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Visited January 2023.

At the moment most of us from WH travellers want to see this site, this kind of a village, inscribed on the UNESCO list. And I do not understand why, ‘cos I could not see any universal value (not speaking about outstanding universal value) of this very pretty nice, very well maintained and recently partly rebuilt village.

It is old, but the oldest houses are 200 years or less old… Probably underpinnings of some of them are much older but it was never researched. Yes, it was never researched. The village used to be a very important stop on the caravan route. But not the only one, ‘cos in the amazing landscape of Asir Mountains (there are some walking and signed trails, monkeys and species of deer) there are other similar villages that were never rebuilt (and looks more picturesque) and are more remote… I spent two days in the area walking and hitchhiking (being a solo traveller without a driver license meaning no car), talking to the people, losing myself in the mountains and following the paths local people show me… And discovering that the thing being unique the area is already registered on UNESCO list – al-qatt al-asiri paintings (photo of the inside of one of the nominated house; https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/al-qatt-al-asiri-female-traditional-interior-wall-decoration-in-asir-saudi-arabia-01261).

Getting there without a car from the nearest city (Abha) is another adventure. You can take a taxi from Saptco bus station to Clock Roundabout in Rijal Almaa (around 100 SAR) or …

I think that Ouro Preto has got all the characteristics of an outstanding cultural World Heritage site: it contains architecture and artwork of high aesthetic value; its buildings, roads, and other colonial infrastructure are well preserved and conserved; and it is a setting of important historical events in the country, particularly the Brazilian independence movement. Schoolchildren are taught about its historical significance and many visit as part of their school trips. Additionally, this former center of gold mining enjoys a status of being a popular tourist destination among locals, as Rafabram attests.

I spent two and a half days in Ouro Preto in September 2022. As of Feb 2023, Passaro Verde bus company runs 12 departures per day from Belo Horizonte (2-3 hours). As in previous reviews, visitors must be wary of the town’s terrain and the steep roads could be physically challenging for some. The town is divided into parishes, and one may organize their itinerary by using the churches as the focal point and strolling around the surrounding streets from there. Areas that I have visited are as follows:

1. Praça Tiradentes – the main public square of the town that is surrounded by beautiful buildings. Notable of these buildings is the Museu da Inconfidência, which provides visitors a background to the history of the town. On the other side of the plaza is Museu de Ciência e Técnica da Escola de Minas, which mostly houses natural history, mineralogy, mining collections.
2. Antônio Dias Parish – …

I visited this tWHS by car in 2022. The best light within the Civita is in the morning just after the morning dew and mist, while the best views from any viewpoint opposite the Civita are definitely in the afternoon with the sun shining from behind you. Parking near the small village before the parking proper is free while the parking lot (which looked quite unsafe when I visited since what looks like a large modern visitor centre is still under construction) costs 5 euro for a day ticket. You'll also have to pay a further 5 euros to cross the modern bridge and visit the Civita proper which further underlines the fact that the Civita is a "dying museum town".

The heart of the Civita is Piazza San Donato with the Church and Belfry dedicated to San Donato and a permeating smell of lavander from the local craft shops. It really looks like a typical Medieval film set with many rustic Medieval town houses, small pretty gardens, intricate Medieval porticoes and archways with Renaissance friezes, external stairways, and a few Etruscan, Roman and Longobard remains displayed in different small artisans' shops, restaurants and museums. There are a couple of worthwhile viewpoints of the surrounding environment and it is especially worth viewing the nearby sea of calanques which are quite similar to the Crete Senesi in Tuscany. After visiting the main church's interior to appreciate its frescoes, and after exploring most if not all of the small streets and …

If Koh Ker gets inscribed later this year, it will be the 8th site related to the Khmer Empire and its predecessors on the World Heritage List. Considering the Maya have 9 now (and Takalik Abaj is upcoming!), it doesn’t seem overrepresented. But we are getting to the Tier 3 sites now I think, with Angkor solely occupying Tier 1 of the Khmer sites and the current WHS Sambor Prei Kuk and Preah Vihear holding Tier 2.

Koh Ker is a step down from these 3, considering both the visitor experience and the level of artistic/historic distinction. It dates from a relatively short period in the 10th century when it was the capital of the Khmer Empire. It was another stepping stone (both in time and location) between Sambor Prei Kuk and Angkor. The Khmer’s water management skills were further developed here.

The ‘best’ things the people from Koh Ker produced were colossal-sized statues. Unfortunately, none are left at the current archaeological site and there are no replicas either to show where they would have fitted. The statues can be seen in the National Museum in Phnom Penh and the Musée Guimet in Paris. In Phnom Penh, a giant Garuda from Koh Ker is welcoming all visitors at the museum entrance. Although the finer nuances in Khmer art elude me, I found the ones from Koh Ker easy to distinguish as they are of a large size, made of sandstone, and less refined.

