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The Pentagon code-named their activities at the Gulf War in the early 1990s "Operation Desert Storm." I code-named my grand tour of the southern half of the USA in summer 1991 "Operation Caribbean Storm," as my ultimate destination of this trip was the Cayman Islands. 

What a surprise ... 30 years after my operation Little Cayman is nominated for a WHS! 

I visited the Cayman Islands mainly for scuba diving at Little Cayman. The Cayman Islands was (and still is probably) famous among divers for its underwater wall that goes straight down for two thousand meters. What it means is that the Islands are the tips of an steep underwater mountain range. 

After driving from Los Angeles to Miami I flew to Grand Cayman, the main island of the three islands that comprise the Cayman Islands. The other two, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, are close to each other in location, but they are 100 km east of Grand Cayman. I stayed in the city of George Town, the main city of Grand Cayman as well as the whole Cayman Islands. 

Because it's such a distant past, although I remember the water was crystal clear, my memory of the dive tour isn't. Even though Little Cayman is 100 km away, I'm pretty sure my dive boat left from somewhere in Grand Cayman. So it must have been a speed boat. In order to make the most of the wall, you need to go down pretty deep, …

Ventas Rumbas waterfall in Kuldīga is the widest waterfall in Europe. To give an idea of its magnificence, there is a reason that no one calls Ventas Rumbas the horizontal Angel Falls. Ventas Rumbas is quirky and pretty, but you are not going to be staring at it in awe when you have an awkward teenager nephew back home taller than the waterfall.

When I was in Latvia in 2016, I never imagined that Kuldīga would even be considered for the UNESCO world heritage designation, so the town was a mere brief stop on my way to another destination. As such, I did not explore much of Kuldīga other than the waterfall and its immediate surroundings. I can confirm that the immediate surroundings were just as idyllic and charming as the waterfall, but due to my limited experience of the town, my rating is based on the waterfall only. 

Back in 2018 because of the unbelievable expressway exit payment booth problem, I missed opportunity to visit Donam Seowon in Nonsan, five years later I returned to South Korea and I intent to fulfill my previous trip by visiting two listed Seowons, Oksan Seowon and Dodong Seowon during my 4th visit to Gyeongju. After breakfast I drove my rental car to Oksan Seowon, it was an enjoyable drive and I reached Oksan without problem. From empty carpark I passed the complex of traditional house and at the end of the walkway I found a complex of shrine-liked buildings and beautiful small river gorge with cascading waterfall, the whole area was perfect for hiking. After enjoyed mother nature, I started to look for Oksan Seowon, I walked back to that shrine-liked complex to find out that Oksan Seowon was in front of me!

I opened the old wooden door and found small courtyard surrounded by old wooden buildings which turned out to be classrooms. There was nothing inside these buildings, just empty room with some calligraphies on the walls. The layout of building reminded me of Hutong, a typical Northern Chinese House; however, since the complex was built on the slope, the different leveling of main two building was quite unique. Behind the classroom complex was the complex of shrine buildings that dedicated to local scholars instead of the Confucius which made Korean Seowons unique enough from other Confucian schools in China. I saw everything in the complex within 15 …

Burgäschisee Ost, October 2023

The Burgäschisee Ost-site consists of a 75x40 meter (0.3 ha) piece of meadow on the south-eastern shore of tiny lake Burgäschi, a pleasant 20-minute walk away through the rolling hills of Swiss Mittelland from the eponymous village of Aeschi, from where very regular buses plow the route from Solothurn to Herzogenbuchsee – both hubs on the Swiss rail network (the reason for the different spelling of Aeschi vs. Burgäschi is not totally clear to me).

According to the Internet, the settlement was discovered in 1943 after a lowering of the lake level and excavated in 1944/45 with the help of interned prisoners of war. The first phase of the Burgäschisee Ost site is attributed to the Egolzwil culture, the main phase belonging to the classical Cortaillod period and dating to around 3830 BC. Further excavations were done in 2015-2017.

The site is unmarked, and there are certainly no visible remains of any settlement. Note that the lowering of the lake level explains why the site is now fully onshore.

On the photo, the core site is on the left side of the little road, bordering the lake; reeds and some small trees grow on the lakeshore, making access to the water from the core zone a bit difficult; there are openings, however, on both the southern and northern end a few meters outside the core perimeter.

