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None of the previous reviewers has described the visit to Esna, which is part of this proposal, so in my post I will focus only on it. In short – don’t miss this one!

Esna is the first stop on the route of the temples of Upper Egypt from Luxor to Aswan. From Luxor leads to it a rather weak road, which takes about an hour. Esna and Edfu are connected by the same road, and the distance can be covered in an hour and a half. You should park on the main road, the last 300 meters walk around the souvenir stands.

The purpose of our visit in Esna was to visit a small but very well-preserved temple of the god Khnum. Its construction began in the fifteenth century BC, but was completed only in Roman times. The temple in Esna is undergoing intensive renovation and you can see the difference between renovated and non-renovated parts, especially on the vault. It is also surprising that architecturally it is similar to temples twenty centuries older. The Greek dynasty of the Ptolemaic, and later the Romans, managed to leave only a small mark on the architecture of this place.

I highly recommended this temple, after Dendera and Abydos, Esna has the best preserved wall and ceiling paintings of the entire Egyptian T-List. It is probably even better renovated than the aforementioned two. 

I visited the Qal’at al-Bahrain fort on january the 23rd just after returning from the A'ali burial mounds. Public transport in Bahrain is quite good and even excellent when compared with the one in some neighbouring countries. I just took a bus from Manama's central bus station to the Seef mall from where I walked more or less 15-20 min to the fort. First I visited the museum there which is certainly not the most interesting museum out there. Then I went over to the fort which I visited for more or less an hour. After that I had a coffee in the restaurant next to the museum.

A very pleasant visit and an interesting fort,but nothing from another dimension. I walked back to the Seef mall,had an indian dish in the food court there,and then took a bus back to Manama.

I visited this tWHS in 2022 as one of the main stops along the ring road loop. Unsurprisingly in Iceland, its OUV lies in geological features which through the passage of time have shaped rich habitats particularly for avifauna.

The geological features are indeed spectacular which seems to be quite a constant almost everywhere in Iceland. Myvatn and Laxa are situated along the volcanic zone of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The perfectly shaped pseudo craters which were formed by steam explosions as hot lava flowed into the lake some 2,300 years ago are more impressive from a distance or from the air than by climbing the few trails or wooden boardwalks present. There are a couple of panoramic viewpoints around the lake with information boards in English on the different geological phenomena and on the biodiversity present here. Luckily it seemed to be too windy for the infamous midges which give Myvatn its name to roam around so I could easily enjoy different hikes around the area. At the pseudo craters location I opted for the signposted birdwatching trail which goes pretty close to the nesting and resting sites of several species of birds, mostly waders, small passerines and above all geese and ducks. Several species of the latter, some quite rare, nest here in the largest numbers recorded almost anywhere else in the world. Apart from their differing distinct plumage, keep your eyes peeled for the colour of the ducks' eyes, the rare ones have red eyes (Great Northern …

I have spent one day and one night in Parque Nacional Los Alerces and it is a beautiful mountain area with lakes, forests, mountains and rivers in which you can easily spend a calm time to relax a little bit. 

From Esquel Terminal I took the 8 a.m. bus service to the National Park which took as announced 2,5 hours until arriving at Lago Verde. There I stayed in the beautiful camping El Aura and slept later in a "Domo", which is like a big, permanent tent. I was planning to go directly hiking for the rest of the day after arriving which also would have been possible if I had not fallen a bit sick. In the end I have skipped the tracks to Lahun (Mapuche word for Alerce tree) viejo, Laguna Escondida and the Mirador Lago Verde in the area which I was all planning to do as different people had recommended them to me. I had decided against a navigation on Lago Menendez to the very old and big Alerce, which can only be reached by this navigation, and have also decided against a navigation on Lago Futalaufquén towards Lago Krügger, which can also be hiked, as they came too expensive to me. Additionally I did not see the high value add as I had already seen some Alerce trees in Parque Nacional Pumalín in Chile (between Chaitén and Caleta Gonzalo) which was cheaper to reach for me. In the end I walked two tracks of …

After visiting the pyramids of Giza and Saqqara with tons of visitors, me and my family went to Dahshour. It is a place that every visitor to the Egyptian pyramids should visit. Until recently, it was possible to visit only the Red Pyramid from the inside, but from 2019 you can also enter the Bent Pyramid. Apart from them, there are a few others, inaccessible to visitors. Admission costs only EGP 60 ($2) per adult and includes the entrance to the two pyramids. Compared to Giza or Saqqara, it is a much better value for money. We started from the inside of the Red Pyramid, where you have to climb from a hundred steps in an inclined position to reach the burial chamber. My daughter hardly had to bend over, but her parents felt some rarely used muscles. On the second day we had great difficulty in walking up the stairs.

