About

Me

I live in Yorkshire; I love history and heritage of all kinds (although I’m a medieval geek at heart); and I enjoy seeing new places (however close). Hence, a blog on the heritage sites I’m visiting.

Blog

The title of the blog is, of course, a sweeping generalisation. In essence however, this blog will document, in a somewhat sporadic fashion, my attempts to see and experience all the (UNESCO world) heritage (sites) in:

a) the UK

b) Europe

c) the rest of the world (this category might get broken down further into continents)

This list is naturally in order of achievability, since I’m based in the UK. As I am not super-rich, my visits usually coincide with holidays, conferences and other work-related trips, so in some cases this blog will be documenting my failure to actually see anything. I’m interested in how sites manage the pressure of being world-renowned and attracting visitors, with the need for preservation and conservation, so I’ll be commenting on that too. And, if I happen to see anything else awesome and heritage-related along the way, I’ll most likely be mentioning that too.

Why?

Mostly, I like very difficult-impossible challenges. I’ve recently completed a PhD (and my sideline quest to watch everything Jason Statham has ever ‘acted’ in) so I decided to come up with another ridiculous goal to keep me going for a long time into the future. Lots of people do marathons and such-like, but I really don’t have the attention span to exercise for that long.

Small-print

I’m looking at the cultural world heritage sites only, although I might swing by some of the others on the way (seriously, who wouldn’t want to see the Great Barrier Reef?).

I’m sticking to those inscribed on the list on the day I decided on this nonsense, which was some point in 2012. I’ll get back to you on the date.

Despite this, I am going to include places I’d been previously, and will be blogging of what I can remember of the visits.

This is going to be an informal blog: it will be my experience (or not) of the sites at one particular time, so:

a) it is not necessarily going to be representative of all experiences of a site

b) it is going to provide some information on site itself, but mostly focus on what I did there. I’ll be linking to the relevant information on the UNESCO site for anyone who wants more detail on why the site was inscribed.

c) the photos are likely to be rubbish: i’m not going to try desperately hard to crop out any school parties or coach trips that are standing in the way.

I’m sure there’ll be more small-print as I clarify my quest, but I’ll update as I go along.

Contacting Me

Please do let me know what you think of the sites you’ve visited, and pass on any pro-tips you have on getting the most out of them, plus any recommendations of awesome stuff near world heritage sites I should definitely visit. Particularly if they involve beer, cheese or gardening.