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From Santa Cruz we took the 11 o'clock flota (big bus) from terminal bimodal to San José. On thursdays there is also a train service for this route. In San José I can recommand to stay at the hotel Las Charapas a bit outside the center, which is run by Johan who is super nice and caring for his guests. Also the place is beautifully clean with a pool behind which a lot of tucans are living in this time of the year. We got a double room for 235 BOB a night. At the church next to the big plaza in San José we met Oseas after the service who was educated as priest but now is the gatekeeper of the church. He happily shows you around the church if you ask for him. We checked out the museum the next day, which has material for at least 5 hours to read through if your Spanish isn't so good but it's hard to filter out the interesting bits. It's hosted in the Colegio next to the church. The church itself is the only stone church of the WHS- the others are made of wood. The material was available from a nearby hill. At night the church is beautifully illuminated. A tip outside the WHS scope follows. At Johan's place we met Peter Neufeld who lives in Campo 26 in the huge Mennonite colony Nueva Esperanza on the way between San José and San Rafael. On wednesdays he's in San …

In my Profile section on this website, I’ve had ‘Puthia’ for a long time as one of my proposals for a new WHS. To my surprise, several monuments in Puthia were added to the Bangladeshi Tentative List last month as part of the ‘Mughal and Colonial Temples of Bangladesh’. So let me be the first to review it.

This serial site has 29 locations, of which I visited about nine during my Bangladesh trip in late December 2006 / early January 2007: one in Kantanagar and the others in Puthia (although I did not note down all their names, I've probably seen all in the cluster there). The proposal considers Hindu and Buddhist monuments that were built during the Mughal period in the 16th-19th centuries.

The Hindu temple in Kantanagar (Kantajee Temple, top left and top right photo) lies just outside Dinajpur and can be visited on foot from there. First you walk across a long, springy bamboo bridge (only to be used outside the rainy season). Then through a village with mud huts and a remarkable amount of cattle around the houses: cows, goats, oxen, chickens. And a wealth of crops: potatoes, peppers, and bananas. You can also see the production of jute here, made from flowering plants, which was once Bangladesh's largest export product but has now been supplanted worldwide by plastic.

Arriving at the temple, you first have to go through a gate, and then suddenly there is a beautiful, brick-red Hindu …

Despite the low number of reviews, I would say Namhansanseong is covered pretty well by its earlier visitors, and I don't have all that much to add. In June 2023, I came the same way everyone seems to come (including all the elderly hikers that filled the bus to the brim) and walked the commonly covered stretch between the Northern Gate and Western Command Post, and short of a couple of highlights, the overall experience seems to be the same for everyone. This is a mountain fortress, nothing more and nothing less. It's honestly an impressive one at that; for its size and the terrain it covers, Namhansanseong was definitely no easy feat. That being said, you'll mostly be admiring the views and the nature much more often than the structures of the actual fortress. I found the gates and command posts in Hwaseong to be more impressive and better preserved. The Northern Gate seemed to be under renovation, sadly, but I did see the Western Gate, Cheongryangdan Shaman Shrine, the Western Command Post (probably the most impressive and important structure), and Gukcheongsa Temple, as well as the Emergency Palace. Most of my nearly 2-hour visit was walking, as the terrain definitely slows one down - the hike from the central roundabout up to the northwestern fortress walls is quite steep. To me, the best part of the visit was the Yeonjubong Outwork, culminating in the watchtower at Yeonjubong Peak (picture attached). From here, you have an incredible view of …

There are five royal palaces in Seoul and, although Gyeongbokgung Palace is the largest and most visited, it's Changdeokgung Palace that has been listed as the World Heritage Site. That's primarily because of its authenticity, as the one that is in the most original form and the first to be restored (by 1609) after being razed in the Japanese invasion. It was the seat of government for 270 years until the very end of the Joseon Dynasty.

My sense is that it's actually hard to tell the difference between the centuries-old restoration here at Changdeokgung and the more modern work at the other palaces. In a way that's good - they all 'look' authentic. But I find it a bit disconcerting because the Korean World Heritage Sites have a tendency to all look a bit the same and seem a bit too clean (to the point of almost being sterile). That's my main criticism here - that the buildings are all well maintained but it's hard to get a sense of how they might've been used or what life in the palace might've felt like.

