivagant (2 stars) aiming particularly low. One of the reviewers described it as “somewhat lacklustre”. So for some (particularly those who have seen a lot of Spanish colonial cities already) Santo Domingo is hard to love. I returned more positive: the site is unparalleled for its public buildings going back to the early days of Spanish colonization of the Americas. Similar sites such as Leon Viejo and Panama Viejo are now fully ruined, while Santo Domingo developed into the major city it …

I visited all 8 locations of this WHS in 2023. Unlike the Painted Churches of Moldavia, the 8 locations are not that easy to cover as a loop. I used Desesti and Baia Mare as my base and covered Ieud, Poienile Izei, Barsana, Budesti and Desesti (in that order) after an early departure from Suceava, and Rogoz and the 2 wooden churches of Sisesti the following day from Baia Mare. Make sure to save the churches' names and locations on Google Maps as finding their entrances and/or small parking spaces/lots sometimes can be quite challenging and not always that obvious due to similar but newer churches built close to them. Data roaming or a Romanian sim is a must to be able to contact the "holders of the key" in most locations. Try to time your visits around the 10:00-15:00 timeframe (some close on Mondays) but I would suggest trying your luck by calling the numbers provided just the same, as more often than not, the caretakers are the closest neighbors and will still come to open with a smile on their faces and collect a token fee if they are around.

The 8 wooden churches are quite similar to some of the wooden churches of the Southern Malapolska in Poland or the wooden churches of the Slovak Carpatians as an experience. The wooden churches of Maramures in northern Transylvania are a group of almost one hundred Orthodox churches, and occasionally Greek-Catholic ones, of different architectural solutions from different …

Travellers who visit the province of Alberta, understandably flock to the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, e.g., Banff and Jasper. Many may not realize that Alberta is graced with a varied landscape and that southern Alberta has a different type of natural beauty than the Rockies. Dinosaur Provincial Park, located in the badlands, is a highlight of this region. The park is immense, looks like another planet, and the views are fantastic.

A word of warning that while a small portion of the the Dinosaur Provincial Park can be explored independently without pre-booking, you need to be in a Park Canada tour to visit the other more interesting areas of the Park. I strongly urge you to pre-book your tour(s) as the Park is popular. I did not know about needing to book a tour the first time I went to Dinosaur Provincial Park in 2009, so I had to resign myself to exploring just the public area. Nine years later, and allegedly wiser, I prebooked a tour. Unfortunately, due to a recent rain, the tour area was off-limits. Again, I resigned myself to exploring just the public area. I am looking forward to trying a third time.

Please note that the world-class Royal Tyrrell Museum (of Dinosaurs) is not located near the Dinosaur Provincial Park. The Royal Tyrrell Museum, which I also highly recommend, is in a town of Drumheller, about 2-hour drive away from the Park .

68 people so far claim to have visited this WHS, but this has resulted in only one generic review and a (since replaced) funny main site photo of a marker essentially saying “You’re in the National Park but not in the WHS core zone”.

It’s hard to visit Jamaica and not ‘see’ the Blue Mountains in some way, but is that enough to ‘tick’ this site? Let me share what is possible to visit and what you should look out for.

The OUV

The OUV of both the cultural and natural side of this mixed WHS lies in the rugged, inaccessible terrain. The maroons used it to hide away from colonial oppression, while the island’s native flora managed to survive here while much of the rest of the island was cultivated. These two features don’t mix well, which becomes clear on the official map (best seen in map #4 of the nomination dossier): the descendants of the maroons live in villages that are clearly not in pristine nature and so they’re mostly outside of the National Park (they're considered ‘satellite sites’ by ICOMOS). And what Jamaica deems worthy enough of National Park status wasn't good enough for IUCN, who managed to scope the core zone of the WHS down to primary forest only.

Oh – and when you think this WHS is about coffee you just lost your ‘tick’ as IUCN strongly condemned “encroachment from coffee farming”.

Places to visit

Moore Town would be …

Yesterday and today I visited some sites of the "domus de Janas" sites.

1) Anghelu Ruju near Alghero. This site is rather big with some 40 graves. There is entrance fee, and good explanation. 

