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This archeological site is still quite intact. Well, the outlines at least are (not the buildings). At the center is the Zeus temple. Around it is the residence of priests, the training rooms facilities for the athletes, the guesthouses.

Via a passageway, called the Crypt, you reach the stadium. The place where the athletic games were held measured 212 x 28 meters. There were no seats, but the embankment could hold 45.000 spectators.

In the nearby museum, you can see a model of how Olympia looked like at its heydays. An amazing, bustling site it must have been: think of the athletes practicing, but also the numerous spectators and officials that were around. Not unlike an Olympic Village nowadays, but on such small grounds.

Finally, after 10 days of being a lonely visitor to Ancient Greece, I saw them: The Crowds. On Sunday all archeological sites have free entrance, and a lot of Greek families take this opportunity. Also quite a number of foreign tourists - may be because of Delphi's relative proximity to Athens.

Ancient Delphi was built against a mountainside. An impressive setting, though not many remains. A steep walkway connects the monuments - The Sacred Way. This was once littered with gifts by graceful city-states and made a promising entrance to the temple of Apollo.

Highlight nowadays is the sanctuary of Athena, across the street from the main site. The graceful "tholos" there features in many Delphi pictures (including mine).

The site lies in a dark green pine forest, with air as healthy as you normally can only wish. There's a huge parking lot, but at the end of December, I was one of only a few guests. I had the amphitheater, which sits 14.000 people, to myself. It's like a football stadium, without the fences and the advertising. Unbelievably well preserved also.

Besides the theatre, you can visit a museum with local findings (mainly statues) and the excavations. Not much is in place of the hospitals, hostels, bathrooms, and what more was needed to serve the stream of visitors looking to improve their health.

The location of the site is its major drawing card. It's like a retreat, like the secluded places where they construct monasteries in Japan or South Korea.

At a height of 1130 meters, it was freezing cold. Snow-covered the surroundings. I was a lonely visitor, again. You must be mad to visit a site like this in winter, but well, I was in the area and just couldn't drive past it.

Due to extensive restoration works, the temple now lies beneath a large tent. This tent has to guard the ancient building against the sometimes severe weather conditions around here. Also, precautions are taken against damage that can be done by earthquakes. Once the work is completed (who knows when), the temple will be back in the open air.

Because of the works going on, not much can be seen of this precious temple. You can only view the columns from the outside, but the inside is forbidden terrain. That's a pity, I'll have to return in a few years to see what they have made of it.

On a sunny Saturday, I drove to the town of Bruges, about 2 hours from my home. My preparations (websites and a travel guide) left me with high expectations for "The best-preserved medieval town in Europe". I wasn't disappointed, but I rate Tallinn (that I visited a few months ago) higher - probably because Belgian towns are so familiar to me.

My first stop in town was the Church of Our Lady, with a delicate statue of Mary and her child. It was made by Michelangelo, and it's the only work of his that can be seen outside Italy. Inside (or beneath) this church there are also impressively decorated graves of Burgundian Kings.

In the center of Bruges, at the large Market Square, the enormous Belfry Tower and Cloth Hall dominate the scene. The Tower just seems to be too high for the building underneath that has to support it. Other interesting places to visit are the Beguinage and the Gruuthuse-museum (in a lovely building).

On my trip to South Korea in 2001, a trip that lasted only 2 weeks, I visited the country's all 8 WHS. And a number of other nice places - the distances within South Korea aren't that far, and it's an easy and rewarding place to travel in. Two of these sites now have become a WHS in 2010: Hahoe Folk Village and Yangdong Folk Village.

The bus ride to the Hahoe from Andong takes only 35 minutes. The very well preserved village "Hahoe" appeared still in deep rest when I approached. At the town's entrance is a ticket gate, otherwise, it is an ordinary village. The weather was wonderful, the town smelled just how a rural site should (after manure). A wonderful quiet place. Almost all of the thatched roof houses here are still occupied, so it's not possible to look inside them.

Hahoe is especially known for its mask dances. From the village, it's a 2-kilometer walk to the Mask Museum. About 200 Korean masks are exhibited: a glimpse into the folk history of this often so westernized country.

