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1205 of 1223 WHS have been reviewed by our community.
Qoahito Cultural Landscape (T)
Mihai Dascalu Romania - 09-Mar-25

Seen in February 2025 on a Lupine groups trip to Eritrea. The group had a bus, but the bus broke down just outside Dekemhare, 38 km out of Asmara. We waited in a “pub” for 2.5 hours, until they found and brought from Asmara three 4WD cars to load us all up. With a few more stops we eventually got to Qohaito at 3 pm, where we visited the following sites: the ancient dam (maybe 2500 years old, see picture, Aksum civilization??), the viewpoint over the canyon, the Egyptian Tomb, Temple of Mariam Wakiro columns and eventually the Adi Alauti cave paintings
Read OnMelaka and George Town
ReallyDeepThoughts Singapore - 07-Mar-25
In my opinion, the twinning of these two places into one WHS was brilliant as together, they present a coherent historical narrative of colonial development in the region. The architecture and artefacts in both cities are testament to a culture and townscape resulting from a blend of external influences (European and Asian) on local conditions. Each site has its own lovely ensemble of fabled historical buildings and old streets, telling the story of colonialism in this part of the world.
I had been asked which one would I recommend a tourist short on time to visit; honestly, I am incapable of answering the question. Once there, both cities are lovely and easy, comfortable places to visit, with their respective WHS zones conveniently covered on foot
Read OnGola-Tiwai complex (T)
Bill Maurmann USA - 09-Mar-25
I visited Tiwai Island on a Lupine Travels tour in June 2023. The intent was to stay overnight at a community center dormitory in the middle of the island. Rugged road going in. Vehicle was parked and local guides loaded our luggage onto small boats. We drifted downriver about ten minutes before banking on the opposite shore. We followed a short trail to the center where we had dinner, were entertained by locals doing traditional dances and a role play involving a demon. The next morning a guide took us through island trails. The jungle was dense. Most impressive vegetation were the banyan trees. We didn’t see any animals other than a large impressive spider, but there were plenty of birds.
Read OnLa Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle
2Flow2 United States - 08-Mar-25

I visited this WHS in July 2023. We were staying in Geneva with a cousin who was working at CERN, and I had heard about La Chaux-de-Fonds being famous as the place of origin for Switzerland's rich watch-making history, so we planned an entire daytrip around going out to the town in the North. I'm sad to say that it is dubious whether all of the effort was worth it.
The main goal of our trip was to see the watch-making museum. According to the Internet it was to be open and operating at the hours we were visiting. However, after multiple hours of travel getting out to this town and navigating on foot from the train station to the museum – we found the museum closed. Apparently, the town had endured a huge windstorm a couple of days before which had knocked down trees and branches all over the city. There was tape covering one stairway that lead to the museum, but nothing offically blocking off the ways of accessing it. Curiously, there were no signs or anything indicating the museum was properly closed, and we couldn't tell for sure whether it was not operating or we were just looking at the wrong location for an entrance
Read OnForts and Castles Gold Coast
S. Anril Tiatco Philippines - 08-Mar-25

