Tony H. Profile

World Heritage fan who is trying to collect as many sites as he can!

Finland Last Update 23.06.24 186 WHS Visited 24 Reviews 188 WHS Rated 58 TWHS Visited

Visited Sites Tony H.

Toggle Missing/Visited

Legend

●● Cultural
●● Natural
●● Mixed

Recent Reviews Tony H.

Great Wall

Tony H. Finland - 28-Jun-24

Last review of the Great Wall on this site is from 2016 so I guess it's good to update how things look like at the wall in the 2020s. I visited the Badaling section of the wall in June 2024.

I took the high speed train from Beijing's Qinghe station which has the most of the high speed departures to Badaling. You can also depart from the Beijing North station. Tickets are very affordable, 20 RMB at the cheapest (one way)! You can book the train tickets even just the day before if you're visiting on a weekday. I booked both the train tickets and the Great Wall tickets through Trip.com on the Alipay app few days in advance. High speed trains have their own station at Badaling and when you exit the train station, you'll see the cable cars that will take you to the up to the north section of the wall. If you want to walk up the wall, you need to go to the opposite direction from the station and walk through the bus parking lot towards the main gate of the wall

Read On

Dutch Water Defence Lines

Tony H. Finland - 03-Jun-24

Visited in April 2024. When I was preparing for my trip to the Netherlands I realised that I've visited this site already on all my previous trips to the country. Basically every road and train line out of Amsterdam goes through the core zone of this site and I have done multiple trips out of Amsterdam before. I might have also visited some of the forts around Utrecht but that was a long time so I can't count on my memory anymore. But this time I wanted to visit the site consciously.

I chose to stop by Fort Uitermeer, near the town of Weesp

Read On

Historic Jeddah

Tony H. Finland - 29-May-24

Visited in February 2024. Walking around the historical Jeddah during noon on a weekday, you'll get the place all for yourself. Not much local life here during the daytime, which is the case everywhere in Saudi Arabia. The old town is still mostly a construction site. Almost every building is undergoing renovations and none of the museums were open for the public during my visit. However, the old town is still quite picturesque with the tall buildings and their wooden balconies.

I started my visit from the Al Bayaa Square in the northern part of the old town, where one of the old gates is located. There was a lot of buzz around here as people were building up stalls for the Jeddah half marathon. From there I started to walk towards Shafei Mosque. I found this northern part of the old town to be the most pleasant part, maybe because there was no one around, but also the buildings were there more beautiful. Rest of the old town has more non-traditional buildings in the mix. At Shafei Mosque I was invited to join a tour group and heard about the history of the mosque. The beautifully carved wooden door of the mosque is 600 years old. From the mosque I continued to Nassif House Museum which was closed for renovations

Read On

Hegra

Tony H. Finland - 28-May-24

Visited in February 2024. Visiting Hegra and the nearby town of Al Ula is a reminder that Saudi Arabia is not yet ready for the mass tourism that it's hoping to achieve. I arrived to Al Ula by plane and took one of the official Al Ula taxes from the airport to my accommodation which was a van parked in someone's date palm farm. Finding mid-priced accommodation (budget accommodation is non-existent) is still very hard in this town and that might lead you to stay in fun places like a van! Most people from my flight seemed to opt for rental cars but I tried to survive without one. Careem was working now fine but you had to usually wait for some time for a pick-up.

Read On

Turaif Quarter

Tony H. Finland - 28-May-24

Visited in February 2024. Things are changing fast in Saudi Arabia and At-Turaif Quarter is not an exception to that. I visited At-Turaif (also known as Diriyah) on a weekday just before the Saudi Founding Day. My Uber took me to the entrance of Bujairi Terrace, a fancy restaurant and shopping district, that you have to walk through to get to the historical site. You needed a ticket to enter, which you got by scanning a QR code at the entrance, and the ticket was for free, which might have been because of the Founding Day.

Read On

Profile Data

Name: Tony H.
Country: Finland
Most Impressive: - Great Pyramids of Giza- Old City of Jerusalem
Proposal: The rock paintings of Astuvansalmi at Ristiina, Finland.

Recently Visited WHS

Update 23.06.24: Silk Roads Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor

Grand Canal

Temple of Heaven

Summer Palace

Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor

Imperial Palace

Great Wall

7 Countries Complete

Armenia . Belarus . Estonia . Holy See . Luxembourg . Moldova . San Marino .

