Mehmed Paša Sokolovi? Bridge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I’m on a mission to visit every UNESCO site in the world (it will take a lifetime), so visiting Mehmed Paša Sokolovi? Bridge was a top priority when I began planning my Balkans road trip. My original plan was to …
One of the more iconic sites in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina—the old bridge in Mostar—is actually not that old. At least, the current incarnation of Stari Most is a lot newer than one might think, given the bridge’s long history. Originally built in 1557 under the administration of the Ottoman Empire, it was destroyed …
From the World Heritage inscription: Muskauer Park was the forerunner for new approaches to landscape design in cities, and influenced the development of landscape architecture as a discipline. The site is the core zone of an extensive landscape park laid out by a leading European personality of the mid-19th century, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, around …
From the World Heritage inscription: Warsaw was deliberately annihilated in 1944 as a repression of the Polish resistance to the German occupation. The capital city was reduced to ruins with the intention of obliterating the centuries-old tradition of Polish statehood. The rebuilding of the historic city, 85% of which was destroyed, was the result of …
From the World Heritage inscription: Auschwitz-Birkenau was the principal and most notorious of the six concentration and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany to implement its Final Solution policy which had as its aim the mass murder of the Jewish people in Europe. Built in Poland under Nazi German occupation initially as a concentration camp …
From the World Heritage inscription: Together with Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve, Maya is the most important reserve in the country, because of its archaeological and bio/ecological interest. Rivers, lakes, swamps and flooding savannas are important for biodiversity and for migratory birds. The reserve contains the largest area of tropical rainforest in Guatemala and …
From the World Heritage inscription: The ruins of Quirigua retain an impressive series of stelae and sculpted calendars, partially deciphered, which constitute a remarkable and unique source of the history of the social, political and economic events of the Mayan civilization. The zoomorphic and anthropomorphic sculptures are among the most attractive pre-Columbian works known. Quirigua …
From the World Heritage inscription: Joya de Cerén is remarkable by virtue of the completeness of the evidence that it provides of everyday life in a Mesoamerican farming community of the 6th century AD, which is without parallel in this cultural region. It was a pre-Hispanic farming community that, like Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy, …
From the World Heritage inscription: In the history of military architecture, the Fortress of Finland (Suomenlinna) is an outstanding example representative both of the general fortification principles of the period and of its specific characteristics. In 1747, when Finland was part of the Swedish realm, the Diet in Stockholm decided to build a fortress to …