The culmination of the day was the Bent Pyramid. It is distinguished not only by its unusual shape, but also by the use of polished stone. And an extremely difficult approach to the burial chamber (see photo). While the Red Pyramid squeezed the seventh sweat, Bent is a real hardcore. I made a count – you have to overcome 130 steps of stairs and 220 steps / rungs on the ramp – the latter of course bending down hard, sometimes so much that you have to walk on all fours.

Maybe that's why we have the …

This site hasn’t been reviewed in 10 years, so it can use a refreshment. Not that I think that it has changed much over the past years. I visited Melaka already in 2009 but left it til 2023 to add George Town. After having just arrived from bustling Thailand, George Town seemed to be in a post-Covid tourism dip and there wasn’t a lot going on (it also was a Malaysian school holiday period). Still, it grew on me and it is worth a day or two.

I stayed in the heart of Little India – it might as well be called ‘Very India’, for the numerous shabby-looking (but excellently tasting) Indian restaurants, the sari- and gold bangle shops. My hotel – the Ren I Tang Heritage Inn – was a wonderful 19th-century townhouse in the “Early Straits Eclectic Style”, and a former Chinese Medical Hall.

My explorations (all done on foot) brought me first to the monuments from the British colonial period. This still seems to be the business and political center of the city. Several historic buildings remain, most of them stark white in colour. ‘Around the corner’ there are the remains of the British East India Company’s Fort Cornwallis; I didn’t go in as I found the entrance fee of 40 ringgit too high.

I then followed the coastline, with good views of the Penang Strait and the city of Butterworth, at which I had arrived by train on my way down from …

I visited 12 out of the 14 locations which make up this fun tWHS in 2022. This tWHS turned out to be a very fun quest/treasure hunt to explore and visit some of the few Icelandic cultural sites on the island. For starters, this quest requires a rental car and a good GPS or Google Maps with Wi-Fi connection (4WD not necessary but make sure you have full insurance cover including windscreen damage which will prove useful throughout your vacation due to the infamous gravel roads).

If you're covering the whole ring road, only 4 of the 14 locations are really close to the actual ring road with little or no gravel roads involved to be able to visit. These are: 1) Árbær - a mere component within another open-air museum close to Reykjavik; I managed to enter for free by entering from a side entrance just next to the small cafeteria, probably I was just lucky that the staff were having their lunch break. As an addition to the other locations, I still enjoyed my visit, especially since the entrance ticket would have cost me an arm and a leg and it was fun to have a better overview of the different architectural styles in Iceland all in one place, but simply as another turf house, it has no value added and actually it would benefit the tWHS if it were left out. 2) Núpsstaður - this is private property and a gate prevents access by car, so …

I visited the thracian tomb of kazanlak on the 16th of jan,early in the morning of that day. The day before I had arrived in Kazanlak around 18.00 in the afternoon by train from Burgas via Sliven. The first thing I had encoutered after leaving the railway station in Kazanlak was a place where a huge group of people was dancing to traditional bulgarian music. Fascinating. I asked them if I could join them.Well,my moves were stiff,but the locals were extremely friendly. They explained me that every sunday in most bulgarian cities there is public dancing to traditional music which can be joined by whoever wants to.A wonderful idea to promote native and traditional music and dances in our globalized world.

As for the thomb my hotel was a stone's throw away so that I was exactly at 9.00 at the entrance of the tomb. However,the person working there was not ............there. After 30 min a female employe finally arrived. She didnt expect any visitors and obviously hadnt been in a hurry to get to her working place. Quite annoying! Whats more .....like in most bulgarian and romanian cities packs of dogs roam the parks and public places(just a few days ago a female jogger,a scientist,had been killed by a pack of dogs in Romania's capital Bucharest......two big dogs turned up when I arrived at the entrance of the thomb which is located on a hill at the entrance of a city park. There were quite harmless but just …

We decided to move to Urumbamba after a week-long stay in Cusco during our trip to Valle Sagrado in August 2022. We thought that this was a good base to explore some of the sights between Cusco and Ollantaytambo, such as the archaeological ruins of Chinchero, the Moray terraces, and the focus of this review--the Salt Mines of Maras. We planned to visit Moray and Maras on a half-day trip, but circumstances changed and we ended up focusing on Maras.