I also visited Yangdong. This village is located near Gyeongju. I was the only passenger on the local bus, and the driver dropped me at a crossing from where I had to walk another 1.5 km. However, a car stopped after a few minutes and gave me a lift - that happened so often in Korea!

There was no entrance fee to be paid in …

Jeju island is the equivalent of a tropical paradise, especially for regional tourists. The Hawaii of South Korea, with its sunny climate and even real palm trees. On the flight that I took from Busan to Jeju were at least 100 elder women, excited as children going on a school trip.

Arriving at Jeju airport, however, the island is covered in fog and rain.

The next day it is still raining. I decide to join a bus tour, to get an easy (and dry) glimpse of the island. The tour takes 8 hours, and circles the eastern part of the island - the volcano crater, lava caves, and the open-air museum are included. I'm joined by about 10 Koreans and a German girl. We (the westerners) haven't got a real clue where we are going, so a surprise tour it is (the guide only speaks Korean).

First, we stop at the "Mystery Road", an optical illusion. Really strange, but funny.

The Sangumburi crater is stop number two. This should be an impressive sight, a large green volcanic crater. Now only fog, just the edge of the crater can be seen.

So we go on. Most of the Korean passengers are fast asleep now. The next stop is the Song-Eup Folk Village, an open-air museum where we are lured into a tent where a sales presentation of health products is held (tea, pills). The Koreans are wide awake now and buy in large quantities.

After …

This is probably the best sight I have seen in Korea. Beautifully located in the mountains (in a national park actually), miles from everywhere. Haeinsa is a big and colourful temple complex. There is a lot to see and to do in the area.

The wooden blocks are of course the main point of interest. They are housed in 4 buildings behind the main temple. You can look at them via the windows.

Remarkably, the blocks are still in their original housing, and due to the way of construction, they are well preserved. A few years ago a new building was erected for them, but the condition of the carved blocks started deteriorating quickly. So they moved them back, to their original places.

Seowons were private institutions combining education (in the form of preparation for admission to the national civic service) and Neo-Confucian worship. A serial proposal such as this is always worth checking out in detail, as there may be hidden surprises among the selected locations. Personally, I was happy to discover Dosan Seowon among the entries listed, a site that I visited on my Korea trip in 2001.

Dosan Seowon is located not far from Hahoe WHS, and I visited both on the same day (I even included a third 'national treasure', Jebiwon Buddha). My trip notes about Dosan Seowon are brief: “Idyllic location. Very quiet, only a handful of visitors. Lots of Korean film directors apparently come here for shooting traditional Korean footage.”. All memory of my activities of that day have since blurred, and the fact that I had not labeled the photos in my Korea photo album does not help either (mind you, 2001 was the pre-digital age).

There’s a large difference between the way I am visiting (future) WHS nowadays and how I travelled 15 years ago: I now put considerably more effort into arriving prepared. This research has only become possible because there is so much more information readily available. Dosan Seowon for example has a very detailed official website, where you can virtually walk through the complex. Each structure is shown and described. Thanks to that I was able to add captions to the photos.

Trying to relive my visit, I found …

The fortress is still quite intact: a lot of different towers, four gates, and the city wall can be seen today. The best thing to do is walk the city walls - then you pass all sights. This tour is about 5.5 kilometers long but will take you an hour or two because of the steep climbs involved.

Because of the burning heat on the day I visited the site, I did only half of the tour. Still worthwhile though: as most of the monuments I visited in Korea it is renovated very well.

Of these Korean dolmen sites, I only visited the big one at Ganghwa Island (near Seoul). No entrance fee there, though the dolmen is placed in a little park and there is the ubiquitous soft drink vending machine.

Simply getting there, and enjoying the Ganghwa landscape was the most interesting part of my visit. The dolmen itself is "just" 3 stones put on top of each other. I have seen those before in Holland.

But I have good memories of visiting this site because it was the 7th and last world heritage I saw on my trip to Korea. As this one is quite out of the way and was not included in my original travel plans, I am glad that I was able to visit it after all.

This is sober stuff. I don't know if you can say that you like it or not - it's meant as a shrine. Although I did some homework I didn't really get a grip on this monument during my first visit in 2001.

