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I visited several minor Belgian locations and cemeteries of this tWHS over the past years and in May 2023 I focused mainly on the French locations around the Ossuary of Douaumont. The latter visit fully convinced me that this tWHS truly possesses tangible OUV as the area around Verdun is basically one whole cultural/memorial landscape shaped by World War I.

The Douamont Ossuary is managed by a private foundation that clearly underlines that the site is "non-subsidised since 1919 although recognised as promoting the public interest". I tried to keep this in mind when paying the 7 euro ticket for a well-presented overview view video and the chance to visit the "cloister" and climb the 46 metre tower known as the Lantern of the Dead, which contains a 2 tonne bell which is struck at 12 and at 4pm. The tower is given this name as it partly lights the battlefield and the necropolis at night and the panoramic view of the cemetery from the top gives you a better idea of the sheer size and landscape shaped by war. On either side of the entrance to the tower, the 133 metre main gallery is home to 46 cenotaphs in 18 alcoves. These symbolic tomb stones cover spaces containing the remains found in various areas of the battlefield. Without paying for any ticket, these spaces and countless bones and skulls can be seen through the windows located at the rear of the monument. In the cloister, the names of …

To get to Tigrovaya Balka you need quite a lot of preparation, stamina, private transport ( the closest sizeable city is Bokhtar/Qurghonteppa) , and at least a basic knowledge of Russian/Persian, but - believe me - does not worth the effort. First you need a good local connection/fixer, as you need - as we understood - two type of permits. One from the OVIR (Ministry of Interior), where it is clearly stated which part of the border area you want to visit. A general "border pass" from the OVIR is not enough, Tigrovaya Balka has to be stated on the paper. On the other hand you have to get the permit from the office of the National Parks from Dushzambe (64 Druzhba narodov, near the Orthodox Church). Finally you have to register at the border protection agency in the nearest village (Dusti), and make a copy of your passport (the border guards do not have a photocopy machine). If you have an aforementioned good fixer, he can prepare these papers beforehand, and with these - after the registration - you can easily visit the site. We had a bad one who did not prepare the necessary papers so we had to wait three hours in front of a closed door, waiting for the proper papers to be sent there. During this time we visited the museum - it took not more than 20 minutes even if we read all the panels. It's only three rooms, some soviet era oversaturated photos, …

I visited all 4 locations of this tWHS in 2023. Nakhchivan is a landlocked exclave and autonomous region of Azerbaijan and only reachable by a cheap plane from Baku Domestic Airport Terminal (if you're already visiting Azerbaijan's mainland), as the road border with Armenia is closed.

Car rental is a bit dodgy as there aren't any international companies, so make sure you bring cash (to avoid surprises on your credit card) and report any damages before signing any contract or giving back the keys. However, once you manage to get a car, driving here is a treat compared to Azerbaijan mainland as there's quite a lot of ground to cover and very little traffic, if any, quite a welcome break coming from Baku. The mausolea of Nakhchivan are practically scattered in 3 main locations: one main location is Nakhchivan city proper, just around 10 minutes from the airport, where the Momine Khatun Mausoleum is the central attraction of a public park, while the Yusif ibn Kuseyir Mausoleum lies in the middle of a very small residential area, some 10-15 mins away on foot; the other 2 locations, Qarabaghlar Mausoleum and Gulustan Mausoleum are in completely opposite directions, to the north and south of Nakhchivan city along the E001 highway. All 4 mausolea are doable as a pleasant day trip and can also be combined with a visit to Nakhchivan's other tWHS in Ordubad (more on that in a separate review). All visits are free of charge.

The Momine …

It’s now eight years after the 500 year celebrations of Martin Luther’s public display of his 95 theses nailed to the door of the church at the Wittenberg castle. Calm has returned to both Wittenberg and Eisleben where six sites make up the Luther memorial WHS. In both locations the focus is not so much on buildings and architecture as most of the original structures have undergone substantial changes over the centuries, but rather on the work, ideas and lasting impact of Martin Luther and his close companion Philipp Melanchthon.  

Wittenberg can be reached easily by train or car, from Berlin or Dresden and other big cities in the east of Germany. We stayed at an hotel close to the Luther and Melanchthon houses. Both places can be visited in about two hours each and consist of modern parts and the historical buildings, largely revamped in different periods. Since a lot of writings have survived, both Luther’s and Melanchthon’s lives, teachings and tribulations, including their final hours are well documented and presented in the exhibitions. 