The archaeological site is …

Visited January 2023.

Solo traveller without a driving license spends more (money and time) in Saudi Arabia than those who rent cars and have a travel pal to share a hotel room. But Saudi Arabia is still a country where you can enjoy hitchhiking and meeting people like anywhere in so called civilised countries…

Hima Cultural Area is pretty remote and not connected to the outside world with any kind of public transportation. I took the night bus from Riyadh to Najran and asked the driver to stop at the conjunction to Hima. I was not alone to leave the bus there and other passengers offered me a lift to Hima site, although it was not on their way. And they offered me a morning coffee in a local restaurant, found a guide in Hima village to show me around, informed the local imam that I was there in case I do not come back before night (😊) and arranged a place to sleep if I’d decide to stay… I left my backpack at the gas station – the local guide said it was safe, and it was! – I started exploring the area.

Here you are free to wander. There are some places with fences but my “guide” told me: it means there something interesting there behind, so let’s go! And he was right – but I do not recommend breaking Saudi laws of not crossing the line without Saudi citizens…

Local people do not …

• I first read about the Plain of Jars when I was 15 years old and its mystery and allure have never left me since. It then took me 20 years to finally see it and I am pleased with what I saw. Coming from the Philippines, Laos just seems so remote to get to! The trip from Louang Prabang to Phonsavan can easily take between 6 to 7.5 hours as the mountain road is not the best. I opted to rent a private van as I was traveling with my senior mom. While we should have arrived in Phonsavan at 2:30PM, given the travel condition and a rather slow old driver we got, we arrived there at 4PM -- just 1 hour before the closing time of Site 1 (5PM). We rushed getting a tuktuk, and when we got to the visitor center, I had to pull some strings: explaining that I am a World Heritage Site practitioner back in my country (I was a site manager for one of the baroque churches and was under the mentorship of the late Ricardo Favis who played tremendous roles in the successful inscription of many SEAsian WHS including the Plain of Jars) and that I would appreciate if we could be given more time to explore and appreciate the site. In the end, we were allowed to stay longer, allowing my mom and me to witness a most wonderful sunset only a few get to experience while surrounded by the enigmatic …

January 2023 this is possibly one of the least exciting WHS to visit. Anyway WHS lunatics want to tick it off the bucket list. On our Baltic Trip 2017 I completely blanked out the two spots around Vilnius. Years later I was still mad about. Now, on a spontaneous trip to Tallinn and surrounding my travel buddy asked me, whether visiting Tartu would be within our itinerary.

Of course! I am happy to visit! So after daytrips to Helsinki and Laheema NP in our 4th travel day we took an early train to Tartu through wonderful snowy Landscape and arrived approx. 2 hours later.

Tartu will be European Cultural Capital in 2024, so there is a bit more to visit than just the observatory. On Sundays it's closed unfortunately, but I guess you get to see more than at some other measuring points. The view above Tartu is also lovely.

Tartus old City alone is worth a daytrip from Tallin. We enjoyed this sleepy and charming town.

From Los Antiguos we have booked a trip for 50 EUR per person (blue dollar rate) with Chelenco Tours to the Cueva de las manos. We also looked into renting a private car or a remise, but the next private car available would have been in Comodoro Rivadavia, a 5 hour drive away, and even when we were there earlier all rental cars were sold out short term. We didn't take the remise (kind of taxi) as we thought from a tour would give us more information for not much more money. After a roughly two hour drive, the first part along spectacular glaciar formed landscape of Lago Buenos Aires, the second on famous ruta 40 and the last part on a bad gravel road going up and down through the steppe with some spectacular rock formations we have reached the visitor center at 11 a.m. on a Thursday. Based on the other reviews here I expected in this remote place almost no other visitors but I was wrong. The 11 o'clock tour was already full and we were only able to take the tour one hour later with almost 25 visitors mostly spanish speaking. As our Castellan is not good and technical enough yet to understand everything we asked for English explainations also and the guide willingly explained everything in Spanish first and afterwards in English for us and a handfull others. We walked on the wooden structures along the rock structures in which also the main cave is …

Nessebar, Nessebar - this is the city I have been to the most times. I was there for the first time (according to my parents' stories) when I was 3 years old. The tradition of going to the Black sea in Nessebar every year lasted almost 30 years. After that, I also went without my parents, of course.

This is the first UNESCO World Heritage Site I have visited. And to which I always return over the years.

