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I am conflicted in writing this review on the hidden gem that is Panauti. It was one of the highlights of my July 2025 trip to Nepal, but it's partly because of how it's so forgotten and lost in time. World heritage status could change that just as much as it could preserve it. All I can hope is that it continues to stay in its pristine, yet rough, state free of commercialism, overtourism, and urbanization. And for the lucky few who get there, I hope you can enjoy it as I did and help to leave it as it's always been.

Panauti is a living open-air museum and village lying 32 kilometers from Kathmandu, outside the Kathmandu Valley, and at the confluence of the Roshi, Punyamata, and a mythical invisible third river. Around this confluence are the Triveni Ghats, where traditional Hindu cremations happen on occasion, and other pilgrims come to cleanse themselves with the river water. Numerous temple buildings crowd this space, ranging from typical wooden Newari pagodas to stone or brick shrines. One building has a painted facade depicting Hindu gods, while another is decorated with colorful tiles. A bit higher up is Indreshwor Temple, the most important in the town, dating back to at least the 13th century and unaffected by the big earthquakes in the past century. It's a masterpiece of Newari craftsmanship in its own right, being one of the biggest pagodas of its type in all of Nepal, and crowned by a hand-beaten …

May 2025. I visited Mir Castle as a full-day tour with Smart-Tour from Minsk along with Nesvizh. For 45€ the tour included lunch and entry to both sites. I was the only foreigner on the full bus and the guide spoke just enough English to tell me when to meet back up with the group and made sure to get me an English audioguide before letting me go off on my own.

I visited on a holiday in Belarus so Mir Castle was very busy and even had live entertainment playing in the courtyard. In keeping with its early defensive roots, the restored towers are still quite bare inside and with passages and staircases so narrow I frequently got stuck waiting on the crowds to pass. Old photographs on display show just how much restoration had to be done to get it back to where it is today. War followed by decades neglect took a heavy toll.

The residential rooms were very typical in their displays and nothing stood out as extraordinary which was actually a good thing because I had about 1 hour and 15 minutes to visit Mir Castle and needed the whole time to get through it all due to the frequent bottlenecks. The highlight is definitely the outside views from around the little lake and it makes a pleasant enough day trip together with Nesvizh.

Expectations are an underappreciated influence in the way we experience a site and so managing them to an appropriate level ahead of a visit can sometimes be the difference between pleasure and disappointment. I find this is true even more so with natural sites where there is less guarantee of seeing the "highlights" when it comes to wildlife. On my recent trip to Belarus I was (briefly) tempted to not bother visiting at all due to time constraints and the generally poor reviews of this site from the Belarusian side. Thus it was with very low expectations that I set out for a visit on a sunny but cool Tuesday morning in May 2025.

In Belarus the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park is very popular and well known within the country and widely advertised as one of its highlights. There are plenty of tours on offer but it is also easy to visit on your own with 7 "direct" buses a day from Brest. Some truly are direct for the 1.5 hr journey but others, like mine, had a transfer to a waiting bus in Kamyanyets adding only a few extra minutes. The bus drops you off at the entrance to the park a few km north of Kamianyuki. This is where it got a little confusing. Entering the park requires a ticket but there were a lot of different options and prices. You could buy an individual ticket for each hiking or biking trail, the museum, father frost estate, open …

As I researched Tilaurakot before my June 2025 trip to Nepal, I wondered to myself why Nepal hadn't just nominated it as an extension to Lumbini. Perhaps, I thought, there was more than meets the eye to this ancient city. Upon visiting, I could definitely say there is – in the sense that most of the original remains of the palaces are BELOW GROUND. According to the local guide, those brick foundations that poke up above ground are already reconstructions, and the original state of the palace is now only visible as the bottom layer of clearly different-colored bricks on the ground. So all we actually have of this ancient city, other than the artifacts that are now stored in the nearby museum, is its layout. Even if this were an influential capital back in its day, which it barely was, the poor remains can barely warrant inscription on their own. Even Lumbini can be found in a better state than this today, though those remains are from the later Ashokan period. Any possible OUV, to me, is mostly tied to its role in Buddha's life. Easy thumbs down from me; inscription this year would've been bittersweet, and Tilaurakot would've become one of my lowest-ranked WHS on its own. For once, I couldn't have agreed more with the WHC's decision to defer as a possible extension to Lumbini.