The exhibition in the Luther House is dedicated to Martin Luther’s life, work and his influence with more than 1000 authentic objects, showing the daily life with his family, political and theological books and treatises that changed the world in the 16th century. While it displays the history of the Reformation quite well it’s not that convincing on the personal side of Luther’s life. The highlight is the Luther-Stube, which remains more or …

Don’t be surprised when this remote, small site pops up as a nomination in 2026 or so, because There Have Been Signs. A relatively new Tentative List entry (2018), it has been part of the Upstream Process since 2020 with the aim of getting nomination advice. The World Monuments Fund and the US Ambassadors Fund initiated restoration works in 2014. Also, Solivagant, who has a keen eye for sites like this (think of Marib!), wrote praisingly about it. So although it wasn’t on my initial itinerary I decided to make the detour between Masvingo and Bulawayo and go and see Naletale for myself. My biggest worry was whether I could make it in a non-4WD car.

The exit from the A6 is just beyond the town of Shangani, marked with a sign to the Dhlo-Dhlo and Regina ruins (which probably are part of this cluster, although not specifically named in the Tentative Site Description). What follows is a 26km long unpaved rocky road. After 2km or so I contemplated turning around, but I did not want to give up. Besides the bumpiness of the road, there’s also the worry whether you are on the right track. It is not signposted, however, it’s mostly a single track with one spot at the beginning where it forks and you have to keep left. I encountered a couple of other cars, and there also is a gate manned by a private security firm that you have to pass 9km before the end. …

We visited Brú na Bóinne in June 2022 but didn’t post a review as there are plenty already. However, I now note that no one has yet described the Mound at Dowth and that a couple of the references made about it in earlier reviews are not quite correct so, here goes -

a. Dowth is the 3rd large mound (of similar size to the others) within the Brú na Bóinne complex after the more famous Newgrange and Knowth. Unlike them it has never been “reconstructed” and doesn’t form a part of the tours on offer at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre. It can however be visited externally independently without paying or booking. I have provided an aerial photo taken from a Visitor Centre video because it gives a better idea than any of my own close ups of what the mound looks like as a whole. That might be regarded as somewhat “underwhelming”!! Nevertheless, as I try to identify below, it has its interests and merits - although no one could argue that you should visit it in preference to the other 2 mounds if you had never seen, or could get to, them. If you couldn’t get a tour ticket however, you might do so in order to get that “WHS tick” by entering the inscribed area somewhere!.

b. Assuming that you have had your “fill” of Knowth and Newgrange, a further reason to go to Dowth is as an “antidote” to the previous experience! …

I visited the Azeri location closest to Xanbulan in 2023, knowing that this tWHS has great potential of being an easy extension to the already inscribed Iranian WHS this year (the Colchic Forests WHS in Georgia made it as a separate inscription!).

The "rangers' office" of the Hirkan National Park (Hirkan Milli Parki) and the best base for any organised or guided visit of one of the many trails around the 3 locations in Azerbaijan can be found along the main road 2-3km outside Xanbulan proper and the actual locations, not far from the Khanbulan lake. Unless you decide to cover a lot of ground with a multiday hike (on mostly muddy terrain), a guide is not necessary and online or offline (better) GPS maps are sufficient for a day trip from Baku towards the Iranian border. Should you opt for a guided visit, do make sure to call well ahead as the office doesn't seem to have fixed opening hours and supposedly an entrance ticket is charged too. The areas around and south of Xanbulan which I tried to cover during my day trip, involved some hairpins and minor offroading with my rental car, mostly because the area is prone to flooding and mudslides, and the only rangers I saw were busy covering higher ground on horseback and didn't charge me any entrance ticket.

The parking area close to the lake is very touristy and popular among locals, with lots of makeshift tea houses, swings, photo spots …

Mana Pools National Park was the main goal of my 2023 Zimbabwe trip – rarely visited by our community, lacking a full review, but ranked among the best parks in Africa by safari nuts due to its large gatherings of wildlife in a ‘wild’ setting. Lately, Mana Pools is considered to have become ‘busy’ due to the ever-increasing number of camps and the accompanying vehicular traffic and what the IUCN Outlook 2020 describes as "crowding of iconic elephants and predator kills". The connoisseurs now prefer the even wilder Gonarezhou in the east of the country. As far as I have seen, the park shows no indication whatsoever of being a World Heritage Site (no plaque, no logos).

I spent 6 nights camping in the park as part of a 13-day safari tour: 3 nights at Chitake Springs and 3 nights at Mana Riverside. I will remember it mostly for its scenic landscapes. The rough area around Chitake Springs is covered with picturesque baobabs and even has its own ‘Baobab Avenue’. It also best shows the eroded 'sand-bank' environment – created by a large seasonal river - that is part of the site’s OUV. There are only a handful of (often sold-out) wild camping spots here and there are no roads.