They call Nessebar an "encyclopedia" of Christian church construction. 44 churches from the period from the 5th to the 19th century have been discovered in it so far. (Considering, however, that the island was at least three times as large, it is obvious that the number of churches also exceeded a hundred). Among them are the oldest early Christian basilicas in Bulgaria. Eighteen of the temples are well preserved.

The construction completely stopped during the Turkish slavery (for five centuries only one temple was built), and the existing ones were subject to destruction because the Turks forbade their maintenance.

The churches are scattered all over the town, but it is not difficult to find them - there are information boards next to each one with the basic information about the respective church.

Don't forget to visit the museum, which is immediately after the entrance on the right. Take a full day for walking around the city and visiting the churches so you don't have to rush through …

During a comprehensive tour around Ireland in June 2022 we gathered that the Eire T List review process might well result in the “Passage Tomb landscape of Co Sligo” being added. We hadn’t specifically included its locations in our plans but were passing through Sligo (County and town) anyway and were able to fit in a specific visit to 1 of the 2 stated “likely” sites at Carrowmore. We accept that this single site visit didn’t perhaps give us a full enough experience of what the complete entry would have to offer but are still not really convinced that the chosen elements justify a separate inscription from that of Bru na Boinne (BnB).

There are 4 clusters of Megalithic “Passage” tombs in Ireland (see this Wiki article). The already inscribed BnB, a cluster at Lochcrew in Co Meath  and 2 more close together in Co Sligo – on the Cúil Iorra Peninsula south and west of Sligo town (which includes “Carrowmore”) and another a bit further south on the Bricklieve Hills generally referred to as “Carrowkeel”. The “Sligo Passage Tombs landscape” T List entry covers these last 2. I presume that Lochcrew has been left out as it doesn't fit in with the geographic concentration offered by the 2 Sligo groups?

There are 4 main types of megalithic tombs - Court, Portal, Passage and Wedge. This article describes their differences and periods, particularly in relation to the island of Ireland. The …

It is still quite the day trip from Siem Reap to reach Preah Vihear Temple. We left at 5 a.m., only to arrive 3.5 hours later at the parking lot where you have to pay for the ticket (10 USD) and a 4wd truck up to the mountain (25 USD). They had a number of trucks ready: although it seems like a remote place, it does see its fair share of local visitors and a daily trickle of foreigners. My driver, the recommended Mr. Smarty, hadn’t been there since 2019.

I did not have an image of what the site would look like, so it all was a bit of a surprise. It has a very different setting from the classic Khmer sites: not in the jungle, but out in the open on a protruding rock. An 800-m-long ceremonial causeway leads up to the main sanctuary, via sets of stairs and gateways with fine carvings. Overall, it reminded me a lot of Vat Phou in Laos with its nagas and sandstone posts along the way. Preah Vihear’s particular strength lies in its size and ‘sacred mountain’-like location. Also, Vat Phou has 'turned' Buddhist while Preah Vihear still mostly shows its Hindu origins (well, except for that monk handing out blessings in the sanctuary!). 

The lower stairs and gateways are in a terrible state of repair, barely held upright with iron support beams. As with other archaeological sites in Cambodia, a lot of restoration is currently ongoing. Here …

There are 8 of these tserkvas in Ukraine. Besides the one in Zhovkva, which is just outside of Lviv, none has written a report on others yet, so I will briefly report on the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Nyzhnii Verbizh near Kolomyya, Ukraine. 

During my 2 month-long trip to Europe from Los Angeles in autumn 2013 (the year it was inscribed) I walked across the border from Sighetu in Romania to Solotvyno in Ukraine, took a mini bus to Rakhiv and another one to the Hutsul "city" of Yaremche. Between Rakhiv and Yaremche there is another one of the 8 tserkvas at Yasinya, but I did not have time to stop there. After a night in Yaremche (of which I was curious because it was the main setting for the most famous Ukrainian film in history, Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) by Georgia-born, Armenian / Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov who mainly worked in Ukraine), I headed to Chernivtsi by bus with a stop in Kolomyya only for 90 min.. Once at the Kolomyya bus station, because the church is still 5 km away in the village of Nyzhnii Verbizh, I immediately took a taxi.

According to the UNESCO site, this church and the aforementioned one in Yasnya are the two Hutsul-type churches, which is one of the 4 subcategories of this group of 16 churches. It was more unusual looking than I expected with 5 octagonal towers with pear cupolas on top, …

I visited this WHS in 2022. I parked my car in the really convenient indoor Center Parking just next to the famous Dragon Bridge after having visited the three locations which are away from the historic city centre, namely the Church of St Michael, the Zale Cemetery and the Church of St Francis. Hubert provided detailed information especially for these three buildings outside the city centre and overall I agree with his doubts about Otto Wagner's buildings in Vienna not specifically included on the WH list.

