Tony H. Profile

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

Visited Sites Tony H.

Load map Toggle Missing/Visited

Legend

  • Cultural
  • Natural
  • Mixed

Recent Reviews Tony H.


Haci Bayram Mosque and its Surrounding Area (the Haci Bayram District) (T)

Tony H. Finland - 16-Feb-20

Haci Bayram Mosque and its Surrounding Area (the Haci Bayram District) (T)

Turkey still has some World Heritage status worthy entries on its T-list. But what is probably bothering Turkish politicians, is the fact that Turkey's capital is plain boring when it comes to historical sights (or any sights actually). How to get a World Heritage site to Ankara? Haci Bayram district is Ankara's best attempt. Haci Bayram-i Veli Camii is a small mosque dedicated to a Sufi poet Haci Bayram-i Veli. His tomb is next to the mosque and it's very busy with Turkish worshippers. From the outside the mosque looks old, as it is, but the inside it has been renovated clearly a lot. Original mosque is from the 15th century but the famous Mimar Sinan restored the mosque in the next century

Read On

Upper Svaneti

Tony H. Finland - 08-Sep-16

Upper Svaneti

I'm little surprised that Upper Svaneti is one of the least visited sites in Europe on this website. I'm surprised because it is not anymore these days hard place to visit. The WHS consists of small community of Ushguli which is made up from 4 very small villages located right next to each other. 3 of these villages with surrounding landscape form the buffer zone and the core zone is the village of Chazhashi.

Chazhashi is the only village which has solely original stone houses. However most of the houses have been abandoned and the roofs have collapsed. The village includes the local museum. The core zone also includes small hill with remains of one Svan tower and church from old fortress.

Read On

Istanbul

Tony H. Finland - 13-Mar-15

Istanbul

I feel myself lucky as I've been able to call Istanbul my home for one year. It has given me the possibility to explore the city slowly and especially it's vast historic areas on Fatih peninsula.

The World Heritage site is made up of 4 different quarters. The most famous of them is the Sultanahmet area at the tip of the peninsula. From here you can find the biggest attractions: Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya), Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii), Topkapi Palace (Topkapi Sarayi) and Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarayi). This is the area you want to avoid visiting while you live in the city as it is overrun by tourists for most of the year and prices are higher than elsewhere in the city. After visiting the attractions (which are magnificent, there’s no denying in that) I prefered admiring this part of city from the ferries going between Asia and Europe. Interesting museum to visit in this quarter is the small Great Palace Mosaic Museum at Arasta Bazaar

Read On

Bursa and Cumalikizik

Tony H. Finland - 19-Aug-14

2 months after it's inscription to World Heritage List Bursa hasn't experienced yet big tourists masses. Actually I didn't meet any other western tourists than myself but many Arab tourists have found this city and it's bazaars. Also locals were really interested to start a conversation with me which also shows that Bursa hasn't been found by tourists.

Also Bursa doesn't seem to be yet proud of it's World Heritage status as I didn't see any signs saying that I'm in a World Heritage city. In some brochures there were mentions that sites in Bursa were on tentative list so I guess they're waiting for update. But all the sites I visited were in perfect clean condition which shows that inscription didn't come as a surprise for the city.

Read On

Central Highlands

Tony H. Finland - 17-Jun-13

I was part of a field course which we conducted in Sri Lanka. During our course we visited in Meemure village which is located in Knuckles Range inside the World Heritage area. According to our guide this area gets much less tourists than Horton Plains and Peak Wilderness. Meemure village was quite easily reachable from Kandy where we left at 6am. During the ride the views of the Knuckles Range area were amazing and especially sunrise over the valleys. The drive from the main road to the village along the mountain roads took 2 hours. Meemure village is very small and it seems to live from rice cultivation as the village was surrounded by very beautiful rice terraces. There are no tourism facilities and we had our lunch at local family's home

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 02.03.24
Rating Stats
Rome 5
Vienna 5
Dolomites 4.5
Dubrovnik 4.5
Hegra 4.5
L'viv 4.5
Prague 4.5
Riga 4.5
Brugge 4
Nancy 4
Yazd 4
Acropolis 3.5
Agra Fort 3.5
Borobudur 3.5
Cordoba 3.5
Hué 3.5
Mostar 3.5
Oporto 3.5
Potsdam 3.5
Sintra 3.5
Verona 3.5
Vlkolinec 3.5
Warsaw 3.5
Hoi An 3
Kotor 3
My Son 3
Nikko 3
Troy 3
Belfries 2.5
Mtskheta 2.5
Nice 2.5
Belem 2
Kandy 2
    Expression #1 of ORDER BY clause is not in SELECT list, references column 'whsphp.t.name' which is not in SELECT list; this is incompatible with DISTINCT