Philipp Peterer Profile

I started focusing my trips on WHS in 2008. Since I leave in Europe, I could greatly increase my count in the following years. Nowadays my yearly goal is to visit more sites than are added the same year.

My trips are usually rather spontaneous and I try to maximize the time I have available by adding as many WHS and TWHS as possible, preferably completing countries or regions in one visit. For efficiency, my preferred method of transport is the combination of airplane and rental car. I’ve been driving a car in more than 50 countries, including Lebanon or India.

A major obsession of mine is to visit WHS with good weather conditions. I move or cancel trips if the forecast is bad. I also have a “revisit needed” list and travel back to WHS, where I had, sometimes due to bad weather, an unsatisfying visit.

In the upcoming years, I will shift my focus to more exotic and harder to reach sites. I also plan to keep up travelling with those community members that became good friends. No better way to celebrate a milestone or finding a hidden TWHS after navigating your car through rice fields than with fellow enthusiasts.

Switzerland Last Update 09.08.23 613 WHS Visited 73 Reviews 602 WHS Rated 186 TWHS Visited

Visited Sites Philipp Peterer

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Recent Reviews Philipp Peterer

Mahabalipuram

Philipp Peterer Switzerland - 12-Jan-23

Visit January 2023 - This is one of the sites I struggle to pronounce even after I visited. Still I think Maha Bali Puram (that is how I try to memorize it) is a great site and should be mentioned when talking about India’s best sites.

We took a taxi from Chennai. I offered a generous 3000Rp flat to bring us there, drive us from site to site and drive us back. Be aware that traffic inside the zone is terrible. If you travel without children or elderly, I suggest you walk between locations.

Read On

Dholavira: A Harappan City

Philipp Peterer Switzerland - 12-Jan-23

Visit December 2022 – I planned this visit together with Randi and Svein. As Randi described the site very well in her review, I will focus on the logistics.

How to get there

We arrived in Ahmadabad with an early morning flight from BOM. Svein hat prebooked a rental car with Europcar that should have been brought to us at the arrival. As nothing really works as planned in India, we finally took off with a car with driver and around 2.5h delay. The driver took us via Modhera TWHS and Rani Ki Vav WHS to Dholavira. It’s a more than 6h drive from Rani Ki Vav. After spending the night in Dholavira, we visited the site in the morning (around 8am to 11am) and spent the rest of the day driving back to Ahmadabad. The drive takes over 8h, plus lunch and coffee breaks.

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Abbey of St Gall

Philipp Peterer Switzerland - 28-Nov-22

After many years, thanks to a visit from Ian, I finally did a revisit of the abbey and its marvellous library. As mentioned in previous reviews, it is really the library the pulls this site out of mediocracy. We headed straight for the library of course. The ticket also includes the library, a museum in the basement and an exhibition room in another building. Pictures are not allowed in any of these rooms, but you really only want them from the library.

Entering the library still requires to put on slippers and there is always a knowledgeable employee present who can give you some details about the construction. A secret attraction is the mummy “Schepenese” in the far right corner. There are currently efforts by a local artist to bring the mummy back to Egypt. So visit, while she is still around

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Historical Centre of Puerto Plata (T)

Philipp Peterer Switzerland - 15-Nov-22

Puerto Plata is one of the tourist hotspots in the Dominican Republic. We spent our family vacation in one of the resorts, a few minutes’ drive from the city center. The city has its own international airport and a cruise terminal. Further, Carnival’s private cruise terminal, Amber Cove, is only a few minutes outside the center.

Thanks to the massive amount of tourists the region sees each year, the old town is very well maintained. There is a large number of wooden colonial houses, all of them in colourfully painted. There is a nice square next to an unimpressive church. The fortress is San Felipe is small but in good shape. The city is clean compared to Santo Domingo and during off-season also very relaxed.

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Lower German Limes

Philipp Peterer Switzerland - 15-Nov-22

I visited the Lower German Limes in Germany and the Netherlands. The “Roman Disneyland” Xanten is already covered in other reviews. The museum in Cologne was in September still under reconstruction. Therefore I will focus my review on the Netherlands.

In my quest to find original remains in the Netherland. While most of the dots on our map seem to scatter around Nijmegen, it seems that none of these remains are actually visible. Then I stumbled upon Utrecht. Most (if not all) remains in the Netherlands are underground and in Utrecht you have the chance to go there. "DOM under" provides a guided tour to, you guessed it, an excavation site under the cathedral, or rather the part of the main square, that used to be part of the cathedral before a storm struck it down.

