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Recent Reviews Alexander Parsons


Sangiran Early Man Site

Alexander Parsons Australia - 16-Jun-18

Sangiran Early Man Site

Possibly because I was primed for an underwhelming experience for my first 'early hominid' fossil site WHS, I actually quite enjoyed my daytrip from Yogyakarta to Sangiran. The museum exhibits were pretty decent, but without a background in geology or the other scientific fields involved, a lot of the summations of facts and figures and dates didn't really stick. While English versions of the exhibits were clearly abridged summaries of the Indonesian language versions, they were generally present and basically useful.

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Komodo National Park

Alexander Parsons Australia - 16-Jun-18

Komodo National Park

Rather than as a day trip from Labuanbajo, I visited Komodo National Park over the third and fourth days of a four-day boat trip from Lombok to Flores. While I wholeheartedly recommend this experience for viewing the aquatic elements of the inscribed area, it is absolutely not the best way to see the Komodo dragons if that is your primary reason for visiting the national park.

The tour stopped at a few standard beach-stops along the route within the National Park, [...]

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Venetian Works of Defence

Alexander Parsons Australia - 13-Dec-17

Venetian Works of Defence

The Fortress of St Nicholas outside Sibenik in Croatia is probably the most decrepit WHS I have visited. Not in the sense of simply being a ruin, but in that it feels entirely abandoned, with no significant attempts at developing it for ‘safe’ tourism. This will probably change over the next few years. The general area seems to be a reasonably popular picnic destination, with a newly constructed EU-funded walking trail along the coast allowing for an easy afternoon walk from the car park, but few bother to actually go inside. This is understandable, as there are two ways to manage this, neither of which are especially practical. Firstly, from the land-side, there is a long wooden plank leading up to a hole in the fortress’ upper walls

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Mount Athos

Alexander Parsons Australia - 13-Dec-17

Mount Athos

I visited Mount Athos in November 2017, staying three nights. While I certainly enjoyed my visit, it is also something of a cautionary tale, as I definitely did not get the most out of the experience as I could have.

I don’t need to go into particular detail about the practicalities of visiting from Thessaloniki, as they have been readily outlined by the previous review. As I was with only one other visitor, our request for a diamonitirion for entrance about four months later was granted by email within a couple of hours of requesting it, no issues whatsoever. One point, however, is that all ferries from and to Ouranopolis seemed to ‘require’ advance booking. Upon arrival in Ouranopolis, there was almost an hour before the next ferry. When I tried to get a ticket at this point, the ticket office wrote down my ‘reservation’ and declared that I should come back 15 minutes before the ferry departed

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Tchogha Zanbil

Alexander Parsons Australia - 11-Jun-16

Tchogha Zanbil

I visited Tchogha Zanbil (as well as the other nearby WHS) on a long day trip from Ahwaz, between two overnight bus trips. This is not a recommended way to see these sites, as you can find yourself at the whims of an unpleasant driver who decides to double the price of the trip halfway through.

While I showed this driver (the only one at the station willing to take the trip) my map showing a route of Ahwaz-Susa-Tchoga Zanbil-Shushtar-Ahwaz, he nevertheless insisted on going to the ziggurat first, expressly denying the existence of a clearly-marked road linking them east-west. This caused pointless doubling back, which he repeatedly passive-aggressively blamed on me.

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Profile Data

Name
Alexander Parsons
Country
Australia
Most Impressive
Great Wall of China

Recently Visited WHS

Update 01.01.24
Rating Stats
Angkor 5
Assisi 5
Bagan 5
Cuzco 5
Petra 5
Rome 5
Uluru 5
Avila 4
Jeju 4
Kotor 4
Pompei 4
Prague 4
Split 4
Toledo 4
Verona 4
Al Ain 3
Albi 3
Belem 3
Brugge 3
Cuenca 3
Hoi An 3
Hué 3
Lima 3
Macao 3
Masada 3
Mostar 3
My Son 3
Nikko 3
Oporto 3
Orange 3
Potosi 3
Yazd 3
Delos 2
Sintra 2
Sucre 2
Susa 2
Trogir 2
As-Salt 0.5
Battir 0.5
Le Havre 0.5
Maymand 0.5
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