Ilya Burlak Profile

Ilya Burlak
Ilya Burlak.

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 119 Reviews 177 WHS Rated 37 TWHS Visited

Visited Sites Ilya Burlak

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Legend

  • ●● Cultural
  • ●● Natural
  • ●● Mixed

Recent Reviews Ilya Burlak

Hollókö

Ilya Burlak USA - 26-Feb-25

Hollókö

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

Royal Seats in Esztergom, Visegrád (T)

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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Pannonhalma

Ilya Burlak USA - 13-Feb-25

Pannonhalma

I visited Pannonhalma in November of 2024 by car from Budapest - the drive is about an hour and a half long. The only other visitors that I eventually saw were a group of high schoolers on a field trip, but the upper parking lot did not have a single available space. I was about to drive down the hill to the parking lot near the "visitor information center" when I noticed someone who looked like a repairman employed by the abbey getting into his car parked in the slightly lower-lying area by the south side of the building. That smaller lot is probably not meant for visitors, but there are no impediments to exit or entry, so I counted myself lucky to be able to park that close on a rainy day.

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Ripa Pannonica in Hungary (T)

Ilya Burlak USA - 10-Feb-25

Ripa Pannonica in Hungary (T)

While in Budapest in November of 2024, I stopped by two of the locations of this serial submission.

Aquincum archaeological site marks the location of the capital of the Roman province of Pannonia in the 1st-4th centuries CE. The site is mainly about neat outlines of city structures, with a few columns and portals thrown in. One covered pavilion contains recovered mosaics. Unfortunately, there are a couple of defined components of the site – including the reconstruction of a Roman building called House of the Painter – that can only be visited on a very limited schedule which did not coincide with my plans for the day. So I only perused the onsite museum, which has a reasonable collection of artifacts dating back to Roman times.

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Caves of the Buda Thermal Karst System (T)

Ilya Burlak USA - 10-Feb-25

Caves of the Buda Thermal Karst System (T)

I visited Pál-völgyi Cave during my stay in Budapest in November 2024. I did not plan to see more than one cave in this serial submission, and based on my research, Pál-völgyi provided the best balance of accessibility and interest of the six of them. The roughly half-kilometer subterranean walk takes about an hour to complete.The visit is always guided and always in Hungarian. Foreigners are directed to download an app with an audio guide in several languages. The English version is narrated in such a boring and tedious fashion that I put the phone away after the second stop. The live guide was occupied by a group of local teenagers on a school field trip

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Profile Data

Name
Ilya Burlak
Country
USA
Ranking
407
Website
website

Recently Visited WHS

Update 23.04.25
  • Pannonhalma
  • Hollókö

    • 10 Best Missing

    1. Rapa Nui
    2. Galapagos Islands
    3. Angkor
    4. Yellowstone
    5. Victoria Falls
    6. Bagan
    7. Serengeti
    8. Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks
    9. Ilulissat Icefjord
    10. Uluru

    5 Countries Complete

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

    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

    Reviewed TWHS