Watford Boy: World Heritage Baggers

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

World Heritage Baggers

We are not world heritage tourists, the (mythical?) types who travel to places inscribed on the UNESCO list just to notch up the numbers, but... It came to my attention that Monastery de Santa Catalina, which we visited yesterday, was on the World Heritage List (as part of the “historical centre of Arequipa” and as my interest had already been tweaked, I did a little online research and found out that the list incoporates 878 sites (679 cultural 174 natural and 25 mixed), twenty of which we have been to in the 8 months we have been away.

The World Heritage List is supposed to be of places with outstanding universal value, though the system – in which countries nominate their own sites – is open to manipulation. A look at the map shows that Europe dominates and, if I counted right, 368 of the sites are on the smallest continent, not including Russian or Turkish Europe. Anyway, though I claimed not to ne a number-notcher, I am sure it will not be long before I go through the whole list and count where I`ve been... In the meantime, these are the 20 we have been to in the last eight months, and the three more in Peru we will see when our friend Julie arrives in a couple of days.