The highlight at Changdeokgung Palace is probably the Secret Garden, with beautiful landscaping that follows the natural contours of the land and is interspersed with various pavilions and other buildings. You can only access it with a guided tour and I definitely recommend doing that. In busy months, it's worth booking in advance, although there are places that only become available on the …

Our visit to Patzcuaro was somewhat fortuitous. It was early in our 2008 trip driving round Central Mexico picking up as many inscribed and T List sites as we could in 17 days. It wasn’t planned as a WHS-related objective and I wasn’t aware that “The Lake Patzcuaro Cultural Zone” was a former T List site, let alone that it had been nominated in 1987 and deferred before being removed. We were driving from Morelia towards Guadalajara and the town and its lakeside villages seemed “interesting” as per LP’s descriptions and were not much “out of the way”! In fact, we were so “taken” with the town that we stayed overnight and “paid” for that with a very early start the next day on the remaining 270 km motorway drive to Guadalajara.

After Morelia, which, IMO, doesn’t really exude “Colonial town” ambience, it was the first of many we were to see which did! It was still very much a “town” rather than a city, with plenty of “indigeno” atmosphere/people, and almost totally vernacular architecture, but with no really outstanding or memorable buildings . What did stick very much in our memory was a magnificent mural from 1942 by Juan O’Gorman titled “The History of Michoacan”. This is located in a building now called the “Gertrudis Bocanegra Public Library” which had been constructed as an Augustine Convent in 1576, converted to secular use in 1880 and turned into a library/cultural centre by the …

Dolmens have always interested me, at least ever since I found out about them. In fact, I first encountered them on the List, reading about the newly inscribed Antequera Dolmens back in 2016 and then trying unsuccessfully to visit them the following year. Preparing for my trip to Korea in June 2023, I tried my very best to research on how to see them the best way, and especially with the website as a major source, I decided that Gochang would be the best place to experience this site. Staying the night in Jeonju, Gochang would be a 1:40-long bus ride away and 40 minutes away from Gwangju, from which I took the next bus to Suncheon as there was no direct one from Gochang, so there was no time to spare. Despite a bus route existing between the bus station and the site, my failure to find the bus stop led to our decision to just take a taxi there - the ride took under 10 minutes with no traffic. Finally, it was time for me to see my first dolmens!

The Gochang Dolmen Site consists of six "courses" or sections; the main path from the visitor center and museum area leads straight to the expansive third course, and this forms a linear route with the first and second courses to the right and the fifth course to the left. The fourth course is the quarry, located further up the hill behind the third course, and the sixth …

I visited both cities in May 2023 and will not add anything regarding architecture and history - since there are many very qualified reviews. However I would like to give an actual update of situation and how to get there.

BERAT

How to get there:Berat is very easily accessible by car or bus, just 1 hour drive from Alabania´s capital Tirana. 

Sightseeing situation: 

Heavily visited and crowded, but also easy to visit (but not wheelchair accessible since streets are very steep). 

GIROKASTER

How to get there:Girokaster also is well accessible by car and bus from Tirana (200 km or 3,5 hours - due to newly built highway)

Sightseeing situation: 

Heavily visited and crowded (lots of package tourists), not wheelchair accessible since streets are very steep. 

The old industrial site of Mantasoa covers the remains of a revolutionary development in Madagascar in the 1830s. The first Malagasy Queen, Ranavalona, wanted to become more independent of European powers and especially produce her own modern weaponry. To accomplish this, she enlisted the Frenchman Jean Laborde who had been shipwrecked off Madagascar and had engineering experience. The forced labour of 20,000 Malagasy men was used to develop the site, and later 1,200 men found employment at the factories. The site was only used between 1841 and 1855 until Laborde fell out of grace and went into exile.

Mantasoa lies about 50km from Antananarivo, but it took us 3.5 hours to get there (we went by normal car, in a 4WD it may be half an hour or more faster). The area is much more densely (re)forested than the region around the capital and it has a river – the proximity of wood (pines) and water (swamps were turned into artificial lakes) were what drew Laborde to this place for his industrial site. Mantasoa nowadays is a municipality of about 10,000 inhabitants spread across several villages.