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Profile Data

Name: Philipp Peterer
Country: Switzerland
Most Impressive: Machu Picchu
Proposal: Ancient Salamis (Northern Cyprus)

Recently Visited WHS

Update 09.08.23: Paraty and Ilha Grande

Visited WHS

Rating Stats

Ajanta Caves 5

Ancient Thebes 5

Angkor 5

Baalbek 5

Elephanta Caves 5

Ellora Caves 5

Fatehpur Sikri 5

Granada 5

Komodo National Park 5

Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou 5

Loire Valley 5

Machu Picchu 5

Meteora 5

Mont-Saint-Michel 5

Palenque 5

Petra 5

Rome 5

Sceilg Mhichíl 5

Segovia 5

Sintra 5

Summer Palace 5

Venice and its Lagoon 5

Aggtelek and Slovak Karst 4.5

Auschwitz Birkenau 4.5

Brugge 4.5

Bryggen 4.5

Calakmul 4.5

Cesky Krumlov 4.5

Chavin 4.5

Chichen-Itza 4.5

Costiera Amalfitana 4.5

Cuzco 4.5

Dong Phayayen 4.5

Florence 4.5

Grand Canyon 4.5

Great Wall 4.5

Gwynedd Castles 4.5

Hierapolis-Pamukkale 4.5

Huascaran National Park 4.5

Imperial Palace 4.5

Kraków 4.5

Kremlin and Red Square 4.5

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve 4.5

Mount Etna 4.5

Nasca Lines 4.5

Nubian Monuments 4.5

Oporto 4.5

Paris, Banks of the Seine 4.5

Plitvice Lakes 4.5

Pompei 4.5

Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands 4.5

Prague 4.5

Pyramids (Memphis) 4.5

Rila Monastery 4.5

Salamanca 4.5

Siena 4.5

Sigiriya 4.5

Taj Mahal 4.5

Teotihuacan 4.5

The trulli of Alberobello 4.5

Vatican City 4.5

Versailles 4.5

Wadi Al-Hitan 4.5

Wadi Rum 4.5

Works of Antoni Gaudí 4.5

Yosemite National Park 4.5

Yungang Grottoes 4.5

Abbey of St Gall 4

Agrigento 4

Altamira Cave 4

Amiens Cathedral 4

Amsterdam Canal Ring 4

Archaeological Site of Delphi 4

Assisi 4

Avignon 4

Avila 4

Bali Subak system 4

Bamberg 4

Belem 4

Berat and Gjirokastra 4

Blenheim Palace 4

Budapest 4

Byblos 4

Cape Floral Region 4

Caves of Maresha and Bet Guvrin 4

Chan Chan 4

Chola Temples 4

Churches of Peace 4

City of Bath 4

City of Luxembourg 4

Convent of Christ in Tomar 4

Cordoba 4

Cuenca 4

Dacian Fortresses 4

Danube Delta 4

Dougga/Thugga 4

Dubrovnik 4

Edinburgh 4

Elvas 4

Ephesus 4

Etruscan Necropolises 4

Everglades 4

Evora 4

Falun Great Copper Mountain 4

Fontainebleau 4

Fortified City of Carcassonne 4

Gamzigrad-Romuliana 4

Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz 4

Guanajuato 4

Guimarães 4

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum 4

Hampi 4

Heritage of Mercury 4

Humayun's Tomb 4

Hwaseong Fortress 4

Independence Hall 4

Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal 4

Isole Eolie 4

Istanbul 4

Jeju 4

Kinabalu Park 4

Kotor 4

Kyiv 4

La Fortaleza 4

Las Medulas 4

Le Morne 4

Luang Prabang 4

Mahabalipuram 4

Malbork Castle 4

Manu National Park 4

Masada 4

Mostar 4

Mountain Resort, Chengde 4

Mycenae and Tiryns 4

Mystras 4

Naples 4

Nemrut Dag 4

Ohrid Region 4

Old City of Jerusalem 4

Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles 4

Paphos 4

Piazza del Duomo (Pisa) 4

Plantin-Moretus Museum 4

Polonnaruva 4

Potsdam 4

Preah Vihear Temple 4

Qhapaq Ñan 4

Quedlinburg 4

Qutb Minar 4

Québec 4

Rammelsberg and Goslar 4

Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple 4

Reims 4

Residences of the Royal House of Savoy 4

Rhodes 4

Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka 4

Røros 4

Salzburg 4

San Marino and Mount Titano 4

San Miguel de Allende 4

Sanchi 4

Santa Maria delle Grazie 4

Seville 4

Skocjan Caves 4