The more developed Mana Riverside has a fine setting along the Zambezi River (a bit similar to Botswana’s Chobe NP), plus the ‘blue forests’ that it is famous for among serious photographers. The blue haze is created by …

One would think I enjoy a nature park with animals and on paper the vast area is extremely impressive. However, there are so many problems with the park.

For one it's now called Nyerere after the Tanzanian hero rather the British big game hunter Selous (Seluuu) although everyone still calls it Selous around here. I also saw a map in the management office that splits up the park so technically Selous Game Hunting area (yes, HUNTING!) is south of the river to the edge of the park. The west side is Nyerere NP whereas the park area you will visit is an extra territory all together.

Basically the tourist area is really small. From one gate to another is 70km or so and the circuits around the sides aren't too big. Some are even private due to lodges and villages. You can still easily spend a day driving around.

It's easy to get to Selous actually despite what other reviews say. It's NOT an easy drive from Dar Es Salaam although I did it in 4h rather than the 6½h going the long way on paved road. However, don't do a self drive. Actually don't do a self drive in Tanzania in general. It's not worth it. You can hire a guide with professional safari jeep for decent prices and you get so much more out of it. My Prado even had issues getting around the tall grass where the lions hang out and this was dry …

I visited this tWHS on the way to the Gobustan Rock Art WHS. Even though there is no mobile signal around, and there is a police checkpoint just before reaching the site which is quite notorious for bribery scams, currently the site is free of charge, signposted and very easy to get to. So if you have a rental car, the most popular half-day or day trip from Baku including the Gobustan Rock Art WHS and the Lok-Batan mud cone, is not necessary and you'll be able to spend more time at the sites proper plus make sure you're taken to the most active parts of the mud cone.

You'll see that most guides do their best to light a flame on the babbling mud cones. Make sure not to step on the fresh mud and keep a safe distance from the most active cones (the amount of fresh mud oozing out of them should be a clear indicator!). The mud cone or "volcano" erupted in 1977 and again in 2001, producing large flames many meters high in the latter eruption. I had already seen other smaller examples of mud cones in Turkmenistan, and although Azerbaijan claims to have around half of the world's mud volcanoes, their association with oil and gas fields, together with the rather dubious boardwalks and "mud spa centres" currently being built and developed, while trying to artificially control nature, I think don't bode well for any possible future inscription.

It was interesting to …

I had the pleasure to visit Arequipa around its anniversary on the 15th of August and that is of course reason enough to celebrate for a couple of days during the week especially in advance of the actual day of the anniversary. Nevertheless the places of interest were visitable although with reduced hours and on this way I could enjoy the combination of the colonial buildings in the famous "sillar" style (dried volcano ashes) and the colourful and loud celebrations of the recent population. For a good reason one of the main sights in the second biggest city of Peru is the monastery Santa Catalina. It offers the interesting combination of understanding the life of the nuns in the monastery from colonial times onwards until today and to enjoy the sillar architecture of Arequipa. It´s worth the 10€ entrance as you can spend half a day in the interior of the city inside a city. There are good explanations in English in the many rooms and places and there is also an App in English that describes 31 places inside the monastery. Alternatively you can take a guided tour that is offered in a few different languages as well. I liked the different colours of the different parts of the monastery that the walls were painted with. There is a blue patio, a red street and a white area. In the evening we could witness a parade in the street in front of Santa Catalina from a Crêperie. It was …

I went scuba diving in the Aqaba Marine Reserve during my trip to Jordan in August 2023, through a local dive center.

Being a scuba diving enthusiast, this was the best way for me to experience this TWHS, however, since the marine reserve is located a few kilometers south of downtown Aqaba, near Tala Bay (where most of the beach resorts are located), the site is easily reached by private car as well and it's also a great spot for snorkeling from the shore if you are not a fan of going too deep underwater in areas such as the so-called Japanese garden or Berenice reef.

The reef, although not very extensive, seems to be quite healthy, compared to other reefs around the world and with a good amount of underwater life. There are lots of corals and small juvenile fish, which is always a good sign. I also saw turtles and other larger fish such as groupers and I was told that also some larger pelagic fish, such as tuna, sharks (even whale sharks) and manta rays can be spotted sometimes, even though I haven't had the luck to see any during my dives.