The site

The site is located south and across the river of Urubamba. Using public transportation to get to the salt mines could be quite confusing, thus, we decided to hire a car and a driver. Before reaching the town of Maras we turned right to a well-paved road that leads to the site. Upon arrival, we noticed that there were fewer cars than expected, but the number of closed shops and eateries indicates that this place could get really crowded. Past the entrance, a path leads down to the viewing "platforms" that provide a great view of the salt mines, the gorge, and the mountains in the background. It's a beautiful sight despite the dark grey clouds that loomed over the mountains. The salt mines are basically terraces of white rectangular pools that slope down until they reach what seemed to be the bottom of the gorge (though it's not after checking Google Maps). 

We saw a bunch of locals doing different things: (1) one was …

Place visited in February 2023. From this proposal, me and my family visited two components – ‘Huge monuments and structures’ and ‘Ancient necropolises’ At the beginning we visited Pompey's Pillar with its surroundings (ruins of Serapeion). The pillar is gigantic, measuring almost 27 meters and stands out even now outside the buildings in the city center. In the area there are numerous statues of Greek and Roman provenance.

The number one of our visit to Alexandria was certainly the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa – a huge underground cemetery with beautifully decorated tombs, placed on the list of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. The catacombs are multi-level and contain many side corridors. The necropolis consists of a series of tombs tunnelled in 2nd century AD and used until 4th century. They represent a mix of Egyptian, Greek and Roman traditions and styles.

Apart from these sights, Alexandria did not make a good impression on us. We wanted to wander around the city and see the Biblioteca Alexandrina building, but after a long stand in the crap in giant traffic jams, we didn't feel like it. By the way – I don't know why Egypt put a modern New Library building as part of the proposal – it does not fit at all with the other ancient monuments and when assessed by ICOMOS (if it ever happens) it is unlikely to hold.

One of our day trips from Cusco was spent visiting Valle Sur, located southeast of Cusco, with the intent of hopping between churches and archaeological sites. Said churches belong to the proposed "Rural Temples of Cusco", a group of 10 churches that are said to be the tangible representation of the Christianisation of indigenous peoples of Cusco. Authorities creatively took advantage of the artistic and touristic value of 3 of the 10 "rural temples" that they marketed them to tourists as part of the Ruta Barroco Andino. Many Cusco-based tour companies offer guided full or half-day trips to Valle Sur but we chose to hire our own car and driver so we could customize the sequence of our visit and avoid crowds, as we were visiting during the peak season (Aug 2022).

We left the hotel in Cusco after a hearty breakfast and a couple of soroche pills (Cusco is higher but I was still having symptoms of altitude sickness). How I planned the itinerary was to start at the farthest site and visit the succeeding sites on our way back to the city. Thus, we visited the sites in the following order:

1. Capilla Virgen Purificada de Caninunca in Huaro (see photo):

this dusty, stocky, terracotta-roofed chapel that is located next to a lake (Laguna de Urcos) was locked when we arrived at around 9:30am. Our driver chatted with a vendor who happened to know the caretakers. After a bit of waiting a couple of …

Originally not part of Dvaravati and Pre-Angkorian Arts trip arranged by ICOMOS I participated with. On the free day in Siem Reap, the separate excursion to Koh Ker had been arranged by a small group of experts which I promptly joined after I heard their special tour. We left Siem Reap very early and reached Koh Ker at 9 AM to be the first group of visitors of that day. The local guide and ICOMOS experts explained to me that Koh Ker was the capital of Angkorian Empire for only about 25 years during the reign of King Jayavarman IV and his son. The reason why the king moved the capital to Koh Ker is still unknown, but most historians believe that it was political reason since the King usurped the throne of his nephew, so he moved the capital to Koh Ker where he ruled as local lord before he attacked his rival in Angkor.