The four locations inside the historic city centre are easily covered on foot as a pleasant loop which I started from the Dragon Bridge and covered Market Hall, walking along the Promenade along the Embankments and Bridges of the Ljubljanica River. Most probably the most unique and iconic bridge is the Triple Bridge with the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation in the background. There are a number of interesting and beautiful Art Nouveau buildings which are not part of the WHS but worth viewing such as the coral red Cooperative Bank building, the People's Loan Bank, the Grand Hotel Union, the Galerija Emporium building, the Hauptmann House and the Municipal Savings Bank, to name but a few. Next I covered the Vegova Street and the National Library, one of Plecnik's iconic buildings, as well as the Trnovo Bridge.

In 14 AD the Romans founded a permanent civilian settlement along a picturesque river in the shadow of the Alps called Emona. Perhaps the …

One of the things I got from my two weeks trip to explore pre-Angkorian and Dvaravati arts with ICOMOS international experts in Cambodia and Thailand is the problem of drafting nomination dossier of Cambodia on other Angkorian sites. The problem of how to distinguish between those nominations with Angkor as the listed Angkor already almost covered all aspects of the Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian cultures. Some ICOMOS scholars even opinioned that if original nomination of Angkor exclude Rolous Group which is a Pre-Angkorian site, the works will be more easier for the nomination of Phnom Kulen and other lesser Pre-Angkorian sites to be World Heritage! And right now, this site is being proposed as an extension of Angkor to solve the unsolved problem.

Since the trip only went to the unknown lessor temples on Phnom Kulen, not Kbal Spean, the most famous historical site, initially I thought this is just “fill the gap” day with minor sites, but the visit turned out to be the most memorable one and a hot debate among ICOMOS scholars. After Sambor Prei Kuk, the power center of Khmer Empire moved to the area of Siem Reap, but before the ancient Khmer decided to settle around Angkor Wat, they settled on the small plateau top of Phnom Kulen Mountain and named the city “Mahendraparvata” as the center of the super large Khmer cultural landscape that covered whole northern Cambodia plain. Our mini van took us to the top of Phnom Kulen, the winding road showed …

With a guided tour me and my girlfriend went to the parque nacional los glaciares and more specifically one of its main attractions- Glaciar Perito Moreno. From the hotel it was a 80 km ride (around 1 hour) into the parque where the entrance of 5000 ARS (Currently around 15€ each as of blue dollar rate) needs to be paid a bit more than halfway towards Perito Morenco Glacier. We went off the bus on the right side of the tongue of the glaciar or more specifically in the laguna de los témpanos which proofed it's name as some great icebergs with fantastic shapes were swimming in there. We got into drysuits and other appropriate gear and did a kayak tour on the lagoon. I would not recommand it as you get worse views of the Perito Moreno Glaciar than from the normal walkways as the 600m safety distance needs to be secured and also you don't kayak a lot as the tour already starts close to the glaciar. So most of the time is about sitting in the boat and wait. But it was also not too bad of an experience but to my opinion not a smart place to book a kayak tour. 

Afterwards we walked a bit at the main front of Perito Moreno Glaciar and it is like cinema within nature. Lonely Planet writes the Glaciar crashing into Península de Magellanes is "born to be a tourist attraction" and they're right. It's super beautiful and …

The colonial town of Diamantina is situated about 300 kilometers north of the state capital city of Belo Horizonte. It's pretty much evident that its status as a center of diamond mining pretty much shaped its history and influenced its culture and urban fabric to this day. I reckon that you can see through its history how controlling and authoritarian the Portuguese crown was at the time.

I visited Diamantina in September 2022 and stayed for 2 nights. I arrived at the town’s bus station late at night after a 6-hour bus ride from Belo Horizonte. It was a quick but steep descent to the town centre from the bus station, so travelers may opt to ride a taxi. I know that having one full day may be enough to cover the main sights as the town centre itself is small and compact, but I reckoned that staying for two to three days is ideal to properly appreciate and immerse in the OUV of the town. I ticked off the following sights on my first full day, which afforded me a leisurely walk around the town the day after.