The shrine nowadays can only be visited with a guide (except on Saturdays, when you can walk around on your own freely). Four times a day there is a guided tour in English. I bought a ticket for the tour at 4 p.m., a tour that still attracted 25-30 people.

In this shrine are kept the so-called memorial tablets for the kings and queens of the last dynasty of Korea. Their bodies are buried elsewhere. Twice a year, these ancestors are honored by a big ritual of song, dance and music in the Confucian tradition. The rest of the year the complex is peaceful and quiet. The tablets are kept behind closed doors. You have to watch your step walking here: the spirits have their own path that leads directly to the shrine.

The tablets of the most important kings are located in the main building on the site: an elongated building with 35 rooms on a vast square. Next to it is a similar building for the less important ancestors. In the freezing cold of early January, it is all very austere, but I'm glad I went for a second time to hear more of the explanations from the guide.

To be able to take a look inside I had to take part in a guided tour. Normally not my cup of tea, because the time is so limited and other people always get in the way of your pictures. That proved to be the case also this time, but I wouldn't have missed Changdeokung itself.

What I liked most - apart from the scenery - was the ondol, the heating system. Traditionally, Korean houses were heated by generating heat under their floors. This system can be seen clearly at Changdeokgung, and it comes with two delicately pretty chimneys too.

Pulguksa Temple is one of the main points of interest in the Gyongyu-area, so it was full of (Korean) tourists. A picturesque place.

The Buddha in Sokkuram Grotto is a very delicate one. Three meters high, and very white. Unfortunately, you can only see it from a distance (behind glass). Photos are not allowed.

To be honest, I was a little bit disappointed by Kyongju (now spelled "Gyeongju" by the way). The historical relics are scattered around town, but most of them are not major sights. The cute Cheomsongdae Observatory is the one thing that you really must see here. So old, so delicate, and in such a good condition.

Mrs. Schröder lived in this house until she died in the 1980s. Nowadays it is open to the public and you can visit it on a guided tour.

The most remarkable aspect is that when Rietveld built this house, it was situated on the outskirts of the city of Utrecht. Only one year later a four-lane motorway was developed next to it, ruining both the sight and the quietness. Rietveld and Mrs. Schróder must have been devastated by this.

I took the tour with my mother, and we both thought it was very worthwhile. There are so many little ingenious aspects of the house that it's amazing. And to think that it was built in 1924, what a revolution it must have been at the time.

Fifteen minutes by boat from Helsinki Harbour gets you to Suomenlinna. The Helsinkians seem to favour it as a leisure park: to picnic, lie in the sun and drink a lot of alcohol.

For the curious visitor, there's a lot to see though. The Suomenlinna Museum shows a good documentary about the history of the island. It's also a lovely island by itself: the fact that about 900 people still live here permanently gives it an extra edge and takes it beyond an open-air museum.

Although I've seen quite a lot of so-called "medieval cities" in Europe, Tallinn came as a surprise. Its whole Old City is without modern buildings or distractions. I had a great time just roaming around without a map, peeking around corners.

Highlight - though not medieval, dating from 1900 - for me was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It's a wonderful Russian-Orthodox church that looks like a big birthdaycake

Modern Paphos is a beach resort as there are so many in the Mediterranean. It's an unlikely place to find treasures of the past, treasures that are carefully being unearthed. The most spectacular findings are the Tombs of the Kings, graves that are set up like houses. There's a strong Egyptian connection here, and also a comparison with Petra (Jordania) has been made.

Only a few hundred meters from there, the most beautiful mosaics I have ever seen have been discovered. We're not talking about a few colored stones here and there, but about the floors of whole rooms and even of one total house. An amazing sight.

With some of these very ancient sites, your mind has to work hard to transform a bunch of stones into the great place it once was. This could also have been the case with 9000(!) year old Choirokoitia, but here they decided to rebuild a group of houses in the original style, just outside the archeological finding place.

From this, you learn that the inhabitants of the village lived in round, African-style huts. A few of them together formed an entity and shared the same courtyard. With this picture in mind, you walk up to the main part of the site and recognize easily the round clusters of stones that used to be the houses of the ancient Choirokoitians.