Visited WHS

Rating Stats

Ephesus 5

Florence 5

Granada 5

Istanbul 5

Medina of Marrakesh 5

Mountain Railways of India 5

Nemrut Dag 5

Old City of Jerusalem 5

Paris, Banks of the Seine 5

Persepolis 5

Pyramids (Memphis) 5

Rome 5

Taj Mahal 5

Vatican City 5

Venice and its Lagoon 5

Vienna 5

Arab-Norman Palermo 4.5

Dolomites 4.5

Dubrovnik 4.5

Giant's Causeway 4.5

Great Wall 4.5

Göreme NP 4.5

Haghpat and Sanahin 4.5

Imperial Palace 4.5

L'viv 4.5

Prague 4.5

Riga 4.5

St. Petersburg 4.5

Upper Svaneti 4.5

Versailles 4.5

Aggtelek and Slovak Karst 4

Amsterdam Canal Ring 4

Brugge 4

Budapest 4

Central Highlands 4

Churches of Moldavia 4

Curonian Spit 4

Gelati Monastery 4

Ha Long Bay – Cat Ba Archipelago 4

Hegra 4

Historic Cairo 4

Kremlin and Red Square 4

Kyiv Cathedral and Lavra 4

Meidan Emam, Esfahan 4

Nancy 4

Prambanan 4

Qutb Minar 4

Rhaetian Railway 4

Rietveld Schröderhuis 4

Rila Monastery 4

Schönbrunn 4

Seville 4

Tallinn 4

Temple of Heaven 4

Trang An 4

Upper Middle Rhine Valley 4

Vilnius 4

West Norwegian Fjords 4

Yazd 4

Acropolis 3.5

Agra Fort 3.5

Banska Stiavnica 3.5

Berat and Gjirokastra 3.5

Borobudur 3.5

Boyana Church 3.5

Cesky Krumlov 3.5

Cordoba 3.5

Eisinga Planetarium 3.5

Fatehpur Sikri 3.5

Grand Place, Brussels 3.5

Humayun's Tomb 3.5

Hué 3.5

Kew Gardens 3.5

Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou 3.5

Mostar 3.5

Old City of Acre 3.5

Oporto 3.5

Persian Garden 3.5

Potsdam 3.5

Sintra 3.5

Strasbourg 3.5

Summer Palace 3.5

Thingvellir 3.5

Verona 3.5

Vlkolinec 3.5

Warsaw 3.5

Anuradhapura 3

Ayutthaya 3

Bardejov Town 3

Bethlehem 3

Białowieża Forest 3

Brú na Bóinne 3

Bursa and Cumalikizik 3

Butrint 3

City of Luxembourg 3

Cologne Cathedral 3

Flemish Béguinages 3

Fortress of Suomenlinna 3

Golestan Palace 3

Göbekli Tepe 3

Hattusha 3

Hill Forts of Rajasthan 3

Hoi An 3

Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal 3

Jaipur City, Rajasthan 3

Jantar Mantar 3

Kernavė 3

Kotor 3

Major Town Houses 3

Maritime Greenwich 3

Masjed-e Jâme' 3

Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor 3

Medieval Monuments in Kosovo 3

Melaka and George Town 3

Monastery of Geghard 3

Museumsinsel (Museum Island) 3

My Son 3

Nikko 3

Ohrid Region 3

Old Rauma 3

Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro 3

Petäjävesi Old Church 3

Plečnik's Ljubljana 3

Québec 3

Red Fort 3

Safranbolu 3

Sammallahdenmäki 3

San Marino and Mount Titano 3

Selimiye Mosque 3

Silk Roads Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor 3

Skogskyrkogarden 3

Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District 3

Spissky Hrad and Levoca 3

Syracuse 3

Tower of London 3

Troy 3

Val di Noto 3

Venetian Works of Defence 3

Verla Groundwood and Board Mill 3

Westminster 3

Wooden Churches of the Slovak Carpathians 3

Çatalhöyük 3

Bahá’i Holy Places 2.5

Belfries 2.5

Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni of Chios 2.5

Drottningholm 2.5

Echmiatsin and Zvartnots 2.5

Gardens and Castle at Kromeríz 2.5

Historic Jeddah 2.5

Keoladeo National Park 2.5

Kinderdijk 2.5

Medici Villas and Gardens 2.5

Mtskheta 2.5

Nice 2.5

Pasargadae 2.5

Roskilde Cathedral 2.5

The Porticoes of Bologna 2.5

Town Hall and Roland, Bremen 2.5

White City of Tel-Aviv 2.5

Bali Subak system 2

Beemster Polder 2

Belem 2

Berlin Modernism Housing Estates 2

Bryggen 2

Colonies of Benevolence 2

Danube Limes 2

Dutch Water Defence Lines 2

Erbil Citadel 2

Grand Canal 2

Holy Trinity Column 2

Kandy 2

Mir Castle 2

Nesvizh 2

Rideau Canal 2

Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France 2

Struve Geodetic Arc 2

Thang Long 2

Thessalonika 2

Turaif Quarter 2

Wooden Hypostyle Mosques of Medieval Anatolia 2

Yogyakarta 2

Lower German Limes 1.5

Schokland 1.5

Stoclet House 1.5

The Persian Qanat 1.5

Persian Caravanserai 1

World Heritage Site

for World Heritage Travellers

Tony H. Profile

Visited Sites Tony H.

Legend

Recent Reviews Tony H.

Great Wall

Dutch Water Defence Lines

Historic Jeddah

Hegra

Turaif Quarter

Profile Data

Recently Visited WHS

7 Countries Complete

Visited WHS

Reviewed WHS

Visited TWHS

Reviewed TWHS

Top 50 Missing Sites

Top 200 WHS