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I had a really fascinating encounter with nature and culture in Tsodilo. The painting are magnificent and they provide an insight into what art in context really is and what it can do to one's imagination. The landscape is beautiful in its own context especially in the mornings and late afternoons. The site museum adds to the mystery of the hills in that it isolates itself as a piece of art (in the form of architecture) which blends, not well but mysterioulsly with the natural landscape.

And the people from the two communities are welcoming and their interaction with this space that has come to be known as World Heritage site is fascinating in many ways. Its a combiination that no one would like to miss!!!

Tallinn's Old Town (note the capital letters) is a jaw dropping experience. If you leave Estonia without walking around the Old Town for at least an hour or two then you should go home with your head bowed in shame. This is World Heritage in its condensed form. The whole of Old Town can been seen in a few hours (or a few decades depending on your schedule). For a focused tour I suggest Pikk tanav (Long street), one of Tallinn's oldest boulevards. Start from the top of Pikk Jalg (Long Leg) in Toompea. Behind you should be the Estonian Parliament building (big and pink) and Nevski Cathedral (big and Russian Orthodox). Head down the Hill to Pikk Jalg Gate. This gate and the wall to your left (know as the Wall of Mistrust) kept the Nobility of the upper town safely separated from the riff-raff downtown. From this gate to the far side of Old Town is less than a kilometer and includes loads of famous buildings as well as enough cafes, restaurants, bars, souvenir shops and museums to satisfy any reasonable cruise ship passenger.

I have lived in Tallinn for ten years now, and yet, every time I visit the Old Town I find myself well amazed at its beauty, cultural significance and incredible luck in having survied as wonderfully as it has. Don't miss it!

The site is very impressive and large. I was surprised one could go in, but this was only possible with a guide. There was no English speaking guide available, which made it hard to understand what we saw. With a little English book it was possible to understand some of it.

It was not difficult to find the site. I found it very worthwile visiting and would certainly recommend this to anyone visiting Sardinia. However the countryside was a bit disappointing...

There is no doubts that Ouro Preto deserves a visit.

The beauty of some churches, specially Nossa Senhora do Pilar and Sao Francisco de Assis, with their mind-boggling golden interiors, and the bucolic early morning views over the town contrasting with the students parties at night offer the visitor a complete pack of culture, South American colonial history and art.

However, Ouro Preto has been preserving its heritage with careleness. First, there is no preservation counciousness, as a historic house in the town's main square recently burned down and a beautiful fountain was destroyed by a truck. Also, the hills surrounding Ouro Preto were dominated by modern and ugly statements, and the once beautiful wide landscapes are now limited to the town itself using the Itacolomi rocks as background.

There are no doubts that Ouro Preto deserves a visit, as it is not so far from big centers like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and the region is packed with other sensational destinations, including other World Heritage sites like Diamantina and Congonhas, but bad use is consuming Ouro Preto's charm and beauty.

Gunung Mulu National Park

Within the boundaries of Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak is one of the most extensive and spectacular limestone cave systems on earth, as well as the second highest mountain peak in the state. Gunung also enjoys unusually high rainfall. As a result it bursts with life, and many new plant and animal species have been discovered here. Officially constituted in 1974 and opened to the public in 1985, Gunung Mulu National Park encompasses only 544 sq. km in North Sarawak, Borneo. Gunung Mulu's Caves are extraordinary. Mulu's Sarawak Chamber is the largest natural chamber in the world, and Deer Cave is the largest cave passage known to man. It has two huge entrances at either end of the mountain it penetrates. Most of Deer Cave is illuminated, one can see 600-foot waterfalls pouring from the roof following a rain storm. Perhaps the most popular attraction of this cavern, however, is the daily exodus of its colony of nearly a million bats. Every evening the bats stream from the cave to spend the night dining on Gunung's rich insect population.

Clearwater Cave is the longest cave system in Southeast Asia. Although little of it is open to park visitors without special permission, over a hundred kilometers of passages have been discovered so far. Not all of Mulu's limestone features are contained in caves. Gunung API, a 1,750 meter high mountain of limestone, lies directly beside Sarawak's second highest mountain peak, Gunung Mulu (2,376 meters). Both mountains …

Hallo,

Ik zag dat je gewoon uit Nederland kwam dus ik doe het dan ook maar in het Nederlands.

Ik ben samen met mijn vriendin in november 2002 in Fuerte de Samaipata geweest.

Het gebied rondom de tempel wordt (werd) goed onderhouden en er zijn overal loopbruggen en uitzicht torens bij geplaatst. Het is wel een heel gedoe om een kaartje te kopen om het complex op te komen maar dit lukt uiteindelijk wel.

