World Heritage Site newsletter #9

 

January 2006

 

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January 2006, the start of another New Year.  For 2006, I hope to achieve that every WHS has been reviewed on the website. And of course I wish that the WHC will make wise choices in this year’s list of new entries. This edition of the newsletter updates you on a number of new site reviews, links to insightful stories about becoming a WHS and finally elaborates a bit more on my recent trip to the Phillipines.

 

Recommended sites

 

The Portuguese Coa Valley and its Rock Art is the subject of an enthousiastic review by Sheila Ross: ‘a find if there ever was one…’.

 

Also, Vergina was praised again. This archeological site in Greece holds ‘one of the most exciting museums i have been to’, according to C. Anagnostou of Greece.

Paul Tanner added Sudan to his impressive list of visited countries and sites. Its only WHS, Gebel Barkal, consists of 5 locations. ‘As at all Sudan’s sites you are likely to be the only tourists there (what a contrast to Egypt!) and the atmosphere is heightened by the encroaching desert sand – you could almost be a 19c explorer reaching the sites for the first time!

Looking for more remarkable visits:

Collectively, the visitors of the World Heritage website now have written 1455 reviews on 604 different sites. That’s nearly 75% of the total. Although the project of covering all WHS is going very well, I can still use more reviews. What to think of fascinating destinations like Upper Svaneti in Georgia, Olympia in Greece or Komodo National Park in Indonesia? I’m sure some of you have been there. Add a report of your trip to the website!

 

 

About WHS

 

For those interested in reading background information about the World Heritage List I would like to recommend this Dissertation. It’s about obtaining world heritage status and the impacts of listing. Why are there more cultural sites inscribed than natural ones? What do Angkor Wat, Bamiyan Valley and Ashur have in common? Why is Mecca not on the List, or Varanasi? How is ‘uniqueness’ defined? Why is the Unesco logo omitted from display at most American WHS? This thesis is a good read and has lots of the little trivia we like so much.

A recent International Herald Tribune article deals with some of the same observations (the author probably has read the thesis mentioned above).

 

New visited sites

 

In December I stayed in the Philippines for 3.5 weeks. My visit was somewhat tainted by rain, but that of course didn’t prevent me of adding no’s 195, 196 en 197 to my personal list:

·          Baroque Churches of the Philippines

 

Looking back, I think I should have been better prepared for this trip. The Phillipines don’t offer a well trodden tourist path (except for some diving spots). But their WHS Tentative List for example does have some interesting sounding sites. In Manila is the San Sebastian Church (see photo). To get there was a clear example of 21st century travel: the church wasn’t in my guidebook and the only clue I had was that it’s located in Binondo. I went there by LTR, looked and asked around to no avail, then popped into an internet cafe to let Google search the exact adress. Of course it was there on the internet, so I could provide a taxi driver with the right directions.

San Sebastian’s claim to fame is worthy of WHS status: it’s the only Gothic church in Asia (apparently) and the only steel church in the world (?). It was made in Belgium and then shipped overseas in pieces. There was a wedding going on when I visited, really atmospheric. Read more about this church...

 

Next destinations will be New Lanark (UK) in February and Sicily (Italy) in April.

 

 

 

 

That’s it for this edition, Els
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