Spissky Hrad and Levoca 4

Split 4

Studenica Monastery 4

Studley Royal Park 4

Sukhothai 4

Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch 4

Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona 4

Syracuse 4

Teide National Park 4

Telc 4

The Four Lifts 4

Toledo 4

Trier 4

Trinity Sergius Lavra 4

Upper Middle Rhine Valley 4

Uxmal 4

Vall de Boi 4

Vatnajökull National Park 4

Vienna 4

Villa Romana del Casale 4

Vilnius 4

Wachau Cultural Landscape 4

Warsaw 4

Wartburg Castle 4

Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines 4

Xochicalco 4

Aachen Cathedral 3.5

Albi 3.5

Alto Douro 3.5

Amphitheater of El Jem 3.5

Anjar 3.5

Antequera Dolmens Site 3.5

Arab-Norman Palermo 3.5

Aranjuez 3.5

Archaeological Site of Aigai 3.5

Atlantic Forest South-East 3.5

Ayutthaya 3.5

Bardejov Town 3.5

Benedictine Convent of St. John 3.5

Biblical Tells 3.5

Bourges Cathedral 3.5

Brimstone Hill Fortress 3.5

Burgos Cathedral 3.5

Bursa and Cumalikizik 3.5

Butrint 3.5

Caceres 3.5

Camino Real 3.5

Canterbury 3.5

Caral-Supe 3.5

Castel del Monte 3.5

Chartres Cathedral 3.5

Cilento and Vallo di Diano 3.5

Curonian Spit 3.5

Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni of Chios 3.5

Decorated cave of Pont d'Arc 3.5

Delos 3.5

Dholavira: A Harappan City 3.5

Dolomites 3.5

Donana National Park 3.5

El Escurial 3.5

Epidaurus 3.5

Ferrara 3.5

Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings 3.5

Garajonay 3.5

Getbol, Korean Tidal Flat 3.5

Giant's Causeway 3.5

Grand Place, Brussels 3.5

Grimeton Radio Station 3.5

Göbekli Tepe 3.5

Hill Forts of Rajasthan 3.5

Incense Route of the Negev 3.5

Jaipur City, Rajasthan 3.5

Jantar Mantar 3.5

Kandy 3.5

Keoladeo National Park 3.5

Kew Gardens 3.5

Kinderdijk 3.5

Kronborg Castle 3.5

La Lonja de la Seda 3.5

Lima 3.5

Luis Barragán House and Studio 3.5

Lyon 3.5

Lübeck 3.5

Mantua and Sabbioneta 3.5

Matera 3.5

Maulbronn Monastery 3.5

Mazagan 3.5

Medici Villas and Gardens 3.5

Medina of Tétouan 3.5

Megalithic Temples of Malta 3.5

Monastery of Alcobaça 3.5

Monastery of Batalha 3.5

Monticello 3.5

Mudejar Architecture of Aragon 3.5

Muskauer Park 3.5

Namhansanseong 3.5

Necropolis of Bet She'arim 3.5

Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes 3.5

Neolithic Orkney 3.5

Novodevichy Convent 3.5

Oaxaca and Monte Alban 3.5

Old City of Acre 3.5

Old City of Berne 3.5

Old Town Lunenburg 3.5

Olympia 3.5

Orange 3.5

Painted Churches in the Troödos Region 3.5

Pattadakal 3.5

Pergamon 3.5

Pilgrimage Church of Wies 3.5

Poblet Monastery 3.5

Pont du Gard 3.5

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal 3.5

Popocatepetl monasteries 3.5

Provins 3.5

Pyrénées - Mont Perdu 3.5

Querétaro 3.5

Rani-ki-Vav 3.5

Ravenna 3.5

Rhaetian Railway 3.5

Rideau Canal 3.5

Rio de Janeiro 3.5

Robben Island 3.5

Rock Art of Alta 3.5

Route of Santiago de Compostela 3.5

Royal Palace at Caserta 3.5

San Gimignano 3.5

Santa Maria de Guadalupe 3.5

Santiago de Compostela 3.5

Santo Domingo 3.5

Schönbrunn 3.5

Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple 3.5

Sian Ka'an 3.5

Sighisoara 3.5

Sinharaja Forest 3.5

Stari Ras and Sopocani 3.5

Statue of Liberty 3.5

Stevns Klint 3.5

Stonehenge 3.5

Strasbourg 3.5

Su Nuraxi di Barumini 3.5

Surtsey 3.5

Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine 3.5

Tarraco 3.5

Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae 3.5

Temple of Heaven 3.5

Tower of London 3.5

Trebic 3.5