Jamestown and Usshertown are the oldest districts of Accra, the capital city of Ghana. According to Emmanuel, our tour guide slash driver during our visit in Accra in 2023, these towns were the origin of the Accranian people, the fishing people called Ga. Once upon a time, Accra was known as A-ga-ra.
These districts in the Greater Accra Region possess a certain charm that I thought comparable with Melaka, Georgetown, and Ipoh in Malaysia and Little India in Singapore
Read OnBlog WHS Visits
WHS #957: Djerba
This is the first review of a visit to the Djerba WHS after its inscription. The site has received horrible reviews and an exceptionally low rating from our community, but I thought maybe it would all make more sense with the help of an OUV-frame. It’s about a dispersed but homogenous settlement and land-use pattern, characterized for example (but not limited to) self-sufficient rural communities with their own water supply, palm groves and tiny mosques. That’s why it includes 22 rather featureless and abandoned neighbourhood mosques.
For my visit, I tried to make a representative pick from the locations without having to rent a car. In the morning, I visited 4 components in and north of the capital city Houmt Souk. The medina of Houmt Souk is not a rural settlement, of course, but the trade town where everything ended up. Included is just a small zone (the old funduqs, the covered market, the Mosque of the Turks and St. Joseph Church; but not Borj El Ghazi Mustapha). It feels like a smaller version of the Medina of Tunis, and even in the early morning, it is all geared up to receive the French and German beach tourists. I then walked on to another component, the Church of St. Nicholas. A sign on the door says that it only opens on Thursdays from 10-13. The sizeable church (photo 1) can only be seen from the sidewalk across the street.
My next goal was the Mosque of Sidi Smain (photo 2), located along the Houmt Souk Corniche. This is one of the fortified mosques that formed a defense system along the coast. It lies across the street from a much prettier newer mosque with the same name, but it's only this old one that is inscribed. The last one on my morning visit was the Mosque of Sidi Zekri. This is situated in what is locally known as the ‘Tourist Zone’, although it’s more surrounded by wasteland and half-finished apartment buildings. It’s an underground mosque of an interesting design, but you cannot enter.
In the afternoon, I went southward, first by taxi to Erriadh. Formerly known as Hara Seghira, this was a major Jewish neighbourhood. It’s now a small town that tempts to attract the selfie crowd by creating “Djerbahood”, streets full of murals (photo 3). I had no idea where to find former Jewish landmarks such as the yeshiva described in the nomination file.
I then walked on for 10 minutes to reach the El Gribah synagogue. I had read online that there’s an entrance fee and that you have to show your passport, but nothing was asked for. Your bag has to go through a security scanner, but that’s all. Tunisian military personnel guard the entrance road since the site has suffered from several terrorist attacks over the past decades. You can visit the synagogue interior freely (it’s open daily, except Saturday, in the morning and late afternoon) and take pictures. Next to it lies a courtyard with rooms for Jewish pilgrims.
The Verdict
I tried hard to understand and like it more than the previous visitors did, but despite my research and having all documentation available, I came back even more confused. There may be a hint of OUV here or there (the sheer survival of the El Ghriba synagogue, the distinctive defensive lines formed by its coastal mosques), but what really put me off was the lack of interpretation on site. It also fails on almost all of the WHS Commandments. Djerba feels like a kid that has received yet another present (World Heritage status that was apparently so urgent it required an AB overrule) and never even unpacked it 2 years later.
The official number of locations is also confusing: I think we have another (the 23rd!) example of “Incorrect UNESCO 'Number of locations'” here. The site was nominated as a serial site of 31 components: the nomination dossier, the maps, and the ICOMOS evaluation all have 31. However, the UNESCO website currently shows 30 components, and the 2024 SOC report by Tunisia had 32. A “Zone Côtière inhabitée” was added in the northwest, while Khazroun / Sedghiene / Guecheine are seen as one by UNESCO where they are separate elsewhere. I don’t see a decision about a boundary modification, so my best guess is that the original 31 locations are still valid.
Practicalities
- If you want to see a fair number of the 30+ components, you’d need to rent a car or charter a driver for half a day as the sites are so scattered around the island and some are really remote. I did my 6 components on foot and by taxi. There are local buses as well, but they don’t run often. Taxis on Djerba are a good bet since they are plentiful, routinely use the meter and are cheap (about 3 EUR for a 15-minute ride). Bikes can be rented as well (and even quads!), but as with hiking, the sun is fierce and the distances are just a bit too long.
- I stayed overnight in the old center of Houmt Souk, in a nicely renovated townhouse (Dar Lola) in the core zone. Houmt Souk is mostly alive during the day when the day-trippers from the beach resorts come and visit. In the evenings, many restaurants were closed. Maybe this was also caused by it being Ramadan: so they did not bother to open at all if they couldn’t serve lunch. Shops and supermarkets remained open during the day.
Els - 16 March 2025