Five locations are distinguished in the Tentative Site description, but they lie close to each other in town and there is more heritage from this period to be found in between. We started at Laborde’s former house, an impressive wooden building modelled after the farms in his home region of Auch. A question by my travel companion for the day, WHS …

Hainich Beech Forest, June 2023

A bear! – I was stopped dead in my tracks this early morning in June suddenly spotting a rather large dark animal some 5 meters up a beech tree close to the trail, apparently looking at me. I somewhat panicked and proceeded to quickly leave the scene. What at this moment appeared to be a small bear must have been, of course, reflecting on the encounter a bit later in more calmness, just a racoon, its white stripes obscured by the dimness of the forest in the early hours. Small vindication, then, that at least in the German language a racoon is called a Waschbär, hence, at least lexicologically, a kind of bear.

Hainich is a rather large and diverse forest, located next to Wartburg-famous Eisenach in Thuringia, a stop on the major ICE route from Berlin to Frankfurt. Different from other beech forests in Germany, the core zone (some 15 km2) is easily accessible, well crisscrossed by many paths and even some gravel roads, certainly in the southern part of the area, a bit less so in its north-eastern parts. It even seems possible to visit parts of the core zone on horseback (horsing is quite popular in this part of the country). The area used to be part of a larger Soviet military training area, and some areas are cordoned off due to unexploded ordnance; but this may just be a tactic to scare off potential visitors (I heeded the …

I initially found the description of this as a 'fortress' a bit misleading until I did a bit more research into what that means in Korea. Rather than a single castle, for example, or even a complex of buildings atop a hill, it really means a small city surrounded by a defensive wall. With that perspective, it was a bit easier to plan the best way to visit Hwaseong Fortress at Suwon, where what's left of the fortress is now mixed in amongst a modern urban sprawl.

For anyone planning this day trip from Seoul, I would suggest doing two things. The first is to walk the entire length of the walls that surround the fortress site - these are not just the main element of the World Heritage Site these days, but they are the most scenic, with fortifications, gates, and other decorative features. It took me about 90 minutes to do the loop (including photo stops). The other thing to do is visit the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace, a 'restoration' (reconstruction) of the palace within the city. I didn't find it as interesting as the walls, but together they add to each other's stories.

For any visitor to Seoul, I would recommend Hwaseong Fortress as a day trip (or half-day if you're efficient) even if you're not a WHS fan. It's easy to do and shows a different part of the history of the Joseon Dynasty, beyond the obvious World Heritage Sites like Changdeokgung Palace and Jongmyo …

Dragør is a quaint town around 10km south of copenhagen in the island of Amager (which locals pronounce ama). it's actually just a few km away from the airport, so even from the harbour you can still hear the constant air traffic. The reasoning denmark has put forward for inscription basically boils down to preservation. the state argues that there are few towns which showcase the advent of globalisation in the 18th century as well as dragør. Denmark was for a long time a maritime power and it only stopped being so in the 19th century when their fleet was sunk in the war against britain, so hypothetically it would be one of the places to look for this suposedly missing link. The truth however is that dragør is nothing to write home about. even the danish inscription feels unconvinced by its own arguments aiming for as many criteria as posible with very little variation in their arguments. their central stand is the town layout, which they affirm is very particular. I'm not convinced that having a regular grid pattern with dozens of remarkably similar whitewashed yellow houses is "very particular", let alone grants inscription. the town itself feels more like an overly comodified former fishing town than the open air museum the report seems to suggest.

while walking through the maze the town is i couldn't help think of burela, a thriving fishing town I vsisted in the north of spain. its in particular renowned for its multicultural …

Banda is magical. It features so much and while it's not for everyone, the people who were there had already visited multiple times over the decades and want to stay as long as the visa allows. I suppose you can get addicted to the relaxed style. If you only want to come for a couple of days then this isn't really the place to fit into a tight, fixed schedule.

Side panel: the Indo visa issue is that you have to extend after 1 month and you need to return to an immigration office which would be in Ambon but you have to wait several working days to get your passport back and the ferry/flights aren't often enough to make this a quick hop. Thus: come with a fresh visa if you plan to stay for 2-3 weeks because extending is a major problem. Maybe at one point they'll introduce the 2 month visa commonly to avoid this problem because it's also very annoying going on lengthy liveaboards.

As I've begun talking about logistics then let's start with that. You can get a flight from Ambon. It's twice a week, schedule is sort of fixed and you can also continue east if you prefer that, however, you can ONLY buy tickets from an agent and that agent only sells you when the schedule is confirmed, meaning a month before or so. That's a big problem for organizing your trip well so you have to be flexible. It also …

I was back in the Bordeaux area to visit the Cordouan Lighthouse and decided to swing by the Vezere Valley for the third time. The first time was for Lascoux in 2004 and the second time was for Font-de-Gaume in 2009. My initial motivation to go back was to visit the National Museum of Prehistory, as it was closed on the day I visited Font-de-Gaume in 2009. But then, by staying overnight in Les Eyzies, I managed to visit three more components of this august WHS: Abri de Cro-Magnon, Les Combarelles, and La Madeleine. 