2) Su Crucifissu Mannu near Porto Torres. This site is near a farm. You can free visit. No entrance fee, no explanation. Not so many graves.

3) Altar of Monte d' Accoddi between Porto Torres and Sassari. This one is not similar at all to the other ones, but in my opinion most interesting site from the ones I saw. It is build in third millennium before Christ. 

4) Sennori: near the buildings of the commune; you need to get the key there and return to the same place.  

5) Su Murrone in Chiaramonte: in the middle of the fields, no entrance fee, no explanation. Not so many graves.

6) Elefant Domus de Janus in Castel Sordo: one or two domus de janas. Most interesting about this one is the shape of the rock. I think 99 % from the visitors comes for the shape and not for the grave.

7) Necropolis of Montalè in Sassari: not worth the detour. Behind a fence and very small (i think just one).

Conclusion: i am charmed by some of the parts of this "domus de janas"; for me definitely a yes; I would only keep 1) and 3) from this ones.

I visited all 8 components of this WHS by car in 2023 and if you have the time all are worth a visit for their interior as well as their exterior paintings. Apart from the one in Probota (road was still being paved when I visited), all locations are easily reachable by car on newly paved roads.

The Painted Church of Probota is not visible from outside as it is within a very high fortified monastery so make sure to check the opening hours before you visit. It is now run by a few dedicated nuns who look after the huge restored monastery, the foundations of an old monastery and its church. The best views are from on top the 6 meter defensive walls and towers. Not much of the exterior paintings remain but the interior paintings are truly beautiful. The most interesting interior painting is the votive painting in the nave.

By visiting uninscribed painted churches and monasteries (some are tWHS like Neamt) you'll be able to appreciate the great efforts during restoration of the paintings of the inscribed churches to remove the layers of black soot and wax from the countless candles lit inside over the years. Moreover, what I initially thought was an ugly reconstruction of some of the churches' enclosures with reinforced concrete and a crafty way to ensure collecting entrance fees (especially in Probota and Voronet), seems to be an essential layer of protection against the winter blizzard currents which have significantly eroded …

Even I don't know why I have such an affection for this site, which is really just a number of grassy mounds and depressions on the ground. Perhaps it is due to nostalgia because I, like most Canadians who grew up with TV rather than internet, watched Heritage Minutes during commercial breaks. Or perhaps it is due to the idea that near here, two groups of people encountered each other again after migrating away from each other 16,000 to 20,000 years earlier. Due to L'Anse aux Meadows's remote and wild setting, perhaps one can easily visualize that encounter from these mere mounds and depression.

At the site, a helpful Parks Canada guide (photo) will explain the various archaeological mounds and depression. You can also visit a recreated Norse dwellings within the historic site. If you want to experience more recreated Norse structures, then you can visit the Norstead Viking Village about 2 kilometres away.

Newfoundland and Labrador is one of my favourite places in the world. Its rugged beauty is magical, but due to its remoteness, it's not a place that you can easily fit into your Canadian travel itinerary unless you either have a lot of time or just want to focus on the Atlantic provinces. If you are travelling in western Newfoundland and Labrador, however, you should be able to fit three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, that is to say, L'Anse aux Meadows, Red Bay Basque Whaling Station, and Gros Morne National Park.

In early February I spent a full day exploring the Royal Palm and Flamingo areas of Everglades National Park. It felt like a holiday: it was warm and sunny, signage and interpretation were perfect, no rush, no crowds.

It may be telling that all reviewers so far chose a picture of an alligator or a water bird to accompany their story. Probably that’s because the landscape views aren’t that great. Especially when you have arrived from a flat country covered in wetlands like me, the scenery superficially will be very familiar, including the many egrets and herons. It often reminded me of De Biesbosch National Park in the Netherlands.