Tilaurakot is the core of a common day-trip circuit from Lumbini, and many other minor sites scatter the countryside around Kapilvastu. Many …

At the end of a 7-hour “tourist” bus ride (filled at least 90% by locals) through the bumpy hellscape that is the Nepalese highway system, we arrived at the Sauraha bus stop on a cloudy early afternoon in late June 2025. The past advice proved right: if you can afford to, just take the flight to Bharatpur, less than an hour away from the many accommodation offerings catering to the guests of Chitwan National Park. We stayed at Chitwan Village Resort, whose owner kindly picked us up at the bus stop on short notice and arranged all our activities. We decided to get the $250 private full-day jeep safari for the next day to maximize our time there, as the park closes to jeep safaris for the 3-month monsoon season, starting around the end of June. As I walked around town that afternoon, touts in the town center offered me safaris to the “community forest” and said that there were no safaris in the national park. I ended up trying a 2-hour offering of theirs to compare it to the national park experience the next day, and it wasn’t much to compete with. We drove into a fairly typical-looking forest for the area and saw some fairly typical wildlife: some spotted deer, storks, and a few smaller birds. Gazing across the river later and seeing such a similar landscape, I wondered whether the park would live up to its reputation as a wildlife haven or end up “boring,” especially with …

I originally was cautious about my visit to Venice because I had heard nothing but the worst about the city - that it was smelly, crowded, and touristy. I knew that I had to see it, especially since it faces the danger of slowly sinking into the sea, but I didn't expect to fall in love with the place. There was also a huge storm that was forecasted to arrive during our stay, so by the time we arrived I had written off really experiencing the place and tried my best to look forward to watching movies in our hotel.

However, I woke up before the alarm was supposed to go off to a clear and sunny morning. I checked the forecast and saw that the storm was now supposed to arrive at 1pm! I headed out as fast as I could to catch Venice at its most photogenic. Maybe it was the unexpectedly nice weather, but I felt the magical quality of the place as soon as I stepped outside. I loved watching all of the workers get ready for the day as I made my way towards St. Mark's. I also took a ton of amazing pictures as the walkways were not crowded yet. I was truly in awe. Each bridge, alleyway, and canal was different and waiting to be explored.

St. Mark's square was also incredible, especially in the early morning when the famous cafes were still setting up shop. The open space of the square is …

Visit – June 25

This summer our first goal was Kenya. With Etihad we landed in Abu Dhabi a few minutes late to reach our morning connection to Nairobi. The next available flight wasn’t until after midnight. We had originally planned a mini-meetup with Els in the afternoon to visit to Nairobi National Park, so it was a bit of a blow.

Etihad provided a hotel for the day – but we thought: why not rent a car and make the most of it?

Mleiha Archaeological Site, part of the Faya Paleolithic Complex, is up for possible World Heritage inscription at this year’s session. Although the ICOMOS evaluation recommended not to inscribe, we still thought it was worth a visit.

It’s about a two-hour drive from Abu Dhabi, and we arrived at Mleiha Archaeological Centre early afternoon – in a scorching 47°C heat. The visitor center is modern and well-organized. We signed up for a guided tour. The tour started with an indoor visit to the museum, which included a short film and a great introduction to the site.

The exhibition highlights that this area holds evidence of human activity dating back over 130,000 years, with near-continuous settlement from the Stone Age through the Bronze and Iron Ages, up to the pre-Islamic period. One of the themes emphasized by the guide was early human migration from Africa. During periods of lower sea levels, it was possible to cross the Red Sea – and the Mleiha area …

We were staying in Uzice in Serbia and caught a bus to visit this site located in Visegrad, Bosnia & Herzegovina. It was a 2hour bus trip that left at 11.00am, all be it there was a 20 minute rest stop along the way and 2 border checkpoints which make up most of the time. I won’t go into the history of the site as this is well covered by other reviews, however the site is certainly a highlight of Visegrad and a feature of this town. I explored the bridge from the riverbank, itself, crossing the bridge as well as from the hill nearby and getting the drone up as well. The only thing I did not do was get a boat tour under the bridge, of which there are a number of operators. My return bus did not leave until 1.00am the following morning, so got to experience the bridge under the changing light at different times. Whilst I can appreciate the history of the bridge, if you did not know it yourself, it would probably be underwhelming to a visitor to the town.As stated on previous reviews, make sure you take the opportunity to climb the small hill opposite the bridge to the top of the Zipline site, the view is very much worth it.

