Ilya Burlak Profile

I only started prioritizing visiting World Heritage sites a few years ago and with my limited US-based corporate-warrior time-off allocation and family obligations I can only add a handful to a dozen in any given year. Looking forward to visiting them all after I am able to retire...

USA Last Update 23.04.25 177 WHS Visited 122 Reviews 177 WHS Rated 37 TWHS Visited

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Legend

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Recent Reviews Ilya Burlak

Paris, Banks of the Seine

Ilya Burlak USA - 10-Jun-25

I love Paris. It is one of the first places that comes to my mind in the context of "there is no other place I'd rather be". We've been to this wonderful city dozens of times, but for various reasons, only passingly in the last decade and a half. In April of 2025, we made a concerted effort to reacquaint ourselves with Paris.

The city is still wonderful - there are not enough superlatives to express that

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Westminster

Ilya Burlak USA - 19-May-25

I've been to the Westminster Abbey for the first time as far back as 2000, and then at least a couple of times while living in London in the later part of the first decade of the millennium. It is undoubtedly among the most important monuments in London and in all of Britain, and the final resting place of a number of major historical figures. My very dated recollection of it somehow includes free entry and the ability to walk in without waits - twenty years hence, the cost is significant and the queues are pretty long all day around. On my most recent trip to London, even as I wanted my youngest child to see the Abbey, we took one look at the line from behind the fence and decided to pass.

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Tower of London

Ilya Burlak USA - 16-May-25

The Tower is awfully expensive and terribly overcrowded. There is hardly a better indicator of the worth of a tourist attraction visit than the economics of exorbitant entrance fees not denting the demand to any degree. I first visited the Tower 25 years ago, when the tickets cost around £10, and I somehow recall it as less busy than it is today, even as the entry cost has more or less quadrupled since then.

As others noted, you can easily spend half a day seeing all there is to see on the grounds, exploring multiple layers of history for which this royal citadel has been inscribed. There are nearly a dozen defined points of interest and exhibitions, including the Medieval Palace, the armouries in the White Tower, the battlements, the dungeons and prisons, and the Royal Beasts exhibition

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Hollókö

Ilya Burlak USA - 26-Feb-25

Visited in November of 2024. Something that is 300 years old and deliberately well-preserved always piques my interest, even if it has a reconstructed-for-museum-purposes feel. In any case, Hollókő is very photogenic and pleasant to walk through.

That old village core is literally just a few hundred meters long, with the homogenous nature of construction seen on every step. The signature sight is the town church, dedicated to St Martin, which sits at the fork of the only street in the village, splitting it into a main artery and an auxiliary loop. The door was locked, and I did not make extra efforts to find somebody to let me in.

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Royal Seats in Esztergom, Visegrád (T)

Ilya Burlak USA - 18-Feb-25

I visited Esztergom and its castle in November of 2024 on a day trip from Budapest by car. The direct driving distance between Budapest and Esztergom is a little bit over an hour, and most auto-enabled people will combine the visit here with at least one other place. In my case, I drove to Pannonhalma in the morning and then spent most of the afternoon in Esztergom.

Esztergom Castle is located next to the Esztergom Basilica at the highest point in town. The part of the description related to the castle emphasizes its medieval architecture and artistic value, as well as the influence of the Italian Renaissance

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Profile Data

Name: Ilya Burlak
Country: USA
Ranking: 415
Website: website

Recently Visited WHS

Update 23.04.25: Pannonhalma

Hollókö

10 Best Missing

5 Countries Complete

Andorra . Belize . Holy See . Israel . San Marino .