Everglades NP supports no less than 9 different ecosystems though, and they are highlighted in the dozen or so little boardwalks and viewpoints you can take in when you make your way down from the Homestead entrance to Flamingo. Covering them all requires little effort, I only walked 8km that day. My stops in order from the entrance were:

• Anahinga trail: great start, with lots of birds and weird-looking plants and trees. It's also the only place to see alligators on this route as they prefer freshwater.
• Gumbo Limbo trail: lots of mosquitos here, but the moist surroundings prevent the trees from wildfire damage. Has Gumbo Limbo trees of course but you see them at other spots too.
• The weird bald-cypress trees, without leaves this time of year.
• Pa-hay-okee: best views over the ‘sea …

I provide a photo of our visit to the Kasubi tombs taken in 2005 (I.e before the great fire of March 2010) to “support” my “right” to review it! I can fully understand the somewhat dispiriting experience which Zoe recently ran into. There were elements of it for us and they possibly led to my decision not to do a review at the time. However, the "imminent" reopening (but repeatedly delayed - its last promised date was Dec 2023 and is still only "90% Complete" in Jan 24 - with no promise!) of the tombs, together with Zoe's review, have stimulated me to catch up on the memory of our visit and to fill in some gaps in my "understanding". 

At least we saw, and entered, the main structure over the tombs, the “Muzibu-Azaala-Mpanga”, although I don't remember that as being a great "revelation". The photo of it in the Craterre report linked to below didn't contain any "surprises". I don't even have an interior photo and can't remember being prevented from doing so (though I do have some of the interior of the Drum House). What is particularly "annoying" is not even to remember seeing the "two chairs and a table which were donated by Queen Victoria of England" and were destroyed in the fire!!

We have often found that visiting and gaining a reasonable understanding of cultural WHS in Sub-Saharan Africa is not easy for the non-African tourist, however interested they might …

It’s hard to get all that you want from Patagonia. There was too much demand for bus tickets so I couldn’t go all the way from North to South by public transport. There also was too little demand for a ‘Safari Lacustre’ so I could not get on a boat tour inside the Los Alerces National Park to see the Alerces in a forest setting (they seem to run only on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday but the schedule is highly variable). And then on January 25, a devastating bushfire broke out affecting 6,924 of the 188,379 ha of the park. Only a few days before my visit in late February, it was all under control. I did not see any smoke, firemen or scorched ground – the fires were much further north than the area usually accessed by tourists,

I brought a rental car from Bariloche airport to cover Los Alerces, which at least provided me with additional flexibility. Arriving from Esquel at the central park gate around 9am, I stopped to pay my entrance fee, but I did not need to pay anything. Maybe they temporarily suspended it because of the fires?

Driving in this area takes longer than you think. You may not drive faster than 40km/h and the final 20 of the 32 km from Villa Lahautan to Lago Verde, where the main activities are, is unpaved. So by car, I was maybe only half an hour faster than the 2.5 hours given as an …

Only Yoros Castle and Galata Tower were included on my itinerary of Istanbul and Marmara in October of 2023. Furthermore, although I stayed literally around the corner from Galata Tower, I never actually set foot in it. There are so many other elevated perspectives that you can find in Istanbul and the lines to enter Galata Tower are so long throughout the day that I expressly decided to skip it. So beyond agreeing that it is a very impressive building - arguably, one of the emblematic sights of Istanbul - I have very little to say about it.

Yoros Castle, on the Anatolian side a few kilometers from where the Bosphorus connects with the Black Sea, is free to visit. The remains of the main donjon are quite eye-catching and the perspectives over the strait are excellent, but very little is left of the rest of the fortifications. You can actually step inside one of the remaining towers. A quarter of an hour is probably the longest anyone would spend here (some people may take advantage of the nearby restaurant with views over Anadolu Kavağı and the Bosphorus to extend their stay). It is only about an hour's drive from Istanbul but is not worth a targeted trip.

The Genoese ascendancy in the region did not last all that long and is by most measures a minor chapter in the history. I tend to think that Galata Tower would not be out of place as an extension of …

There are several reviews from this site, but the focus is on daytrips from Tulum. We opted for “the long drive” and an overnight stay at “the end” – at Punta Allen. This turned out to be a great choice. Our plan for the two weeks in Mexico included several dirt roads for instance this one, thus we rented a high clearance car.

The drive from Tulum to Punta Allen turned out to be an interesting one. After passing the gate to the biosphere, where we also found the Unesco plaque, there are 45 km of dirt roads with lots of potholes, even some really big ones filled with water. The drive is nevertheless exciting. We made several stops to have a stroll to check out the coastal area and the diversity of plants. The fauna wasn’t as easy to discover even though we saw some large birds. Just driving along, you will miss the details and it can make the journey kind of uninteresting! There was more diversity to experience on the return trip and even more animals.