As a traveller feels compelled to write about chasing after aurora borealis in Iceland, haggling while sipping tea in Morocco, and "how they do things over there" in Japan, a traveller also cannot resist chattering about the inflation and the costs when writing about Argentina.

A discussion about the inflation and the costs also inevitably requires a writer to disclose when they travelled to Argentina, which for this writer was in March 2025.

My review about Los Glaciares will focus specifically on the Perito Moreno Glacier and the Laguana de los Tres hike with an unhealthy dose of discussion about costs.

Perito Moreno Glacier

Broadly speaking, there are three ways to experience the Perito Moreno Glacier, i.e., (1) view it from the 4.7 km-long walkways, (2) go trekking on the Glacier, and (3) a boat tour. There is an entrance fee to the National Park, which was 45,000 Argentine Pesos (ARS) or 58.58 Canadian Dollars (CAD) - according to my credit card statement - when I visited.

The walkways are very well executed, and there are five walkway trails: Sendero Accessible, Sendero Central, Sendero de La Costa, Sendero Inferior, and Sendero del Bosque. I walked all the trails, except for Sendero del Bosque, which was closed.

You get very good views of the Glacier from the walkways. Although I would not say the various lookouts had dramatically different views of the Glacier from each other, the views were different enough to make walking each trail worth it. You don't …

Randi has now covered our visit so I will cover some practicalities.

Lodging

We stayed at African Wild Truck, it is on booking.com. A great place to stay, nice location and very friendly staff made our stay comfortable.

The lodge is about 20 km beyond the town of Mulanje. Google maps doesn’t show correct route for last few km’s so a more precise description is required. The lodge doesn’t appear on maps.me.

Getting there

There are regular flights to Chileka Blantyre. From there it’s round 100 km to the African Wild Truck lodge on the south side of the mountain range. We asked the lodge to arrange transport, but a bit of poor communication made us find transport on our own. We got a car driver who took the job for USD 70 (which is better than the USD 115 the lodge suggested). I’m sure its possible to make an even better bargain.

The roads are good (only a few potholes) and we needed a vehicle to get from the lodge to the trail start the next day - so in retrospect a rental car would be better.

GuideWe recommend having a guide to understand the OUV. We were very satisfied with our guide, good English speaking and knowledgeable. He was arranged via the the lodge, but his contact details are Comestar Supuni. He runs his own company, Guidestar Adventure ToursPhone number/ whatsup +265 881474895.

Entrance fee to the park is 2500 qwatcha for two persons, about € 1.25.

Visit July 2025. When the nominations and evaluations for this year’s World Heritage session were published, we decided to carve out time in our itinerary for a short visit to the Mulanje Mountains in southern Malawi. On our way from Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg, we managed a stopover in Blantyre and booked a place to stay—as there aren’t many accommodation options near the mountain.

No sooner had we pulled into the lodge than the World Heritage session began—and just hours later, Mulanje was officially inscribed. Talk about timing. From our lodge, we had a stunning view of the mountain range, with vivid green tea plantations spread out in the foreground.

The next day, we set off on a day hike with a local guide.

Mount Mulanje is best known for its dramatic peaks, deep forests, and rich biodiversity. But beyond its natural beauty, the mountain holds deep cultural significance. Rising steeply from the plains to 3,002 meters at Sapitwa Peak, it is considered sacred by many of the local communities living around it.

Most visitors come here to climb the mountain—it’s usually a three-day trek—but we opted for a one day hike. Interestingly, Mulanje was not inscribed for its natural features or geological value, but for cultural reasons.

For the local Lomwe people, the mountain is deeply intertwined with myths, ancestral spirits, and traditional rituals. It is seen as a dwelling place for spirits and a source of spiritual guidance and protection. Certain sites on the mountain are used …

Mijikenda Sacred Forests turned out to be one of the trickier ones to plan a visit to on your own. There are few helpful reviews or other visitor information online — and most available information focuses on Kaya Kinondo, which, as Els pointed out, isn’t part of the UNESCO inscription.

So our plan was to just to go to one and hope we could figure things out as we went. We had our own vehicle and set off from Mida Creek/Watamu in the morning, Our plan was to try for a visit to one out of three of the kayas located in a row, closest to Mombasa.

Our first stop was Kaya Kambe. The forest itself — a dense green forest on a hill, easy to spot as it stands out from surrounding agricultural land. But there were no signs or visitor information. We asked around in the nearby village and were eventually directed to one of the forest keepers, who showed up after a short wait.