Ik ben er met een taxi vanuit Samapaita naar toe gegaan en dat is best goed te doen. Aan te raden is wel om een vaste prijs af te spreken voor de retour trip (inclusief wachttijd)

There is a plan to construct a road to Batad where the most beautiful part of the terrraces are found.

The plan should be discouraged. Else, the awesome natural beauty would be permanently lost to the invasion of distractive technology like those which sprouted in Banaue central.

I visited Pisa in August 2004. The first view of the tower was very exciting, probably because it is such a famous monument. I didn't climb the tower (it is now 16EUR), but greatly enjoyed the whole Piazza, the museums and especially the Cathedral. It's well worth getting the combined ticket (just EUR10.50) to see all that the Piazza del Duomo has to offer.

San Ignacio Mini is well worth the visit for anyone at nearby Iguassu Falls, whether on the Argentine or Brazilian side. Though there are guided tours available from Iguassu, driving on your own is quite easy. It is possible to drive to San Ignacio and back in the same day though spending the night adds to the experience. However, the town offers few accomodations, the best of which are hard-pressed to earn a 1-star rating. From Buenos Aires it is not so easy to reach Argentina's State of Misiones.

On certain nights there is a sound and light show. The slightest hint of rain and the show will be cancelled; the equipment is simple and not water resistent. So, as can be expected, the show is rather primitive and its simplicity could hardly be expressed as charming. Boring may be a better descriptive. The lighting is uneventful and the sound is a recorded narration (in Spanish) of the mission's history with some music of the jesuit-educated natives as a background mixed with some booms and crashes to depict the battles with they fought with the Brazilian slave traders. Not emotionally stirring!

In the summer it is barely dark when the light show begins, reducing even more the already limited effect. Needless to say, it was a disappointment and one should spend the night to experience the simplicity of the village and not for the light show. But catch it if you are already there and reach your own conclusions.

All …

We spent several hours in Kutna Hora (mainly in St. Barbara), en route for Opava, in August 2004.

St. Barbara was stunning - especially the interior. I'm only sorry that I can't find any web pictures of the interior (and not many of the exterior either!).

This cathedral, and the whole city are well worth an extended visit. We want to return, and explore it properly before long.

This is one of the best UNESCO sites I have visited, it is on a huge scale and very well preserved. The theatre and Capitol are almost entirely intact! And the size is so impressive. The remote location really adds to the appeal as well set on the side of a hill overlooking mountains and cornfields. If you are in Northern Tunisia this is a site really not to be missed.

To get there catch a bus or Loauge from Tunis to Terbosouq (these normally carry on through to Le Kef) from here the locals can help you to get to the site, but chances of bartering may be low as there seems to only be a few taxis around for tourists, so expect to pay about 15TD (€9) for a taxi/ caminette so the more people going the cheaper it will be! It is about 15km away and pretty remote so it is money well spent, you may be able to get it cheaper if you go in summer and try a bit of bartering!

This is a really nice site to visit, it is out of the way and situated on a great piece of coastline. There is not much left (everything is less that a metre in height!) but it provides a great example of Punic towns especially good if you have seen other sites in the country which did not fair so well under the Romans! The site is right next to the sea and contains some features which you would not see at other archaeological sites such as the minimalist mosaics and almost fully intact bathrooms in every house.

The site is best reached from pleasant fishing town of Kelibia where local buses can drop you of at the turn off then it is a 1.5km walk to the site, or alternatively you could get a taxi there which should cost about 4-10TD (€2.5-7)

I went to Nepal in June. It was always my dream destination but the main reason i wanted to go there was to see the bouddhanath stupa. This buddist temple with the eyes penetrating has always fascinated me. But what i never expected was to discover so many hindu temples in nepal. Going without expecting is always an experience. The best temple among the ones i visited is of course pasupathinath.

I missed out the shangu narayana temple and the bathrakali temple. That is why i visited this site.

Nepal is an exotic country to visit. I would want to visit again all those places that i missed out.

The Coliseum at El Jem is pretty fantastic and it has a capacity that was probably greater than the population of the town that now surrounds it! The site is really impressive as it is the largest Roman building in Africa and was the third largest Coliseum in the Roman World! The south side is the one through which you enter and is the area that is most intact. The size of the structure is impressive especially when seen from the centre "stage" and there is a fair bit of the ruins open for you to clamber over.

The site makes a nice day trip from Sousse or a great lunch stop if travelling from the south (Sfax or the Sahara!), and if you have luggage with you every restaurant owner in town will offer to store it for you in the hope that you will get lunch at his restaurant after looking around.