Something interesting is that King Abdullah II of Jordan is a scuba diver himself and decided to improve the diving spots in the area by sinking a few objects to act as foundation for artificial reefs. Among them are 2 airplanes (one of them, the passenger aircraft Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, is actually …

I visited this tWHS in 2023 focusing mainly on the 4 locations in the Absheron peninsula closest to Baku, namely Mardakan, Ramana, Nardaran and Sabayil. The other 4 locations are further north towards Siyazan and Shabran on the way to the Azerbaijan-Russia border (close to Derbent).

For starters, the only location of the 4 closest to Baku that is currently still on the Caspian Sea shore is Sabayil, in fact it is now IN the Caspian Sea and its few foundation remains can be seen during low tide from near the Baku Eye waterfront. The other 3 locations are now further inland due to the Caspian Sea shrinking. Nardaran Fortress is the next least interesting site and can be found near the town of Mashtaga, just 25km from Baku. The Shirvanshahs used the fortress for both observation and defense. Its best highlight is the Arabic inscription (seen above in the main photo). The Nardaran Mosque or Rahimakhanim Sanctuary which was built in 1663 is located about 200 metres from the fortress. What's left of the fortress is a square defensive wall around a round tower. Nearby, on the way to the other remaining locations, there's a similarly shaped fortress which can be seen and appreciated better, within the Qala Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum Complex, with some interesting archaeological finds displayed in situ.

The best partially restored/reconstructed locations are those of Mardakan Castle and Ramana Tower. The quadrangular Mardana Castle is bang in the centre of a very residential …

Pella is the third Decapolis city TWHS I have visited in northern Jordan after Abila and Gadara in August 2023 and, in terms of quality, it's somewhere between the two. The site is not as well managed as Gadara, but it is not left completely on its own as Abila. 

The visitor centre is just off the main road (easy to find on Google maps), on a cliff that overlooks the entire archaeological site, which in fact is not very big. However, the visitor centre is not much more than a ticket booth and what seems to be meant as a small museum that is not ready yet.

From the visitor centre a clear path leads along the hill down to the valley where the main ruins are located. Unfortunately, not much is left. It's possible to see two sets of columns that were temples turned into basilicas, the remains of a theatre and the remains of a few other buildings and columns.

Overall, it took less than 40 minutes to see everything, including the walk down to the ruins and back up to the visitor centre. My advice is not to go on a very hot day as its location, below sea level and not too far from the Dead Sea, makes the area extremely hot and unpleasant.

As I stated in my reviews of the other two Decapolis city TWHS of northern Jordan, I don't think that Pella has the potential to become a …

We visited the cable station in Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, Canada, in August 2023. This was a nice detour of approximately 100km and 1h50 on our way from Gander to Saint John’s. Heart’s Content is a nice village and the station is right along the main road, easy to find and park by. On one side of the road stand the two buildings of the station itself ; opposite side of the road and immediately by the sea, a tiny memorial garden has been set at the very place where the cable was coming on shore. A long plaque with words in both English and morse code shows the way of the cable from the shore to the station. There are a few benches and free flowing potable water – we had a nice picnic there.

This station is the American end of the first cable laid across the Atlantic for morse communication, the other end being on Valentia Island, Ireland. This cable allowed the first modern and fast communication between Europe and America and started operations in 1866 for a period of 99 years At that time it was seen as the “eighth wonder of the world”. There is a nice introduction movie at the station, explaining why this was a clear technological breakthrough. The cable itself is 4000+ km long ; the floor of the ocean had to be surveyed and mapped first, to determine the best possible path for the cable ; the entire cable was loaded …

The Khami Ruins have not been covered well by the reviews so far, the only two existing ones are short and date from visits in the 1990s. The ruins aren’t visited much by our members in general either, they are ranked #1007 out of 1157 currently. And it isn’t that they’re particularly hard to get to – they are open daily and lie just some 20km outside of the city of Bulawayo, which in itself is an excellent hub for 3 of Zimbabwe’s 5 WHS.

I went there fresh off the plane, having arrived on a direct 1-hour flight from Johannesburg to the international airport of Bulawayo. I picked up a rental car and drove across the sprawling city to the west. I had Waze direct me, until on the outskirts of the city I started noticing signposting towards ‘Khami Ruins’. I decided to follow those, which turned out to be a good choice as Waze wanted me to turn into the access road to the Khami prison (no, not the archeological site of a prison).