Some 200 meters north of the core site is Restaurant Seeblick, along with a nice …

I was in love with a wall. York is famous for having the longest set of medieval walls in the UK, but it was not these crenelated stretches and their impressive gate towers that most impressed me. It was not the overhanging upper stories of the half-timbered houses along The Shambles that caught my eye. It was not even the preserved Roman fresco displayed in the Undercroft of the towering York Minster. No, the wall that made me catch my breath was a short stretch of woven wooden wattles, maybe four feet high. People milled around, largely oblivious, before forming into a queue for a fairground ride. But this fragment of wall formed part of a domestic house one thousand years ago. That it had been protected for so long in the sodden earth beneath York, England’s second most important city for much of its existence, was a marvel. But what added glamour and mystery were the people who had erected it. This wall dated to the period of Jorvik, the largest settlement in England of the people known as the Vikings.

The city of York has a long history. The legionary fortress of Eboracum became Eoforwic, chief city of the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. The Vikings ruled it as an independent fief for almost a century as Jorvik and even when it was subsumed into the Kingdom of England it maintained a distinct heritage. The city’s importance persisted throughout the medieval period, not least because York was home …

For those who have visited Busan, you can be forgiven for not prioritizing its wartime history! The fact is, Busan is a lively city and its main attractions (Taejongdae, Jagalchi Fish Market, Seaside temples, Gamcheon Culture Village, and beaches) are more alluring for the casual visitor than the Seokdang Museum of Dong-A University. The later museum was formerly known as the Busan Provisional Government Headquarters during the Korean War. Today, it’s an excellent museum that covers ancient to modern Korean History. While a visit to the museum is genuinely rewarding and the building is caringly preserved, it does not add significantly to one's understanding of the 1,023 days when Busan was the temporary capital.  

The Provisional Capital Memorial Hall (Formerly the President's Residence) includes moving exhibits about the conditions refugees experienced upon arrival to Busan. Much of the “house” museum maintains rooms in their 1950’s decor when President Rhee occupied the residence. I found the visitor experience here solemn and emotive. Exhibits highlight the time and events of Busan's darkest days. Some visitors were visibly moved by the exhibits. Considering modern day life in Busan and that of the half-a-million plus refugees in the 1950's, the difference in those 70 years is stark. I have not forgotten the photographs displayed on-site.

The journey of this serial nomination has been arduous, the nomination was “conditionally” approved in 2017 by the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. Busan’s primary OUV will be as a “Cold War” heritage site and its refugee …

The Chankillo astroarcheological complex was a nice trip in the morning with a guide for me in order to see the sun rise between two of the thirteen towers. It's only a WHS since two years and it also feels like it's not that popular yet. Especially compared to other Peru WHS (like Machu Picchu :P). According to the guide there was actually big tourism going on until the pandemic and since then even despite the inscription tourism levels are low. We were for the sunrise for which one specific spots exists actually the only tourists in the whole site. Before we walked up to the towers and had a closer look at them even though there is nothing special to see except stone buildings. For walking up there I highly recommand hiking boots. On the way back down I saw my ankles breaking in my sneakers in front of my inner eye. The hill is a mixture of loose stones and a sand dune. In the parts with loose stones walking downhill was really tricky. We requested Aleko tours as all others in these reviews did so far, but it failed. We wrote with them and they only had time with a week anticipation. When we visited the office some old ladys said that the owner is out of office for another 2 weeks. But Aleko recommanded us Herbert with whom we did the tour. He was reliable, kind and had some local knowledge. Much more than we had …

I visited At Turaif in the early evening when the air temperature had dropped to an acceptable level. Entrance to the historic area was only possible through Bujairi Terrace, a newly opened area full of elegant restaurants, the construction of which was probably one of the reasons why At Turaif was inaccessible for so long.

Just on the edge of Bujairi Terrace, a man speaking good English stopped me and asked for a ticket, which surprised me as I had no idea about the need to buy a ticket in advance. When I explained the situation to him, he smiled and let me in, saying that next time I would have to buy the ticket online.

It took me about 5 minutes to walk from the entrance of Bujairi Terrace to the pedestrian bridge that connects Bujairi Terrace to At Turaif. 

I was pleasantly surprised by At Turaif itself. I am convinced that the below average rating of this monument by other visitors is mainly due to the fact that they visited the site before it was fully open. The site has a pleasant atomosphere, which was enhanced by artificial lighting in the evening. There are not many fully preserved buildings on the site, but a visit still gives a good idea of the extent and architecture of the historic town. During the tour, it is possible to visit several galleries free of charge that are dedicated to the history of At Turaif and the Arabian Horses.