There is a train station in the town but the Trains are not so frequent, however they are the easiest way to get there, if not then Louagges provided the most frequent access to the town and are cheap (I prefer them but the train gives you a little more room!)

Kairouan is the fourth holiest city in Islam, (although I have just done a little research and this may be a tad controversial!) and it is said that travelling there 7 times is the equivalent of travelling to Mecca. The most impressive site is the great Mosque with its powerful if austere minaret and columns taken from Carthage! Also impressive is the facade of the Mosque of Three Doors! Near the medina entrance is the mosque containing the well that the city was founded around which is supposedly linked to the Zamzam well in Mecca and is a site of Pilgrimage, I found it a bit odd as there was a blinkered camel turning the well in a very small space, but there are some amusing pictures of the camel going up and down the stairs that reach the site.

Kairouan is easy to get to from Sousse, either by bus or Louagge which I would recommend more as on the bus we got picked up by a tout for one of Kairouan's many famous Carpet shops before we even arrived, and it is best to get picked up by one outside the great Mosque as their views are much better, and they will tell you their carpets are better too!!!

The Medina in Sousse is perhaps the nicest in the country to look at, and a cool feeling is given off by the white washed walls and blue medina doors. The Medina has more tourists than the other sites on the WHC list as it is next to the holiday resort stretch of the Tunisian coast, and this does mean that the atmosphere in the medina is not as genuine as in some of the other cities in the country and the quest for tourist money seems to have a more negative effect on shop owners!, but as any traveller knows that if you just go to some parts off the beaten track you will find a much more genuine picture of medina life.

The Ribat offers great views of the Medina especially the Mosque, and the Kasbah perched at the top of the medina has some stunning mosaics and you get a good look at perhaps the best Medina walls in the country!

Sousse is an easy place to visit due to it also being a beach resort and provides a great base to see some of the other UNESCO sites such as Kairouan and the Amphitheatre at El- Jem, also worth a trip is Monastir where the Ribat is stunning and doubles as Jerusalem in many films such as "Life of Brian"!

The Medina of Tunis is perhaps the best Medina in the country, whilst the sites are nothing spectacular, and you can walk straight past them if you do not keep an eye out!, but the atmosphere of the labyrinthine streets is great!

The main way through is just an endless stream of shop keepers trying to sell you souvenirs, but if you duck off down some side alleys and get to some other markets you will start to see more of the real Tunis. It takes some time to really get acclimatised to Medina life but once you do it is great!

The central mosque I found to be a little disappointing especially as, not being a Muslim I had to pay just to walk through the gate to a very small viewing area to see a courtyard that was being renovated.

The best thing to do is just to get in and wander aimlessly, buy things from the vendors; especially the Barbary Figs (Prickly Pears!) they are sold on carts the whole way around the medina and they cost 100mils. (About ,08 € cents) and they even get peeled for you, go into a tea room and just sit with the locals who are ridiculously friendly, then go off and barter for some souvenirs.

Tip: if you want some roof top views many of the shops have terraces which you can go up to but don’t expect to get away to quickly when you come down to quickly as …

There is not much left to see of Carthage which really is a testament to the Romans who totally obliterated their biggest rival of the period. It is pretty important therefore to get some background knowledge on the place before you go because it really is quite impressive.

The main site on Bysra Hill has some very impressive views across Tunis and to the Cape Bon Peninsula. If you go for a bit of a walk you will see that there are a few more intact bits below the forum. Then if you head down to the sea at the Punic Ports this is perhaps the best area as the lay-out of the ports that once held the mightiest navy in the world are still there, and next to them is the Tophet where it is reported that Child sacrificing went on, and the stalea that litter the site can be seen as an eerie testament to that. Further along to coast are the Roman Baths which are huge and probably the most impressive site to look at.

Carthage is very easy to get to from central Tunis there is a TGM train that runs there from the end of Ave. Boiurigibba (the main avenue) it takes about 25 minutes and there are four stations scattered around the sites to help you get around. The locals are ridiculously friendly and helpful

There can be no doubt that Prague is a beautiful city, but, sadly, it has sold its soul to tourism. The old city is enormous and generally in original condition, the lack of war damage is remarkable. The downside is the high cost, compared to the rest of the Czech Republic, the unfriendliness of the populous and the tourist traps.

Kutna Hora is a charming place. The Cathedral of St Barbara is as wonderful as the Sedlec Ossuary is macabre and unique. There are some beautiful buidlings, not least the interior of the Italian court.