• Catedral de Santo Antonio – seat of the archdiocese of Diamantina and is also known as the Sé.
• Mercado Municipal – a plaza surrounded by shops and establishments housed in colourful buildings.
• Casa da Chica da Silva – the former mansion of the uber-rich Joao Fernandes de Oliveira and his partner, Chica da Silva, a former …

If you visit the WHS of Bisotun then you are likely to pass Kangavar 60 kms earlier on the road from Tehran/Hamadan. The site is an open untidy, scrubby area to the west of the town - it will probably take less than 30 minutes for anyone not “into” Iranian archaeology! The problem isn’t seeing it, but getting much from the visit! Indeed, if it wasn’t for that T List “tick” (and with it the potential for an inscribed one in the future!) I suspect that most people would give it a miss. When we were there in April 2016 the site was fenced and an entry fee was payable. There was no museum, and, apart a very general one at the entrance, no interpretation boards. And no other visitors.

The current T List description can’t be accused of over-hype! I can even quote it in its entirety without extending this review by much – “A monument known as the Temple of Anahita built on a rock platform overlooking the plain of Kangavar. This is a huge building measuring 220m×212m. The monument has a two-sided stairway on its southern front and a one-sided stairway at its northeastern corner. Historical sources and archaeological evidence attribute this monument to the Achaemenid period until the Islamic period.” The word “huge” is perhaps the one to home in on. It is often claimed to be the “second largest stone building in Iran after Persepolis”. The dimensions of the platform …

Ever wondered what the Cambodians were doing between the fall of Angkor (early 15th century) and the start of the French Protectorate in the late 19th century? They had to endure repeated invasions and interferences by the Siamese and Vietnamese, and there was even a Cambodian-Dutch War! Oudong was the capital for most of this period – a trading river port in Central Cambodia, also known for its silver workshops.

The TWHS description shows no focus and a nomination doesn’t seem likely in the near future, despite remaining on Cambodia’s most recent Tentative List in 2020. To a casual visitor nowadays it mostly resembles a sacred mountain ‘experience’. It all revolves around Phnom Oudong, a hill ridge, covered with animist, Hindu, and Buddhist temples and shrines. It also has stupas in remembrance of deceased members of the Royal family.

I arrived around 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and it was so busy that the police even had to direct the traffic flow. It seemed that I had just missed ‘the party’, as tuk-tuks full of orange-clad monks were already leaving. At the base of the hill, there are numerous food stalls, parking lots and newish temples. Here the stone footpath starts that leads from one end of the ridge to the other, the trail can easily be seen on Maps.me.

The path is crammed with one shrine, stupa, or temple after the other. I had no idea what I was looking at, although the animist …

Grand Pré is comprised mainly of marshland that was first polderised by the Acadians in the 17th century for farming and settlement. Its inscription is based on two justifications: (1) the site represents the development of traditional agricultural techniques by the Acadians that adapted to the environmental and tidal conditions of the area, and (2) the site is a testimony to an important part of the history of this region—the Acadian diaspora.

Our visit last November 2022 was an easy 1-hour drive from Halifax. As we were visiting outside of the dates of operation (from May to October) the visitor reception centre, the memorial church, and bookings for the tent accommodation and guided tours were all closed. The grounds remain open year-round. Visiting outside the season meant that learning about Grand Pre's history on-site would be limited to the information panels scattered around the area, and thus, prior reading is helpful. On a positive note, we didn't have to pay anything and you could expect that there would be a lot fewer visitors, which was the case during our visit.

After crossing a railway track that seemed to double as a walking trail, we were welcomed by the statue of Evangeline, the heroine of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that retold the story of Le Grand Dérangement. Past the statue is the memorial church, which was pretty much the main building on the site. We continued strolling to the west and reached an area where …

Jeddah is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia with a population of nearly five million. The country's commercial centre and the gateway for pilgrims to Mecca. Jeddah is also considered to be the cultural centre of Saudi and the most liberal city in the country. Of course, we couldn't miss it on our journey across the country. Generally, it's an easy visit as there are regular bus and air connections not only from Saudi, but also neighbouring countries.

The drive in was surprisingly long. Not surprisingly, the city is indeed sprawling, and we passed clusters of buildings, commercial and multifunctional centers for dozens of kilometers on the highway. Then comes the attempt to get somewhere near the historic centre of Al-Balad, a World Heritage Site. Remember my previous reviews and my mindless yapping on the subject of permanent reconstruction? Well, Jeddah is no different. One entire neighborhood in the wider city center adjacent to the old city has been practically razed to the ground and is apparently being reconstructed or outright redeveloped. Some roads are blocked or traffic is being diverted because of this. Eventually we manage to get the car as close as possible to our destination, park and spend the next fifteen minutes or so trying to get around all the areas where something is actively being built and get to the part of the historic centre where we can walk. Finally we get to the historic part of Historic Jeddah. It's a pleasant, if slightly …