So I have the honour to first review this site after inscription! Fortunately, it wasn’t as gloomy as I expected it - instead of the celebratory “Wir sind Welterbe” banners common in Germany, the components of this WHS displayed happy purple signs stating “Jetzt UNESCO Welterbe - Mazal-Tov!”. Even the infamous Stone House (component #3), which was previously hard to recognize, now stands out in its street.

I don’t know whether Erfurt normally sees a lot of tourists, but on the Thursday in late October when I visited many tour groups were led through its historic center; mostly German, some Asian. I could overhear their guides talking about the newly gained World Heritage Status. I also happily explored its streets with its eclectic architecture, visited the Cathedral, the St Severus' Church, and the Citadel, and ate a hearty lunch. But after that, I couldn’t postpone the Jewish Heritage sites anymore.

The Old Synagogue seems to have gotten more accustomed to receiving visitors - you get a proper ticket plus an audio guide or a booklet on loan that explains the site and Erfurt’s Jewish history. One enters via a small courtyard and then has three floors to cover in the building itself. They did their best to fill it with relevant items and I seriously started reading in the provided guide, but after a few minutes it gets to you: there is nothing authentic of any relevance to be seen here. It’s like being in one of these …

Wood Buffalo National Park straddles the borders of the province of Alberta and Northwest Territories. I travelled to the park from Yellowknife, which is the unpolished but charming capital of Northwest Territories. My understanding is that while most of Wood Buffalo National Park lies in Alberta, the park and its trails are more accessible by car if you enter from the north, that is to say, from Northwest Territories.

On the long drive from Yellowknife to the park, I saw many bisons by - and on - the road. Although the bisons that I encountered were calm and unbothered by me, please keep your distance from these large beasts as they could seriously injure you if they feel harassed by you. Also, please be aware of bears in the park. I spent time admiring the bear tracks I found during a hike. Or at least I did, until I started to wonder about the freshness of the bear tracks.

Wood Buffalo National Park lacks the grandeur of Northwest Territories' other UNESCO world heritage site, i.e., Nahanni National Park. There are no majestic mountains or valleys in Wood Buffalo. However, everything is wild here, the rivers, the animals, and the experience. I wouldn't recommend visiting Canada, or even Northwest Territories, for Wood Buffalo, but it is definitely a worthwhile place to explore if you are in northern Alberta or southern Northwest Territories.

I visited Wood Buffalo in 2017.

I visited another State Park that composes this WHS: Intervales. Atlantic Forest South-East is the only WHS in the State of São Paulo and some pristine areas of the State are within it. My favorites are Cardoso Island (a remote area where cars and new inhabitants are prohibited) and PETAR (full of caves, waterfalls and crystal-clear rivers). Intervales was a private area until 1995, when it became a State Park. The buildings formerly used for private purposes now belong to the State of São Paulo and are used as lodges. Interestingly, they are inside the park so that you can start your trekkings right after leaving front door. Intervales also has caves, waterfalls, cloud subtropical forest and rivers, none of those are as remarkable as the mentioned beforehand. But it is a delight for two or three days and I fully enjoyed being surrounded by nature for a long weekend.  

Many people, including Canadians, do not realize how inaccessible many parts of Canada is. Nahanni National Park in Northwest Territories has no roads to or within it, and the only ways to enter is by floatplane or by canoe/white-water raft.

As to how I got there, I drove approximately 622 kilometres from Wood Buffalo National Park to Fort Simpson in 2017. Almost to Fort Simpson, actually, as I missed the last ferry across Liard River and had to sleep in my car until the morning. After crossing into Fort Simpson the next morning, I got on a floatplane (Simpson Air) for a day trip to Nahanni National Park. A year after my trip, a Simpson Air flight that went on the same run that I did, crashed into a lake, and three tourists died.

Nahanni National Park is a breathtakingly beautiful, vast, and wild. Most floatplane day trip visitors will stop at immense Virginia Falls and tranquil Glacier Lake. Those who are healthy, experienced in wild rivers, and adventurous (and have time and money) will, I am sure, see much more unreal scenery by canoe/raft.  