We politely asked if it was possible to visit the forest. He hesitated, saying he wished we had called ahead so he could have prepared a proper visit. He mentioned his number could be found via the Kilifi Museum.

Still, he was a kind and welcoming man and simply said: “Okay, let’s go!”

We walked with him into the forest, arriving at a cluster of small huts used for preparing rituals and gatherings. He explained the significance of the kaya. He told us …

Great Britain isn't a big country by most standards, the record for cycling the length of the country, for example, is 41 hours, less than 2 days, so you get my point? Yet head out to Pembrokeshire in West Wales and the tiny cathedral city of St David's and it seems a long, long way from everywhere.The journey is worth it though, St David's, no bigger than a village really, is a charming city, the smallest in the UK and is blessed with the Cathedral of St David and the Bishop's Palace, a ruin.Dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, the site itself is much older, going back to the 6th century and is one of the most important religious sites in Wales. William the Conqueror is said to have made a pilgrimage here in 1081.Like many religious buildings in England and Wales though, The Bishop's palace was to fall victim to the reformation.However, the site is still home to St David's cathedral, that despite facing many challenges of its own over recent centuries, stands testament to the resolve of the Welsh as it has become the most important religious site in the principality.Would I make a trip to see it? Probably not, but if you are in the proximity, as I was, then it's definitely worth a detour, be warned though, it's still probably a long way from where you start!

What do you do when you visit a world heritage building that is a private property and not open to the public?

You walk around the perimeter. Take photos of the exterior. Touch the wall and whisper to it that it still has value...

There are places where you proclaim that a picture does not do them justice. You declare that one cannot feel its wonderfulness unless you see it in person. Maison Guiette is not one of those places. A photo certainly does it justice.

Maison Guiette is not in central Antwerp, but it is simple enough to get to it by public transit. No inspiration can be found in the area immediately surrounding the building. A parking lot, a highway, and high-rise apartment buildings are Maison Guiette's neighbours.

However, around the bend from Maison Guiette - that is to say, to the southeast of Le Corbusier's building - is an early 20th century planned neighbourhood built on the lands that previously belonged to della Faille de Waerloos family. There are some nice terraced residential houses here, especially on Varenlaan. Den Brandt Park, and its namesake castle, is also in the neigbourhood.

Hiring a car to visit this site is your best option for a number of reasons. Public Transport is sporadic, organised tours are restrictive with times and there are numerous other sites of significance in the area that can be explored including other Nuraghi and Domus de Janas sites (Tentative UNESCO listed for potential inscription in 2025). We were based in Cagliari and hired a car for the day visiting this site as well as 2 other Nuraghi and 3 Domus de Janas sites making it a very worthwhile trip.

This particular site cannot be visited without an organised tour guide, which is included in the price and there were a number of languages of the guides at the time. Having arrived at the site around midday in mid-June 2025, we only had to wait about 10 minutes for our tour guide and tour. The tour lasts for about 20 - 30 minutes which includes a history of the site and points of interest both outside the main defensive towers but inside as well. Climbing into the towers is not difficult with steps and platforms, however there are narrow entries through the towers and stonework which some may find challenging. The tour takes you to the central location within the defensive tower from which you can then freely explore the area and other towers. There are no other information signs in the facility itself (not needed), with the tour guide remaining in the area to answer any questions if needed. …

I visited Canterbury in June 2025, a return to my old university stomping ground! Although I lived in Canterbury for three years, and graduated from Canterbury Cathedral, I have never visited St Augustine's Abbey or St Martin's Church (2/3 of the components of the Canterbury WHS). On my WHS journey, this was a mistake that needed to be rectified!

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I drove to Canterbury and parked opposite St Augustine's Abbey in Longport Car Park. As can only be expected for a busy Saturday afternoon, the car park was rammed and I was lucky to find a small space at the rear of the car park. St Augustine's Abbey usually costs approximately £11 for an adult, but luckily for me is free with an English Heritage membership. You enter into a long building which takes you through the chronological history of St Augustine's Abbey from its inception as an Anglo Saxon monastery, to its rebirth under Norman rule, to a Tudor royal palace. The displays are interesting, if a little formulaic.

