World Heritage Site newsletter #6
March
and April 2005
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Spring
is in the air (in the northern hemisphere at least), an inspiration for many
WHS travellers to leave the office, college or house they’ve been locked into
for months. No less than 137 new reviews were added, covering places like the Bend of the Boyne (Ireland), Vigan
(Philippines) and post-tsunami Galle (Sri Lanka). In comparison, I made a
relatively modest trip to Weimar (Germany).
My personal travels in the past two months were
limited to Easter weekend, when I drove to Weimar in former East Germany. Classical
Weimar is the appropriate name for the WHS that includes the many fine
buildings in and around the old city center.
There’s a second WHS in Weimar too, which encompasses its Bauhaus
Sites. The main Bauhaus buildings may be in Dessau, but Weimar has the Bauhaus Museum. A must for anyone who
is or isn’t an art historian or architecture buff.
On my way back home I picked up Wartburg
Castle. A legendary castle, covered in mist that day.
With these three new visited sites, the total is
up to 177.
I also recently revisited two Flemish sites,
including the ‘Groot Begijnhof’
(one of the Flemish
Béguinages) in Leuven.
Next scheduled destinations will be Malta (early May), and Armenia (early June).
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Contributions by visitors
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New names have introduced themselves on the
Community Page, and started adding posts about their visits to WHS. One of them
is Ivan ManDy from the Philippines. He takes us to the Historic Town of Vigan, “…what makes Vigan
unique is the concentration of Hispanic influenced (with Asian details) period
houses perhaps unmatched anywhere else in the country. I particularly liked the
pastel-colored Spanish-colonial cathedral (with
Chinese lions and a pagoda inspired bell tower)”.
Klaus Freisinger from Austria has also been very busy sharing his
experiences. His favourite is the Grand Canyon.
He also highlights Verona,
“one of the greatest cities in Italy”. This view is shared by Graeme from the
UK, pointing out “the Roman theatre on the
opposite bank of the river or strolling around the streets and alleys
surrounding the Piazza dell'Erbe.” Both give the
local “Juliet’s House” (Romeo’s Juliet that is) a miss.
Ian Cade, a regular contributor, has exchanged his study
books for a field trip to the two most prominent prehistoric sites in the UK and Ireland: Stonehenge / Avebury and the Bend of the Boyne.
He praises Avebury as a pleasant alternative to Stonehenge, because it offers “more stones, giant white horses
carved into the chalky hillsides, burial mounds, manmade hills and in the
summer crop circles!”.
And finally, Paul Tanner has paid a visit
to Galle, a town that has been severely hit by the tsunami
in the Indian Ocean at the end of 2004. “As far as we could make
out the majority of the old town escaped the direct effect of the Tsunami (it
is both protected by the ramparts and partially built on a rise) and the guest
houses and restaurants are fully working. Unfortunately the same cannot be said
of the area outside the walls.”
Collectively, the visitors of the World Heritage
website now have written 955 reviews on 443 different sites.
This year’s session of
the World Heritage Committee about new additions to the list will be held in Durban
(South Africa), from 11 to 16 July. Rumours about which places
are eligible circulate here and there.
* For
example the Roman
defence chain from Britain to the Black Sea, the chain of forts, castles,
walls and ditches built by the Romans to defend the northern limits of their
empire. This aims to be a
multi-country site, added to the already existing WHS Hadrian’s Wall.
* Or
another railway related site in India, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway.
* Also,
some of last years deferred sites might become current again: Coiba National
Park (Panama),
Paleohabitat of Tarnóc (Hungary),
Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape (Azerbaijan)
and Kuressaare Fortress (Estonia).
That’s it for this edition, I hope you like its new
look
Els
webmaster www.worldheritagesite.org