Of the four properties listed in this UNESCO World Heritage site we can claim reasonable familiarity with two. As unabashed lovers of medieval castles that we are, we planned on seeing at least one of the group of castles in Northern Wales as a definite part of our itinerary when…
I first visited Greenwich Park and climbed up to the Royal Observatory on a business trip to London in 2000. A few years into that decade, as we officially resided within the borders of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, this World Heritage site became the one we undoubtedly visited most…
My very first visit to London, nearly 15 years ago, happened sometime before we started travelling extensively abroad, which explains London’s sites’ relatively early sequential numbers on my World Heritage roster. On that week-long business trip I ended up with sufficient spare time to check out main attractions of the…
I love Barcelona nearly unconditionally and it contests with Paris and Rome the title of a European city that I know best aside from London. It has a lot to offer to any type of visitor but works of Antoni Gaudà are likely to feature on every itinerary, however brief…
We visited Toledo twice on day-trips several years apart and definitely left some places unexplored there even after two visits. Recognizing two millennia of history on display in Toledo, the UNESCO inscription mentions over a dozen sights by name, of which we can claim good familiarity with no more than…
Our single day-trip to Avignon during our very first voyage to France ended up one of the best days of that itinerary. The tour of the Papal Palace took nearly three hours and exhausted us a little, so we shortened our sightseeing program, leaving quite a few hours until our…
The Royal Palace and Monastery of El Escorial attracts quite a bunch of superlatives on its UNESCO description, including an awestruck passage of “there is nothing [about it] that is not exceptional”. In my subjective view, all of those are well deserved. El Escorial is an architectural wonder of the…
In an interesting dissonance, Brussels never figures on the list of must-see destinations and yet there are three separate World Heritage sites within its greater boundaries. The grandest of them all – appropriately named Le Grand-Place – is definitely worth the visit to the Belgian capital. The inscription pays respects…
Having had been introduced to Versailles through the works of Alexandre Dumas before I reached my teens, and having had visited modelled-on-Versailles Peterhof in the years before emigration, I had the Sun King’s palace on my must-visit list for our very first trip to France nearly a decade and a…
In what feels like ages ago but is merely a matter of less than two decades, we were recent American immigrants still awaiting naturalization and possessing decidedly limited financial means. In those prehistoric times, our travel journeys were few and far in between and normally limited to north-American locations where…
Amalfi Coast is up there near the top on the list of destinations that we fell in love with and are overdue to come back to. It’s gorgeous, unique and inviting. It left memories worth recounting. And we simply spent too little time there. The UNESCO inscription recognizes the region’s…
Pont du Gard was chronologically the very first Roman site that we laid our eyes upon. I cannot help but repeat my customary refrain about being in love with architectural masterpieces, and the ones that survive comparatively intact for 2,000 years get an additional dose of my admiration. Itinerary for…
This series of posts gives me an incentive to review our photographic archives with sometimes rather pleasing results. For instance, our visit to Pompei made in the pre-digital photo-era customarily left just a few photographs to choose from. Printed on glossy paper, those 4×6 shots have been languishing in a…
On any given trip, if your plan is to explore an area with multiple destinations over the course of a few days, you probably pick one of those destinations as your base. Then, it becomes a balancing act to get all of your planned sightseeing around the area while doing…
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The World Heritage status of Vicenza is primarily due to Andrea Palladio, a 16th-century giant whose works dominate the town and serve as the origin of the now-classic architectural style that has spread all over Western world (for instance, the White House in Washington, DC, finds its roots in Palladian…
Padua (or Padova in Italian) is not recognized on the World Heritage list as a city in its entirety or for any of its architecture. Its entry on the list is the Botanical Gardens which, dating from mid-16th century, are considered to be the oldest in the world and the…
For reasons that lack straightforward explanation, Ferrara did not impress us as it probably should have. Our over-saturation with all things medieval or Renaissance on this trip probably played a part – but then a couple of destinations that came later left stronger imprints. And yet, there is plenty to…
We did not set aside significant time to get ourselves acquainted with the Republic of San Marino. With all due respect to the oldest continuous constitutional republic in the world, it can hardly contend for anything but a mere curiosity status on any tour itinerary. Unless you are a Russian…
Assisi easily vaulted towards the top of my personal list of the most impressive day-trip destinations after having hosted us for half of a day. The town’s World Heritage inscription is centered on its sacred architecture, but it is also incredibly picturesque and, pilgrimages aside, does not convey a feeling…