OLD KOTOR (Montenegro)
The Montenegrin town of Kotor's Venetian period fortifications include city walls, gates, and ramparts which protect the Old Town, parts of which date back to Roman and Byzantine times. The medieval portions include an 1166 cathedral. The inner bay of Kotor, an inlet of the Adriatic, has surrounding mountains, islets, and towns aside from Kotor.
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THE CHURCHES OF PSKOV (Russia)
The NW Russian city of Pskov--just 12 miles from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River--is renowned for its many dozens of churches built in a style known as the "Pskov School": cube-like main structures with domes, porches, and belfries. Some elements date to the 12th century; the style reached its peak in the 15th-16th.
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MEDIEVAL CITY, RHODES (Greece)
In 1307, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (better known as the Knights Hospitallers, whose mission began with tending pilgrims to the Holy Land, but evolved into a powerful military order) took the Greek island of Rhodes, and in the next two centuries built a Palace, the Great Hospital, and the Street of the Knights. The island later came under Turkish, then Italian, rule.
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ANCIENT BEECH FORESTS (Europe)
This UNESCO listing encompasses 94 forests in 18 countries, with trees that can live to 100 years old. They constitute the last intact virgin forest in temperate Europe, but large areas are being deforested. Since the end of the last Ice Age, European Beech expanded across the continent from isolated refuge areas in ranges including the Alps, Carpathians, and Pyrenees.
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THE SEMMERING RAILWAY (Austria)
From 1848-1854 a railway was constructed through spectacular Alpine scenery and has been in continuous use to this day. It features 14 tunnels (the highest is nearly 4,700 feet in elevation), 16 viaducts (several of them two stories) over 100 stone arch bridges, and 11 small iron bridges. Stations were often built from waste rock dug out when making the tunnels.
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BUDAPEST (Hungary)
The capital city of Hungary began as an early Celtic settlement on the Danube, then became the Roman town of Aquincum, ruins of which can still be found. Hungarians took the city (as did the Mongols, briefly), which became a center of Renaissance humanist culture. After rule by the Ottoman Turks, the city went global: three cities--Buda, Pest, and Obuda--merged in 1873.
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VAUBAN'S FORTS (France)
King Louis XIV of France hired a military engineer named Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707) to create fortifications to protect the country from her numerous enemies. He built over 300 fortifications, in mountains, on sea coasts, and in urban areas; twelve, on France's western, northern, and eastern borders, have been chosen for UNESCO designation.
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THE PAPAL PALACE, AVIGNON (France)
From 1309 to 1376, the Pope lived not in the Vatican but in Avignon, France. The seven popes who reigned there were all French, and beholden to the French crown. They lived in this, one of the largest medieval Gothic buildings in Europe. Two further "antipopes"--leaders of a schismatic church after the legitimate papacy returned to Rome--also lived at Avignon.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE STRUVE GEODETIC ARC (Norway to the Ukraine - 10 countries)
From 1816 to 1855 German-born Russian scientist Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve triangulated the locations of 265 main station points along a single meridian of the earth from Norway to the Ukraine. Stretching through 10 countries for over 1,750 miles, this act of international scientific cooperation helped establish the exact size and shape of the earth.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE TOWER OF LONDON (London, England, UK)
Dating to the Norman Conquest (1066) the castle, inflicted by the ruling French, was resented as a symbol of oppression. It contains several buildings within two rings of walls and a moat. Sometimes a royal residence, armory, treasury, menagerie, and home of the Crown Jewels of England, it was also famously used as a prison from 1100 to 1952. Today it's a popular tourist attraction.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE MADARA RIDER (Bulgaria)
This badly-eroded rock relief located east of Shumen in NE Bulgaria was carved 75 feet above ground level in the 7th-8th century, during the reign of the Bulgarian Khan Tervel. The identity (if any) of the near-life-sized figure is unknown. He is seen thrusting a spear into a lion at his horse's feet, with a dog running after him and a bird in front of his face.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
HALSINGLAND FARMS (Sweden)
The roughly one thousand dwelling houses of the farms were built with traditional Swedish construction techniques including elegant joinery and beautifully decorated doorways. The interiors have painted and stenciled walls with Biblical motifs, funny stories, and cautionary tales mixed with the decorative artwork of wandering painters.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
SALZBURG (Austria)
Home to Mozart, industries in this 4th-largest Austrian city included salt extraction: the name means "Salt Castle." It's home to the 11th-century Hohensalzburg, one of medieval Europe's largest fortresses; numerous monasteries and Baroque churches attest to its role in the Counter-Reformation. The historic city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE SCOTTISH LOCHS (Scotland)
A Scottish Gaelic word for "lake" or "fjord," Scotland has 31,460 freshwater lochs (including the smaller "lochans"). Two of the larger ones are Loch Ness, famed for its cryptozoology, and largest by volume; and Loch Lomond, whose bonnie banks can be reached by either a high or a low road, and is the largest by surface area.ttish Lochs
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
MONET'S GARDENS (Giverny, France)
When Impressionist Claude Monet saw the village of Giverny out of a train window, he decided to live there. First he rented, then bought the house and created the magnificent gardens that have been immortalized in many of his works, perhaps especially those featuring his Japanese bridge and the pond with the water lilies.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE ROCK ART OF ALTA (northern Norway)
Located in northern Norway and not discovered until 1973, several sites exhibit over 6000 carvings dating to at least 4200 to 500 BCE. Scenes show a culture that herded reindeer, built boats, and practiced shamanism regarding bears and other sacred animals. Speculation about their purpose includes ritual, territory marking--and simple artistic pleasure.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE EIFFEL TOWER
Locally nicknamed "The Iron Lady," this 1,063-foot-tall iron lattice tower is the tallest structure in Paris. It was built 1887-1889 for the 1889 World's Fair--and some leading artists and intellectuals hated it. Today it's a global icon of France and one of the world's most recognizable and popular structures--nearly 7 million people went up in 2015!
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
CHARTRES CATHEDRAL (Chartres, France)
This 13th-century cathedral, a high point of French Gothic art, is 50 miles southwest of Paris. Its stained glass windows (their size made possible by the flying buttresses that support the walls) and most of the architecture (the mismatched towers, the three riotously-sculpted great facades) are unchanged. Tourists come for the sights; pilgrims for the relics.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
LA SAGRADA FAMILIA (Barcelona, Spain)
Construction began on the still-unfinished Basilica of the Sacred Family under another architect in Barcelona in 1882, but the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) took over the next year. It was only a quarter complete at his death; he is buried in its crypt. Building proceeded in fits and starts, and though consecrated in 2010, completion is not expected until after 2026.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
THE THRACIAN TOMB OF KAZANLAK (Kazanlak, Bulgaria)
This vaulted-brickwork "beehive" tomb at Kazanlak in central Bulgaria is part of a large necropolis of more than a thousand royal and aristocratic tombs. Its corridor and round burial chamber are decorated with murals of a Thracian couple at a funeral feast. Dating to the 4th century BCE, it features Bulgaria's best-preserved Hellenistic masterpieces.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)