Next stop was the ruins themselves! I declined the audio guide as I find these very cumbersome and annoying, but I managed sufficiently well with the information boards and some Googling. The ruins are fairly standard for England following Henry VIII's dissolution, but there are some very interesting areas such as the graves of Anglo Saxon kings, and the original foundations of the Anglo Saxon monastery. After an hour or so wandering round the ruins, I …

Our next trip from our temporary base in Grado was the fortress town of Palmanova, located in the lowland part of Friuli. It is easily accessible both by bus (running hourly from Udine and Grado) or by car (at the crossing of the motorways). Interestingly, you can enter the town only by driving through the gates by traffic lights. Parking is not a problem in Palmanova, you can park anywhere and without charge.

The city offers countless trails of varying length and difficulty. For a standard stroller, only the one around town inside the fort is easily passable. The others often lead along paths between meadows and are only accessible with difficulty with an all-terrain stroller. We opted for a combination. It is thus possible to visit both late Renaissance lines of fortifications, and the third one from the Napoleonic period, as well as the hinterland buildings in the town. There are signs all over the city with a map of these routes, as well as explanatory signs in Italian and English. One gets an idea of the fort's operation, which is enhanced by the possibility to view virtual reality on a mobile phone at selected locations thanks to QR codes. Currently, the Cividale Gate is under scaffolding and also part of the walls, which are being cleared of overgrowth plants.

The city suffers somewhat from the fate of all existing fortress cities, that after the loss of the purpose of such fortresses and the subsequent abandonment of a large …

The current name for this TWHS is a bit misleading. The old town of Bar is not what you expect, when visiting an old town, but rather an archaeological site, with entry fee and opening hours. It is, unlike the other old towns I visited in the area, not at the sea, but up in the hills. The whole complex is surrounded by massive town walls and includes the remains of churches, towers, palaces and a citadel. From the citadel you will have the best view on the aqueduct and the mountains.

The old town is a popular tourist attraction in Montenegro and therefore comes with the needed infrastructure. There is a big parking lot you will share with numerous tour buses. Going there on an organized tour is probably the best option, if you don’t drive. Around the town walls there is some kind of newer old town, with nice Ottoman style houses. Each of them is either a restaurant or a shop.

In general, this makes for an enjoyable visit and if you only have time for one thing along the coast of Montenegro, Bar is a good choice. It would, in my opinion, also deserve a spot on the list, as it is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Balkans.

Baden bei WienAlthough I've been trying to travel around UNESCO sites for several years (but not exclusively), I've only now decided to write my first review. And just at the time when I have the nicest travel restrictions - an 11 month old son - so my travel is not as frequent as it used to be. So I'll do my best in this and the next review to follow the issue of accessibility with a small child.

On our way to our first family holiday to the seaside, in Grado, Italy, we needed some sort of stopover for about 2 hours. So the spa town of Baden bei Wien was ideal. From this serial entry, I have already visited Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně in the Czech Republic and very briefly Montecatini Terme in Italy (and I plan to spend a few days in Františkovy Lázně in autumn 2025). So I have the opportunity to compare.

The town is easily accessible, close to the motorway from Vienna to the south, and there is plenty of parking in the parking houses. Unlike other parking houses in German-speaking countries, it is also easy to pay by credit card here.

And now to the review of Baden itself. The city is very pleasant, easily accessible, without any steps, with a stroller ideally passable and very compact. There are plenty of places to have a snack or go to a café. A spa park adjoins the development to the north. …

Visited June 2025

Good news! A day in the Flow [it rhymes with cow] Country was not so bad… I can even say it was a very nice and interesting journey. I started in Inverness, taking the morning train all the way to Forsinard (West Halladale component). I arrived at the empty station 10:30 – I was the only passenger leaving the train there (and only few passengers continued their journey probably to Thurso, the final station). Just at the right moment – the lady from nearby research centre came to open the old station building which now houses the visitors’ centre with interesting presentations (and a video on TV screen) about the region and the blanket bogs and peat. I asked her about the plaque with WHS/UNESCO information, and she said that it was a simple one in front of the train station (just behind the fence) but it’s been gone a couple of weeks ago… And she went back to the research and management building. Visiting the centre is free, but you can leave a small donation or buy postcards/magnets – pay by putting some money into the box.  

Depending on time you have, you can spend up to 3 or 6 hours there – until the trains back to Inverness stop at Forsinard. You have two possibilities: 1. follow the Dubh-Iochain Trail – it is a very short one that takes you through the blog and peatland pools to the lookout tower; from the top …