Bettlachstock, October 2023

Bettlachstock lies on the southern slopes of the Jura – the lesser known of the two parallel mountain ranges crossing the country diagonally (with the Mittelland plane lying in-between, where the majority of the Swiss population lives). Bizarrely, the official UNESCO nomination files talk about Forêt de la Bettlachstock, even though Bettlachstock forest lies squarely in the German-speaking part of Switzerland (the country takes its language borders very seriously).

The core zone is located around 500 meters above the Mittelland plane. Avoiding what must be a strenuous ascent I started my hike from bus stop Bettlachrank on line 38 which runs from Grenchen further up the mountain all the way to Unterer Grenchenberg (a popular weekend spot with a nice view and restaurant).

I like to start my walks at dawn in order to have the chance to spot some animals – this time I saw a chamois (I did not expect to see them at these still relatively low altitudes, but the terrain is quite rocky and steep, and hence they apparently like this area – also, with the forest being protected, maybe they are safe here from being hunted?), a fox, and just a quick passing shadow from what appeared to be either a marten or a weasel. As it was too early for the bus to already operate at this time I had pre-arranged for a taxi to pick me up at Grenchen Süd train station – a stop on the …

Caral is according to the current science the oldest town in the Americas. For its age of up to 5000 years a lot of the ancient city is remaining. You can see pyramids. Most of them have been freed of the sand and stones that covered them. One still looks similar to its status when it was discovered. Apparently it was discovered by its form from a bird eye perspective because from the ground it looked like natural hills. The other pyramids have been freed from the errosion. They remained untouched for about 3,800 years. There are buses from Lima to Barranca and/ or Supe. We can recommand the cheap Hostal Los Angeles for the very informative and kind woman that runs it. We stayed in Barranca and went to the transport company ET Valle Sagrado Caral that took the two of us exclusively for 40 /S to the entrance (Boletería). We took the obligatory tour in Spanish with a good guide. The entrance fee is 11 /S p.p. and the tour costs another 20 for a maximum group size of 10 people. As we had a big group we paid only 5 /S for the tour. It lasts 1 hour and gives you closer views of the different pyramid ruins plus verbal explainations in Spanish. The English text signs along the paths are in my view completely unuseful because the only moment when you can read them is during the Spanish explainations. It is prohibited to walk through thw …

Only a few weeks after its inscription on the WH List, I managed to visit a number of the Hopewell Earthworks in southern Ohio. I had a fine day driving around and discovering the various components, but the site doesn’t come without its issues.

The Celebrations

To celebrate its newly won status, Fort Ancient (one of the component sites) organized special activities during the weekend of 7 and 8 October. I joined their free guided tour on Sunday morning at 9.30, and I was glad I did as it added a deep dive into the subject that I wasn’t able to get at the other locations. The tour was conducted by the Site Manager and he talked for 75 minutes about the complex history of this specific site.

Fort Ancient has multiple historic layers, of which the ‘Hopewell’ layer is only one. The visible remains are mostly original (ICOMOS called it “near pristine”), but it is hard or even impossible to get a feel of how the site looked like and was used some 2,000 years ago. For example, it now is fully covered by a forest while there was no vegetation except for grass when the ‘fort’ was developed. A lot of myths about who built it and why have been proven wrong over the years. Today’s view, in line with the other Hopewell sites, is that it was a ceremonial center where people gathered now and then (but it stayed uninhabited).

The Components

…

I visited Nyamata Genocide Memorial and Kigali Genocide Memorial in 2015.  

Kigali Genocide Memorial is more of a museum than a "site". The Memorial Centre illustrates the unsanitized horrors of the genocide while being very respectful to the victims. Similarly, despite being a place borne out of profoundness sadness, the Centre also manages to express the optimism of the Rwandan people.

Nyamata is a quiet rural town, which can be visited as a day trip from Kigali. The now UNESCO designated site did not have a site guide when my friend and I visited. Indeed, the two of us were the only visitors. Inside the church were bloodied clothing of the victims. Similar to the other reviewer on this site, I did not feel comfortable taking photos inside the church. 

To understand the anger-inducing callousness and failure of the outside world to prevent or reduce the human suffering that occurred in Rwanda, I recommend "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda" by former Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire of the Canadian Forces.

Having visited the island of Brač I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go to unreviewed TWHS of Hermitage Blaca. The journey from popular towns of Supetar or Postira takes about one hour, last few kilometers are on dirt road. Then you have to park your car and go on foot about two kilometers through the mountain path – quite demanding, especially during summer heat. The views are great and reward the hardships of hiking.