Arriving in Les Eyzies by train in the early afternoon, I first visited Abri de Cro-Magnon, which supposedly opened to the public only in 2014. It is a very easy visit, as it is located right by the train station. Indeed, the prehistoric bones were discovered when they dug the area to clear for the train station in 1868. Although the main thing here is just Abri (shelter) created by the overhanging rocks of a cliff (See Aspasia's photo below), it's got to be very important as it is where Cro-Magnon Man, human ancestor, was first identified. Then I walked over to the museum, but more about this later. 

In mid-afternoon, I had a pre-booked, time-allocated, 8-Euro entrance ticket for Abri de Cap Blanc, but after realizing that I had packed too many activities within the 24 hour period of stay in Les Eyzies, I decided to forgo it. Well, there is always the …

Hahoe and Yangdong are known and advertised as villages with a lot to them - they're clan villages that have been perfectly preserved to demonstrate rural life over 5 centuries of habitation and growth; "in their siting, planning, and building traditions, the two villages are an exceptional testimony to the Confucianism of the Joseon dynasty." Thus, the divisions of the historic houses into servants', women's, and men's quarters, as well as the layout of the villages with houses of the clan leaders behind the hills while the houses of the lower class are closer to the entrance, all of these principles in practice are things I kept in mind to observe as I made my way towards Yangdong in June 2023. However, after my visit, I would say the best way to explore this village and have the most enjoyable experience there is by wandering around aimlessly, enjoying the historical atmosphere and the cool countryside air. Yangdong is a place to get lost in, and I wish I had the luxury of time to do just that, but alas, I had a bus to catch to Busan that night. Nevertheless, I got my fair share of wandering while also getting to tour some of the most important sites.

Actually, my visit to the Yangdong portion of the World Heritage Site started with Oksan Seowon, which I review in the Seowon page. After that, the same bus #203 took me to Yangdong in about 15 minutes (this is around 45 …

It may well be one of the best preserved monuments of Ancient Greece, but the projects to protect the Temple of Apollo Epicurius both help and hinder your ability to appreciate it. Covered by some kind of tent since 1987, you unfortunately can't get a wider vista of the temple, and you also can't see how it fits in with the broader landscapes up here in the mountains (which is particularly disappointing because that was presumably a big factor in why it was built in such a remote location).

However, I found that being forced to stand close to the temple created a sense of intimacy that I haven't found at other ancient sites in Greece. With the tent around us, I felt even closer to the monument and it seemed larger than it might have otherwise, the columns looming above. Rather than admiring its overall scale from afar, I had more incentive to study the little details that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Much of the OUV is in these details and, although there are some information signs, I would suggest learning a bit about them in advance or bringing something to read with you. Luckily I had an archaeologist guide who was able to point out the important design features and talk about some of the theories about why it was built north-south (rather than the usual east-west) for instance, or about why there was a prominent Corinthian column in the centre (maybe there there was …

I visited this WHS in January 2023 as our last minute honeymoon getaway. Saint Lucia has no tWHS and "only" this WHS, but it really is a special WHS and possibly one of the best and most iconic the Caribbean has to offer. Travelling by plane instead of cruises means you'll most probably land on the opposite side of the island and a tour, taxi or rental car will be necessary.

We opted for the latter to explore as we please and were very lucky to find an SUV available from our first hotel close to the airport. There aren't many cars available for rent and although I usually always opt for a small car, having more clearance(and full insurance) turned out to be a godsend as the road to the Pitons is literally full of hairpins and never-ending potholes. Most tourists who were given smaller cars, ended up with a puncture, and half way through the area is quite rough and dodgy full of stoned rastas with machetes, not the ideal place to get stranded. Hotels are VERY expensive but we decided to spoil ourselves for the occasion and spent a couple of nights a bit inland to hike the Petit and Gros Pitons with a guide, explore some minor petroglyphs and see the smelly sulphur springs, very close to the cool UNESCO WHS plaque and marker, and a couple of unforgettable nights by the beach just between both Pitons, from where we relaxed and snorkelled.