The first thing I noted that Koh Ker’s location was quite dry and hot than Siem Reap area, one expert told me that the shortage of water maybe another reason why people moved the capital back to Angkor later. After we secured the ticket, the first temple was Prasat Pram Group, a complex of five buildings dedicated to Shiva, here our experts explained that the Koh Ker’s architectural style was clearly developed from Rolous Complex outside Siem Reap but the ratio of the whole structure had been expanded especially around the gate …

The Kondoa rock art site has been thoroughly reviewed already. Two things I would like to add. Firstly I found the entrance price quite steep. We were coming with our driver from Dodoma and not only had to pay for our own entrance fee, but seperatly for the car, our driver and the guide, which totalled 93.000 TSH ( around 40€). 
A second, more interesting point is that the Rock paintings have only suffered from wheather related causes, mainly rain seeping through the rocks, but not from human causes. The reason for this is that even nowadays, thousands of years after they were made, they still play a role in religious practices. Just below the B1 site there is a rock with a hole underneath, were according to the locals a deity lives. We saw people entering the cave, and if the deity approved the goat and chicken they brought with them would be slaughtered. It was my first visit to a WHS were i could witness the preparation for an animal sacrifice.

Wat Phra Mahathat is the largest Buddhist temple of Southern Thailand. It is also an especially holy one, as it houses the relic of a Tooth of the Buddha. This combined makes it a busy and important pilgrimage site. The temple is located in Nakhon Si Thammarat, one of the oldest towns in Thailand. Not much English is spoken or written here, the beach tourists and backpackers usually don’t make it this far south.

I arrived in the afternoon, after a 6-hour minibus ride from Phuket. Nakhon’s street layout is a bit weird, with parallel streets running north-south with some village-like neigbourhoods in between. The temple is a large structure along one of these north-south oriented streets, its main stupa is so huge it cannot be missed. There’s also a hive of activity in front and near it, as both souvenirs and offerings are sold in large quantities.

There’s no entrance fee to enter via one of the gates, and the site seems to be open all day. First, you arrive in the outer complex, which has a few freestanding structures. The main vihara is fully under scaffolding at the moment. There’s also a building with a two-tiered roof that contains a Buddha footprint shrine. And there are two smaller stupas.

A further gate will then introduce you to the inner complex, which houses the main stupa and 158 little chedis (with the ashes of devotees) around it. This 13th-century stupa is made in Singhalese style, its …

Of the five components of this proposal, I saw only two – Karanis and Soknopaiu Nesos. From the research I did, it seems that Qasr Qarun is still worth visiting, but there is not much left to see in Theadelphia.

Karanis is once quite a large village settled in the times of the Ptolemaic and inhabited in Roman times, overlooking the oasis of Fayoum. It is located on the road from Cairo to Wadi Al-Hitan, so at least a few travelers may have passed by unknowingly. To this day, mainly the ruins of two temples have remained here, the residential buildings are completely ruined. The place is unattended – although there is a center for visitors, you can see that it has not been renovated since its inception, that is for some 30 years. Our local guide showed us an ancient public bath where rubbish was piled up. Next to it is a rather weak museum (but with a wonderfully preserved mummy with a coffin portrait in the Greek style).

Then it was a little better – we went to the Lake Qarum National Park, in its northern part. We paid $ 5 per person for admission and went to the ancient village of Soknopaiu Nesos or in Arabic Dimah Al-Siba (see photo). The village was settled in the times of the Ptolemaic, in the 3rd century BC and its name comes from the god Soknopaios (as you can guess, the name is Greek rather than Egyptian). …

K'gari (Butchulla for Fraser Island) is undoubtedly as exceptional as it could be. It satisfies 3 of the 4 natural criteria, and the increased recognition of Butchulla people as its traditional owners in recent years made it more special. I originally planned a 3-day, 2-night trip to the island in May 2022 but a knee injury forced me to postpone the trip to August 2022. I also ended up doing a full-day tour as I was still nursing my knee.

Most of tour companies operate from Noosa Heads and Rainbow Beach. The agency I availed the tour from used to pick up passengers from Sunshine Coast, which would have been idea as I was staying with a friend there. However, I had to get an accommodation in Noosa Heads due to low number of tourists. Apparently, they were still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. This turned out to be a good surprise as the small town had a wonderful beach and a relaxed vibe.

The tour started at 5:30 am, with our 4WD MHOV-looking truck picking up passengers on the way to Rainbow Beach. Past Rainbow Beach our tour lead picked up a couple of passengers staying in the campgrounds around Inskip Point. We got onto the barge and docked at the southern most point of the island. From here we already saw a few dingoes, with some people quipping that it must had been our lucky day. The truck started driving on the beach, …

Enough has been said probably about the Cathedral of St. James in the previous reviews, so I will just talk about Sibenik in general.