Visited WHS

Rating Stats

Amsterdam Canal Ring 5

Brugge 5

Cordoba 5

Costiera Amalfitana 5

Florence 5

Granada 5

Kremlin and Red Square 5

Loire Valley 5

Palau de la Musica Catalana & Hospital de Sant Pau 5

Paris, Banks of the Seine 5

Petra 5

Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands 5

Prague 5

Ravenna 5

Rome 5

Segovia 5

Siena 5

St. Petersburg 5

Venice and its Lagoon 5

Vienna 5

Wadi Rum 5

West Norwegian Fjords 5

Works of Antoni Gaudí 5

Acropolis 4.5

Assisi 4.5

Bryggen 4.5

Grand Place, Brussels 4.5

Istanbul 4.5

Kraków 4.5

Oporto 4.5

Piazza del Duomo (Pisa) 4.5

Pompei 4.5

Potsdam 4.5

San Gimignano 4.5

Seville 4.5

Sintra 4.5

Stonehenge 4.5

Toledo 4.5

Vatican City 4.5

Versailles 4.5

Villa Romana del Casale 4.5

Albi 4

Alto Douro 4

Avignon 4

Botanical Garden, Padua 4

Brú na Bóinne 4

Budapest 4

Chartres Cathedral 4

Chichen-Itza 4

Cologne Cathedral 4

Convent of Christ in Tomar 4

Delos 4

Drottningholm 4

Dubrovnik 4

Edinburgh 4

Giant's Causeway 4

Gwynedd Castles 4

Kinderdijk 4

Kyiv Cathedral and Lavra 4

L'viv 4

Machu Picchu 4

Monastery of Alcobaça 4

Monastery of Batalha 4

Mostar 4

Mount Etna 4

Old City of Jerusalem 4

Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles 4

Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro 4

Rietveld Schröderhuis 4

Roskilde Cathedral 4

Schönbrunn 4

Split 4

Tikal National Park 4

Tower of London 4

Upper Middle Rhine Valley 4

Urbino 4

Verona 4

Vicenza and the Palladian Villas 4

Westminster 4

Arab-Norman Palermo 3.5

Archaeological Site of Delphi 3.5

Arles 3.5

Bom Jesus do Monte 3.5

Bursa and Cumalikizik 3.5

City of Bath 3.5

Cuzco 3.5

Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni of Chios 3.5

El Escurial 3.5

Ferrara 3.5

Fortified City of Carcassonne 3.5

Graz 3.5

Guimarães 3.5

Kotor 3.5

Kronborg Castle 3.5

La Fortaleza and San Juan 3.5

Mycenae and Tiryns 3.5

Old City of Berne 3.5

Pienza 3.5

Pont du Gard 3.5

Québec 3.5

Su Nuraxi di Barumini 3.5

Tarraco 3.5

Trinity Sergius Lavra 3.5

Val di Noto 3.5

Villa d'Este 3.5

Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines 3.5

Agrigento 3

Alcala de Henares 3

Arequipa 3

Belem 3

Belfries 3

Canterbury 3

Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin 3

Evora 3

Fortifications of Vauban 3

Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings 3

Great Spa Towns of Europe 3

Hollókö 3

Incense Route of the Negev 3

Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal 3

Kew Gardens 3

Lima 3

Mantua and Sabbioneta 3

Maritime Greenwich 3

Masada 3

Medici Villas and Gardens 3

Modena 3

Odesa 3

Reims 3

San Marino and Mount Titano 3

Statue of Liberty 3

Strasbourg 3

Syracuse 3

The Porticoes of Bologna 3

Trogir 3

University of Coimbra 3

Val d'Orcia 3

Vézère Valley 3

Beemster Polder 2.5

Belize Barrier Reef 2.5

Bethlehem 2.5

Biblical Tells 2.5

Cathedral of St. James in Sibenik 2.5

Forth Bridge 2.5

Independence Hall 2.5

Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley 2.5

Major Town Houses 2.5

Necropolis of Bet She'arim 2.5

Neolithic Orkney 2.5

New Lanark 2.5

Novodevichy Convent 2.5

Old City of Acre 2.5

Panamá 2.5

Pannonhalma 2.5

Poblet Monastery 2.5

Residences of the Royal House of Savoy 2.5

Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France 2.5

Santa Maria delle Grazie 2.5

Schokland 2.5

Semmering Railway 2.5

Skogskyrkogarden 2.5

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier 2.5

Venetian Works of Defence 2.5

Wadden Sea 2.5

Canal du Midi 2

Dutch Water Defence Lines 2

Frontiers of the Roman Empire 2

Nice 2

Stećci 2

The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales 2

White City of Tel-Aviv 2

Bahá’i Holy Places 1.5

Van Nellefabriek 1.5

Mount Carmel Caves 1

Qhapaq Ñan 1

Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin 1

Stoclet House 1

World Heritage Site

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Ilya Burlak Profile

Visited Sites Ilya Burlak

Legend

Recent Reviews Ilya Burlak

Paris, Banks of the Seine

Westminster

Tower of London

Hollókö

Royal Seats in Esztergom, Visegrád (T)

Profile Data

Recently Visited WHS

10 Best Missing

5 Countries Complete

Visited WHS

Reviewed WHS

Visited TWHS

Reviewed TWHS