Ilya Burlak Profile

I only started prioritizing visiting World Heritage sites a few years ago and with my limited US-based corporate-warrior time-off allocation and family obligations I can only add a handful to a dozen in any given year. Looking forward to visiting them all after I am able to retire...

USA Last Update 04.12.24 177 WHS Visited 117 Reviews 177 WHS Rated 38 TWHS Visited

Visited Sites Ilya Burlak

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Legend

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Recent Reviews Ilya Burlak

Caves of the Buda Thermal Karst System (T)

Ilya Burlak USA - 10-Feb-25

I visited Pál-völgyi Cave during my stay in Budapest in November 2024. I did not plan to see more than one cave in this serial submission, and based on my research, Pál-völgyi provided the best balance of accessibility and interest of the six of them. The roughly half-kilometer subterranean walk takes about an hour to complete.The visit is always guided and always in Hungarian. Foreigners are directed to download an app with an audio guide in several languages. The English version is narrated in such a boring and tedious fashion that I put the phone away after the second stop. The live guide was occupied by a group of local teenagers on a school field trip

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Ödön Lechner's independent pre-modern architecture (T)

Ilya Burlak USA - 15-Jan-25

All of my research ahead of the trip to Budapest last November suggested that you cannot visit either the Postal Saving Bank or the State Geological Institute. The Museum of Applied Arts remains under renovation; Els mentioned that seven years ago and nothing changed - in fact, a taxi ride took me by the museum building, and its facade is covered in painted cloth that conceals the scaffolding. So, a visitor to Budapest who wants to see Ödön Lechner's architecture is limited to exterior views of a couple of buildings.

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Budapest

Ilya Burlak USA - 03-Jan-25

Visited in November 2024, fifteen years-plus since the first visit.

I love how impressive examples of Art Nouveau and Art Deco are found on practically every block in Central Pest. Each one is different from others, creating a wide range between "unique" and "disjointed" depending on your particular perception of architecture. To my eyes, it is delightful to discover one after another.

The problem, of course, is that most of those are in the buffer zone rather than the core zone of the WHS. Andrassy Avenue is a lovely boulevard, but somewhat more uniform, which for me equates to somewhat underwhelming

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Qhapaq Ñan

Ilya Burlak USA - 21-Aug-24

This hardly qualifies as a review, since my experience with Qhapaq Ñan is limited to the central Cuzco in May of 2024. But since this experience contains a couple of relative mishaps, recounting it could prevent someone from making the same mistakes.

First of all, the Cuzco central area location is not listed among the 137 components of Qhapaq Ñan on the site's official page on whc.unesco.org

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Cuzco

Ilya Burlak USA - 21-Aug-24

I visited Cuzco in May of 2024. Echoing the previous reviewers, it is a lovely living town with a visible exceptional blend of pre-Columbian and Colonial design, boasting a number of superb points of interest.

The central plaza is the focal point of the historic center, presided over by two magnificent churches. La Compania is primarily interesting from the outside, while the cathedral unusually feels like being made up of three side-by-side churches and offers an additional highlight of the "Andean" Last Supper painting, featuring guinea pig as the main course and Francisco Pizarro as Judas. Balconies of the buildings surrounding the main square - and all around the town - are another visual highlight.

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Profile Data

Name: Ilya Burlak
Country: USA
Ranking: 399
Website: website

Recently Visited WHS

Update 04.12.24: Pannonhalma

Hollókö

10 Best Missing

5 Countries Complete

Andorra . Belize . Holy See . Israel . San Marino .