After 2 1/2 hours driving 40 km/h we made it all the way out to Punta Allen, a quirky small “town”. We checked in at our hotel/guesthouse Villa Roselitz and immediately went out to organize a boat trip. The “tourist office“ was a small desk out in the open at a road crossing. The price was fixed, 3500 pesos per boat for three hours. Luckily, we could team up …

Poor Paraguay - overlooked by many who visit South America. It has no world-class sightseeing site, and its only major city - Asuncion - is too gritty and unpolished for many tourists. Jesuit Missions of Trinidad and Jesús de Tavarangue are probably the highlight of Paraguay's sights, but you will likely have these UNESCO world heritage sites to yourself.

I took a bus from Asuncion to Encarnación for a two-night stay. Encarnación is a small tranquil city that is best known for its annual Carnival. There is not much to see in the city itself. In one museum, the staff took a photo of me and promptly posted on their Facebook page that they had a visitor from Canada.

The Jesuit Mission of Trinidad site (photo) is fairly easy to get to from Encarnación as there are decent number of buses that regularly pass it. As I had not been to the Argentinian Jesuit missions yet, I found the site to be very novel and interesting. Even though the main church was only partially standing, there is more than enough standing for one to appreciate its grandeur and craftmanship. Ruins or foundations of the houses were also visible. I shared the large open site with perhaps just a couple of other tourists.

Jesús de Tavarangue is close enough to Trinidad that you can very easily visit both on the same day, but it is far enough that you probably want to do so by car or bus …

I'm gonna go against the current and actually discourage inscription. I know this IS a very popular tentative site and it's indeed a really nice fortified city. My issue is its OUV.

Mdina IS the old capital of malta, and It has been inhabited since the bronze age. Despite this It has little more than its layout to show for Its old age. There's nothing phoenician, or Roman, or islamic and there's only a couple of medieval components in the city (which are not really that remarkable). As such its strong suit IS actually its well preserved fortified baroque ensemble. And that I see as a problem

You don't need much time in malta to realise which architectural style defines the country. It's baroque. there's baroque In every corner, but that's especially true in la Valeta. Which does have some truly remarkable examples like the cocathedral and IS already (and rightfully) a WHS.

Imo Mdina IS left in a vacuum where Its inscription wouldn't really add anything new to the list. La Valeta already shows local baroque architecture, the history of the knights and has older and more impressive visible fortifications. At the same time the medieval heritage of mdinna, which should differentiate It from la Valeta, IS pretty much nonexistant. As such I don't think the city would adequately represent the fascinating pre-knights history of the island. So it's left without any clear OUV. Perhaps its best chance IS as yet another baroque city in the …

In October of 2023, on a brief road trip from Istanbul, I spent an afternoon and stayed overnight in Bursa, while also visiting Cumalıkızık the next morning.

My time in Bursa allowed me to visit four of the WHS components, the central Orhan Ghazi Külliye, the nearby mausoleum of Orhan Gazi in Tophane Park, and Yesil Külliye and Yildirim Külliye. Visiting other components felt a bit of an overkill, but covering all locations looks possible within a full day or maybe a day and a half; distances are not insurmountable on foot but also not trivial away from the central cluster of sights; taxis are inexpensive.

Orhan Ghazi Külliye is dominated by the Grand Mosque, whose interior is among the most variedly decorated of all that I have seen in Turkey and quite unusually places the shadirvan for ritual ablutions inside the mosque proper. The khans - commercial quarters that essentially retained their purpose through the ages - are basically nowadays the extensions of the Grand Bazaar that is also part of this neighborhood.

Orhan Ghazi tombs are a popular pilgrimage sight, boosted by the hourly changing-of-the-guards ceremony that attracts significant crowds. Green (Yesil) Mosque and Sultan Mehmed's mausoleum, also called Green, combine into another impressive complex; located a kilometer or so away from the center of town means that they attract significantly smaller visitor footfall. Yet further away from the city center lies Yildirim Külliye, whose mosque fairly uniquely sports a portico, with its own sultan's …