From the World Heritage inscription: The remains of the Reichenau foundation bear outstanding witness to the religious and cultural role of a great Benedictine monastery in the early Middle Ages. The Monastery of Reichenau was a highly significant artistic center of great significance to the history of art in Europe in the 10th and 11th …
From the World Heritage inscription: The sanctuary of Wies, a pilgrimage church miraculously preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and a masterpiece of creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared. The hamlet of Wies, near Steingaden in Bavaria, …
From the World Heritage inscription: The Messel Pit has provided a wealth of fossils that have greatly increased understanding of the Eocene Age. It is a small site approximately 1,000 m long (north to south) and 700 m wide (east to west). The Eocene (‘dawn of new times’) epoch (57-36 million years ago) was a …
From the World Heritage inscription: Speyer Cathedral exerted a considerable influence not only on the development of Romanesque architecture in the 11th and 12th centuries, but also on the evolution of the principles of restoration in Germany, in Europe, and in the world from the 18th century to the present. The cathedral, along with those …
La Grand Place is the focal point of Brussels. It’s within walking distance of most major attractions in the old town, including the Manneken Pis, and it’s a place all visitors will delight in exploring. Here’s everything you should know about the history and significance of La Grand Place in Brussels. Overview La Grand-Place in …
From the World Heritage inscription: Stari Grad Plain represents a comprehensive system of land use and agricultural colonization by the Greeks, in the 4th century BC. Its land organization system, based on geometrical parcels with dry stone wall boundaries (chora), is exemplary. This system was completed from the very first by a rainwater recovery system …
From the World Heritage inscription: Plitvice Lakes National Park contains a series of beautiful lakes, caves, and waterfalls. These have been formed by processes typical of karst landscapes such as the deposition of travertine barriers, creating natural dams. These geological processes continue today. The Plitvice Lakes basin is a geomorphologic formation of biological origin, a …
From the World Heritage inscription: Trogir is an excellent example of a medieval town built on and conforming with the layout of a Hellenistic and Roman city that has conserved its urban fabric to an exceptional degree and with the minimum of modern interventions, in which the trajectory of social and cultural development is clearly …
From the World Heritage inscription: Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of vast sandbanks exposed to powerful tides between Normandy and Brittany stand the ‘Wonder of the West’, a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel St Michael, and the village that grew up in the shadow of its great walls. Built between …