I stayed at a flat just south of Sibenik for 2 months in January and February of 2023. My landlord said to me, "Sibenik is the most beautiful city in Croatia." By now I would agree with her or rather say "Sibenik is the most beautiful county in Croatia." Well, I certainly have not visited all corners of Croatia, but the area was just so beautiful with many worthy places to visit. 

First about inside the city of Sibenik.

During my 4 month-long trip in spring and summer 2010 when I quickly visited / revisited 21 countries in Europe, I stopped in Sibenik on my way from Split through Trogir to Zadar all in the same day. From the bus station in Sibenik I just walked on the water front to the Cathedral of St. James and walked back to the bus station and left Sibenik. Now I would not recommend this short stay. Between the bus / train station and the Cathedral I would walk through the old town of Sibenik at least one way. It is yet another pretty Venetian old town. It'll be better if you climb to the top of the St. Michael's Fortress and / or the Barone Fortress. From there you get a sweeping vistas of the islands that includes St. Nicolas Fortress, another WHS. (One day …

Took me years to accomplish visiting and even then it wasn't easygoing though it should have been rather simple. First off while you see the park on Google Map that isn't really where the park starts and ends. The inscription file has a map and it's different again so eventually I gave up trying to figure out where the park is really. One forum online quoted "the park only exists on paper" and it's really just nature that keeps going and going. If you look at Google you will find no real towns in the park either. Trying to enter from Timika was an idea but again there is nothing touristy from there. Then I stumbled across Wamena in the highlands. It's beyond the mountains and outside the world heritage site but it's in my opinion the only way to reach the park.

Flying into Wamena is quite easy as there are daily flights from Jayapura and that is connected well with Sorong and beyond. I took an overnight flight from Bali via Makassar and another town before connecting with the flight to Wamena. You don't really want to stay in Jayapura if you can avoid it.

Wamena is quite small but has hotels and restaurants to make you feel comfortable enough. Most people that come here are trekkers. Don't expect a fancy trip. You don't need to arrange a permit to visit the area even though it says with many online sources but the hotel assured me …

I visited this WHS in 2022. I spent 3 nights in the area between Skaftafell and Jokulsarlon, 1 of which in my rental car parked near the Jokulsarlon bridge as all hotels in the area were fully booked.

The Vatnajokull National Park is characterised by diversity on all fronts, be it landscape, biosphere, geology or service levels. To simplify matters, however, it may be placed into two categories: uninhabited highland area with limited services (requiring 4WD vehicles and/or expensive guided tours or adventure tours such as dogsledding, motoski tours, glacier walks or ice cave exploration), and lowland areas with higher service levels. I focused on the latter which are easily accessible from the ring road, namely Skaftafell with 2 easy/medium signposted hikes to Svartifoss waterfall and a turf house which is not part of the tentative WHS list and another one which leads close to the Skaftafell glacier; Jokulsarlon; and Fjallsarlon. On the way to Skaftafell (outside the NP area), I really enjoyed exploring some scenic lowland parts of the Katla UNESCO Global Geopark (great for birdwatching especially without a 4WD car) and the lava field of Eldhraun totally covered with deep moss and a short path to see a little bit of it without damaging the rest. 

The park's five visitor centres are all located in lowland areas. Each of them has an exhibition about the park's nature and cultural heritage, with park rangers and volunteers offering information and interpretative walks or programs. Parking areas …

It took a lot of self-motivation to drag myself to the holiday island of Phuket, especially since it is quite a detour by public transport on the way south from Hua Hin to the Malaysian border. But the Chinese influences (the result of a 17th-century tin mining boom) in the Old City of Phuket turned out to be a refreshing change from the monoculture of the rest of Thailand.

From Phuket Town, I visited Sirinat National Park, one of the 7 nature reserves included in this tentative site, which lies some 30km to the north. I took the bus that runs hourly from inner city bus terminal 1 towards the airport and got off about 3km before the final stop when the bus passes the park entrance road. There’s no lack of signage that you are approaching and entering a national park. It was renamed to ‘Sirinat’ (after the Thai queen mother Sirikit) in 1992, but maps.me still has it listed under its older name ‘Nai Yang‘. Officially there is a 200 baht entrance fee, but the gate wasn’t staffed and I don’t see how they would enforce it anyway as the area includes a public beach.

Finding something appropriate to see and do is another matter. The best thing I could find was to hike the ‘Beach Forest Nature Trail’ – all 500m of it! It’s a forest trail with interpretative signs, totally underwhelming although it must be said that the signs are relevant to its possible …