Both …

Kinabalu Park is included on the World Heritage List mainly because of the extraordinary plant diversity resulting from its particular topography. In fact, Mount Kinabalu creates a gradient of climatic and edaphic conditions enabling an incredible number of plants to thrive. The isolation of certain populations resulting from this topography has also favoured the emergence of a large number of endemic species. The best way to visit the park, as described in some of the reviews here, is therefore to reach the summit and tackle this climatic and topographical gradient yourself. Unfortunately, although I'm quite the target audience for such an attraction, the staggering cost of the excursion put me off and I won't be describing a trip to the summit to you. Indeed, it's compulsory to reach the summit in two days with a guide, and only one company has a monopoly on accommodation on the mountain. As a result, a night in a basic dormitory can cost upwards of $500, to which must be added park access fees and the guide's fee. Nevertheless, there's plenty to do at the bottom of the mountain.

I visited the park over two days in February and March 2023. It's easy to get to the park from Kota Kinabalu thanks to the minibuses that frequently leave the city on their way to Ranau. However, on the morning of my departure, the only other passengers present at the minibus stop were an American couple on their honeymoon who had been waiting for …

Here to give the Getbol its first review on this site since inscription, I've included it on my June 2023 trip to Korea. I originally did not think much of these mudflats... there are already so many Eurasian migratory bird sites, I'd already seen the little mudflats in Mont Saint Michel and Itsukushima, and if the tidal variation were the star of the show, I would've much rather wanted to see the Bay of Fundy. Well, the pictures of Suncheon Bay did really look quite pretty, and as every reviewer here so far has given nothing but praise to this field of reeds, I figured it was worth fitting into my trip. Spoiler alert: it absolutely was! As a result of choosing Suncheon, however, I do not have much to add to previous reviews other than tips on how to go and a few of my personal observations.

Suncheon is a small city with huge potential for tourism, and they sure know it! At the bus stop outside the intercity bus station, you can catch a direct bus to a good selection of featured destinations that could fill up more than an entire day, including Seonamsa, Songgwangsa, Naganeupseong, and of course, Suncheonman Nature Reserve ("man" means bay). The southwestern hospitality really shines through here, especially with the tourist information officer at the station who got out and closed her booth to lead us to the bus stop a block away. Just take bus #66 (also passes the train station …

Though I visited Rome several times, it was still not enough to visit all the interesting places in Rome, not to mention the places around. In May 2023, I traveled to Salento region in the Southern Italy, so I took opportunity and did a stop in Brindisi. This place was the end of extended Via Appia, and the reason why Brindisi was connected to Rome was a possibility to travel to Greece and the East by sailing from the local port.

Brindisi is now important port and tourist spot. One can find however several interesting monuments spanning two millennia in the relatively small and rather unassuming historical core. The only site related to Via Appia that could be seen is its "official" end marked by giant two columns (PHOTO). Well, only one is remaining because the second one was moved to nearby Lecce and used as a base for the statue of Saint Oronzo.

As clearly evident, there is not much to see from Via Appia in Brindisi, and it is necessary to visit other components to get OUV of this tentative site.

Besides the columns in Brindisi, I could see small remaining of Roman pavement, the part of side branches of Via Appia, in Bari on Piazza del Ferrarese. Hopefully, the strategy of the state party of Italy will not follow the way paved by Danube Limes WHS, where every single stone is included as the separate component.

The Upper Town of the Malagasy capital Antananarivo (Tana) is an architectural mix of Asian and European influences, following the tastes of the country’s royal and political elite during the 19th century. It lies on top of the highest hill of Tana, a daunting city with millions of inhabitants that developed like an inverted La Paz. Here the ‘important’ people started living uphill, and the further you go down the poorer it gets. It felt perfectly safe to walk around in the Upper Town by myself. Only near the Rova (the Queen’s palace) I encountered some wannabe guides, but they quickly gave up offering their services when I ignored them.

As I was staying in a guesthouse already halfway uphill, I covered the area on foot all the way. If you come from the lower areas of Tana, such as near the lake, it would be advisable to take a taxi to the Rova and then walk down. My walk started with some 300 steps up the historical Escalier Tavao – in the early morning, this is used as an outdoor gym by the muscular boys of the city. They help each other with their routines, such as doing squats all the way up and down.

Once you’ve finished the stairs, the remaining route is fairly easy. In total, I walked only 7km during the 3.5 hours that I spent in the area. A good first stop along the way is the Museum of Photography: a modern building …