Visited WHS

Rating Stats

Amsterdam Canal Ring 5

Brugge 5

Cordoba 5

Costiera Amalfitana 5

Florence 5

Granada 5

Kremlin and Red Square 5

Loire Valley 5

Palau de la Musica Catalana & Hospital de Sant Pau 5

Paris, Banks of the Seine 5

Petra 5

Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands 5

Prague 5

Ravenna 5

Rome 5

Segovia 5

Siena 5

St. Petersburg 5

Venice and its Lagoon 5

Vienna 5

Wadi Rum 5

West Norwegian Fjords 5

Works of Antoni Gaudí 5

Acropolis 4.5

Assisi 4.5

Bryggen 4.5

Grand Place, Brussels 4.5

Istanbul 4.5

Kraków 4.5

Oporto 4.5

Piazza del Duomo (Pisa) 4.5

Pompei 4.5

Potsdam 4.5

San Gimignano 4.5

Seville 4.5

Sintra 4.5

Stonehenge 4.5

Toledo 4.5

Vatican City 4.5

Versailles 4.5

Villa Romana del Casale 4.5

Albi 4

Alto Douro 4

Avignon 4

Botanical Garden, Padua 4

Brú na Bóinne 4

Budapest 4

Chartres Cathedral 4

Chichen-Itza 4

Cologne Cathedral 4

Convent of Christ in Tomar 4

Delos 4

Drottningholm 4

Dubrovnik 4

Edinburgh 4

Giant's Causeway 4

Gwynedd Castles 4

Kinderdijk 4

Kyiv Cathedral and Lavra 4

L'viv 4

Machu Picchu 4

Monastery of Alcobaça 4

Monastery of Batalha 4

Mostar 4

Mount Etna 4

Old City of Jerusalem 4

Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles 4

Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro 4

Rietveld Schröderhuis 4

Roskilde Cathedral 4

Schönbrunn 4

Split 4

Tikal National Park 4

Tower of London 4

Upper Middle Rhine Valley 4

Urbino 4

Verona 4

Vicenza and the Palladian Villas 4

Westminster 4

Arab-Norman Palermo 3.5

Archaeological Site of Delphi 3.5

Arles 3.5

Bom Jesus do Monte 3.5

Bursa and Cumalikizik 3.5

City of Bath 3.5

Cuzco 3.5

Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni of Chios 3.5

El Escurial 3.5

Ferrara 3.5

Fortified City of Carcassonne 3.5

Graz 3.5

Guimarães 3.5

Hollókö 3.5

Kotor 3.5

Kronborg Castle 3.5

La Fortaleza and San Juan 3.5

Mycenae and Tiryns 3.5

Old City of Berne 3.5

Pienza 3.5

Pont du Gard 3.5

Québec 3.5

Su Nuraxi di Barumini 3.5

Tarraco 3.5

Trinity Sergius Lavra 3.5

Val di Noto 3.5

Villa d'Este 3.5

Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines 3.5

Agrigento 3

Alcala de Henares 3

Arequipa 3

Belem 3

Belfries 3

Canterbury 3

Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin 3

Evora 3

Fortifications of Vauban 3

Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings 3

Great Spa Towns of Europe 3

Incense Route of the Negev 3

Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal 3

Kew Gardens 3

Lima 3

Mantua and Sabbioneta 3

Maritime Greenwich 3

Masada 3

Medici Villas and Gardens 3

Modena 3

Odesa 3

Reims 3

San Marino and Mount Titano 3

Statue of Liberty 3

Strasbourg 3

Syracuse 3

The Porticoes of Bologna 3

Trogir 3

University of Coimbra 3

Val d'Orcia 3

Vézère Valley 3

Beemster Polder 2.5

Belize Barrier Reef 2.5

Bethlehem 2.5

Biblical Tells 2.5

Cathedral of St. James in Sibenik 2.5

Forth Bridge 2.5

Independence Hall 2.5

Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley 2.5

Major Town Houses 2.5

Necropolis of Bet She'arim 2.5

Neolithic Orkney 2.5

New Lanark 2.5

Novodevichy Convent 2.5

Old City of Acre 2.5

Panamá 2.5

Pannonhalma 2.5

Poblet Monastery 2.5

Residences of the Royal House of Savoy 2.5

Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France 2.5

Santa Maria delle Grazie 2.5

Schokland 2.5

Semmering Railway 2.5

Skogskyrkogarden 2.5

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier 2.5

Venetian Works of Defence 2.5

Wadden Sea 2.5

Canal du Midi 2

Dutch Water Defence Lines 2

Frontiers of the Roman Empire 2

Nice 2

Stećci 2

The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales 2

White City of Tel-Aviv 2

Bahá’i Holy Places 1.5

Van Nellefabriek 1.5

Mount Carmel Caves 1

Qhapaq Ñan 1

Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin 1

Stoclet House 1

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Ilya Burlak Profile

Visited Sites Ilya Burlak

Legend

Recent Reviews Ilya Burlak

Caves of the Buda Thermal Karst System (T)

Ödön Lechner's independent pre-modern architecture (T)

Budapest

Qhapaq Ñan

Cuzco

Profile Data

Recently Visited WHS

10 Best Missing

5 Countries Complete

Visited WHS

Reviewed WHS

Visited TWHS

Reviewed TWHS