Hermitage Blaca's history dates back to the 16th century when Glagolitic monks, fleeing the Ottoman invasion, sought refuge in this remote spot. They carved out their hermitage within the rugged cliffs, creating a place of both spiritual significance and scholarly pursuit. Blaca is really picturesque, set on the mountain slope like famous monasteries in Bulgaria, Georgia or Meteora in Greece.

When I reached the monastery, the only guide was with another group, so I had to wait about 30 minutes. After that time several other foreign tourists came, so we could enjoy a tour in English. The interior is not very impressive, but gives impression how monks lived in the middle of 20th century or before (back then the place was still alive and children from neighbouring villages went to school to Blaca. Original classroom is still there). The tour takes around one hour.

I don’t think this place has a potential for being a world heritage site, or at least Blaca didn’t convince me of its outstanding universal value. But the place …

Even though many of the citadels in the list were built in the spanish empire, Spain itself has no citadels in the world heritage list. I guess this fact doesn't sit right in the ministry of foreign affairs ,which is how we got yet another fortification proposal. The tentative site centres around a set of fortifications in the french and portuguese border. The best ones are the ones in figueras, jaca, pamplona and ciudad Rodrigo. Now I'll cut to the chase. I don't think the fortifications in Pamplona, the only ones I have visited, have OUV. Afaik they weren't particularly innovative at the time and significant portions have been torn down. They still make for a pleasant park and if you're in pamplona you should visit. However I don't feel like they add anything explicitay new to the list. Imo the strongest candidates are ciudad Rodrigo, which is hilarously included under "Romanesque Cultural Enclave in the North of Castile-Leon and the South of Cantabria" despite not being in the north of castille nor the south of cantabria, and San fernando in Figueras, which was built after the treaty of the pyrinees when Spain lost the valuable Fort bellegarde. These two sites might just be enough to wrap a proposal around so I will abstain from giving a thumbs down to the proposal, yet.

I actually think Ciudad rodrigo might eventually make it into the list. Though most likely not in a serial proposal but rather on its own, afterall …

I visited Su Nuraxi in September of 2023 on a self-driven tour around Sardinia. Due to the structure of my itinerary, Su Nuraxi was the fifth Nuragic site that I stopped by, so I already was well familiar with the key information points regarding the ancient civilization and its archetypal edifice. Because of that, I did not mind going on an Italian-language tour, starting within minutes of my arrival, as opposed to waiting for the next English-language tour. That I speak and understand Italian - passably, not fluently - obviously helped, but the relative familiarity with the subject helped even more.

The guide-led timed entry at Su Nuraxi - every half hour; the only nuraghe visited on this trip where we could not roam free - is partially justified by the fact that the interior parts of Su Nuraxi that you can step into are dark and small to the point of being claustrophobic; there are three narrow passages where traffic has to be limited to one person at a time in one direction. In fact, for all of its overall size and supposed exemplifying features, I did not find Su Nuraxi to be the most impressive of the nuraghi that I've seen specifically on the strength of its interior space constraints. 

When you linger on elevated viewpoints of the central complex, you start to recognize that what looked from the ground like piles of stones are actually visible outlines of outer structures. Once the guide leads you …

I visited 4 of this serial site locations in August-September of 2023 on a self-driven tour around Sardinia, in addition to the already inscribed Su Nuraxi di Barumini.

Santu Antine was one nuraghe that I would call the most impressive, even more so than Su Nuraxi. Unlike the latter, Santu Antine's defined interior spaces actually allow proper exploration of the main structure, including several fairly walkable covered passages. It is hard to imagine that it would be overlooked for inclusion when and if the decision to extend comes along. It is also more photogenic, IMHO.

Palmavera is significantly more compact in its core, but its outer precincts are not far behind those at Su Nuraxi. There are a couple of uncommon surviving artifacts on the grounds, such as a sandstone nuraghe "model" on a circular altar and a stone chief's seat. Depending on how many locations are selected to be included on the extension list, it is questionable if it will make the cut.

Parco Archeologico Santa Cristina is a larger nuraghe+. Its central part is well-preserved remnants of a Christian village, centered on the church built on this site around 1200 CE. The nuraghe proper is located in a surprisingly wooded area a couple of hundred meters beyond the village. The central fortress here consists of a single truncated tower, while the rest has more of a feel of an archaeological dig, with only a few defined structure outlines. There is another roofed space that can …