The final 5km of the drive is on an unpaved road, and the 5km before that the asphalt only covers half – the rest is potholes and sand. You’ll pass a house now and then, but I don’t see the city encroachment becoming a problem quickly. The signposting stays excellent til the end. You will enter the (unmanned) gate with the ‘Welcome to Khami Unesco World Heritage Site’ sign and the WH …

Vauban completed! In June 2023, on my trip to Lombardy and Piedmont, I took the opportunity for a day trip to the French Alps to visit my last two Vauban Fortifications. In my recent review of the Savoy Residences, I complained about serial WHS with too many locations. However, the Vauban Fortifications are, in my opinion, an example of an appropriate number of sub-locations. The twelve fortifications are scattered along the outer borders of present-day France and you can compare how Vauban adapted his construction principles to the different terrain: in the high and low mountains, on flat terrain, on the coast, at an estuary and on islands.At the time of my first review (see below), I had visited six of the locations. In my second review here, I start with the two sites in the Alps, because they have not yet been described in more detail. And then I give my personal ranking of all Vauban sites, with short descriptions.

The setting of the Briancon Fortifications (photo) is truly picturesque: the fortified old town (Cité Vauban) with Fort Chateau in the centre, and a system of forts and fortifications scattered on the surrounding slopes and hilltops. All this to protect the strategically important mountain pass to Italy. I had expected a rather touristy spot, but there were only a few people in the old town on the Sunday morning when I visited. And that might be the reason why the forts don't have regular opening hours, there are …

I visited Gadara during my trip to Jordan in August 2023.

I had a rented car and so it has been relatively easy to drive to the three Decapolis cities that are currently TWHS (Abila, Gadara and Pella) in northern Jordan. Gadara is the largest and best managed of them. There is a small museum, reconstructed buildings, the ruins are quite extensive and there are even underground tunnels that can be visited. Overall, the site is worth a visit even for non-WHS aficionados.

Considering the distance among the cities and the size of these archaeological site, it is quiet easy to visit all of them in one day, especially if driving from Jerash, rather than Amman. 

I decided to split my visits in 2 consecutive days, though, as I added also visits to Umm El-Jimal and As-Salt.

Other than these logistic details, there is not much to add to the review that Wojciech left a few years ago. Not much has changed since.

The only aspect that I want to highlight is that, in my opinion, among the Decapolis cities in northern Jordan, Gadara is the only one that might have a tiny chance of becoming a WHS one day. As I stated in my review of Abila, instead of nominating each city individually with little chance for inscription, perhaps proposing a serial site with all the Decapolis cities together (maybe even including Amman's citadel, the ancient original Philadelphia) would have a much greater chance …

With many recent mixed reviews on this site, I wasn't sure what to expect of Seokguram and Bulguksa. All I knew was that I had to include them on my June 2023 trip to Korea at all costs, as I knew them to be renowned as masterpieces of the great Silla kingdom. I visited them on the morning after a late night exploring Historic Gyeongju, which had tired the rest of my party out, meaning I was to explore this site on my own and be back at 12:00 to join back up and head to Yangdong. With under 4 hours to check both components off my list, I rushed for bus 700 at the central bus station (I think you can also take bus 11, though the route may be different), which passes by Bunhwangsa and Bomun Lake on the approximately 40-minute ride to Bulguksa. Upon getting off, it's about five minutes uphill to get to the gate, then another five minutes to leisurely get through the temple grounds until you arrive at the imposing front of Bulguksa Temple.

The historic staircases are on full display, and considering their granite composition, they're already quite impressive. Inside the temple, the two pagodas are also immediately seen in the main courtyard; this will probably be extremely crowded, but these are also worth stopping to gaze at the exquisite carving and artistry on display. The rest of the temple, wooden as it is, expands up the slopes of the mountain, but …

Oh dear! Italy and its serial World Heritage Sites: 14 Savoy Residences, 9 Sacri Monti, 25 Palladio sites, 14 Medici Villas, 7 Longobards locations… Not to mention all the prehistoric and nuragic sites in Sardinia or the countless historic theatres of the Marche region still waiting on the tentative list. Of course it's not just Italy, many countries have this kind of WHS where I would say: Less would be more. But the north-west corner of Italy seems to be a hotspot for this. On my trip through Lombardy and Piedmont in June 2023 I couldn't help but think of our friend Iain and his rule that he doesn't tick off a WHS until he has visited 50% + 1 locations. WHS hunting can be challenging, even in Central Europe.That said, I have to admit that I visited 12 of the 14 locations, but most of them only from the outside. I travelled by rental car, so it was far less time-consuming than by public transport. The majority of the palaces around Turin are more or less on the way to or from other WHS.

Visiting European palaces is not one of my favourite activities when travelling. But you can hardly visit a WHS like the Savoy Residences properly without stepping into at least one of them. I ended up visiting the interiors of three palaces. As with most visitors, my first choice was the Musei Reali in the Command Area in Turin. The Command Area is a complex …