Trogir 3.5

Tyre 3.5

University of Coimbra 3.5

Urbino 3.5

Urnes Stave Church 3.5

Val di Noto 3.5

Valletta 3.5

Verla Groundwood and Board Mill 3.5

Verona 3.5

Villa Adriana (Tivoli) 3.5

Villa d'Este 3.5

Villages with Fortified Churches 3.5

Vizcaya Bridge 3.5

Volubilis 3.5

Vézère Valley 3.5

Völklingen Ironworks 3.5

West Norwegian Fjords 3.5

Westminster 3.5

White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal 3.5

Wooden Churches of Southern Malopolska 3.5

Wooden Churches of the Slovak Carpathians 3.5

Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region 3.5

Würzburg Residence 3.5

Yuso and Suso Monasteries 3.5

Acropolis 3

Agra Fort 3

Anuradhapura 3

Aphrodisias 3

Arequipa 3

Arles 3

Asturian Monuments 3

Baekje Historic Areas 3

Bahá’i Holy Places 3

Ban Chiang 3

Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn 3

Belfries 3

Bellinzone 3

Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe 3

Bethlehem 3

Blaenavon Industrial Landscape 3

Bordeaux 3

Botanical Garden, Padua 3

Boyana Church 3

Brú na Bóinne 3

Campeche 3

Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust 3

Centennial Hall 3

Champaner-Pavagadh 3

Changdeokgung Palace Complex 3

Chaîne des Puys 3

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus 3

Choirokoitia 3

Church of the Ascension, Kolomenskoye 3

Classical Weimar 3

Cologne Cathedral 3

Corfu 3

Crespi d'Adda 3

Derwent Valley Mills 3

Divrigi 3

Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens 3

Dorset and East Devon Coast 3

Durham Castle and Cathedral 3

Dutch Water Defence Lines 3

Fortress of Suomenlinna 3

Gardens and Castle at Kromeríz 3

Gochang, Hwasun, and Ganghwa Dolmen 3

Gorham's Cave Complex 3

Graz 3

Great Spa Towns of Europe 3

Haeinsa Temple 3

Hallstatt-Dachstein 3

Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town 3

High Coast / Kvarken Archipelago 3

Historic Cairo 3

Ibiza 3

Lavaux, Vineyard Terraces 3

Le Havre 3

Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape 3

Litomysl Castle 3

Longobards in Italy 3

Macao 3

Margravial Opera House 3

Meknes 3

Melaka and George Town 3

Mexico City and Xochimilco 3

Modena 3

Museumsinsel (Museum Island) 3

Mérida 3

Nessebar 3

New Lanark 3

Old Rauma 3

Old Town of Galle 3

Palau de la Musica Catalana & Hospital de Sant Pau 3

Pannonhalma 3

Pearling 3

Pienza 3

Pilgrimage Church of St. John of Nepomuk 3

Pitons Management Area 3

Plečnik's Lubljana 3

Portobelo-San Lorenzo 3

Qadisha Valley 3

Qal'at al-Bahrain 3

Quseir Amra 3

Risco Caido 3

Rock Carvings in Tanum 3

Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo 3

Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy 3

Saint-Emilion 3

Saint-Savin sur Gartempe 3

Saltaire 3

Sansa, Buddhist Mountain Monasteries 3

Selimiye Mosque 3

Semmering Railway 3

Serra de Tramuntana 3

Singapore Botanic Gardens 3

Skogskyrkogarden 3

Southern Öland 3

Stralsund and Wismar 3

Thessalonika 3

Thracian tomb of Sveshtari 3

Torun 3

Tower of Hercules 3

Town Hall and Roland, Bremen 3

Um er-Rasas 3

Vegaøyan 3

Venetian Works of Defence 3

Vicenza and the Palladian Villas 3

Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai 3

Vredefort Dome 3

Wadden Sea 3

Western Ghats 3

Xanthos-Letoon 3

Zollverein 3

Alcala de Henares 2.5

Aquileia 2.5

Archaeological site of Philippi 2.5

Burgundy 2.5

Carthage 2.5

Causses and Cévennes 2.5

Central Highlands 2.5

Central University City Campus of the UNAM 2.5

Champagne 2.5

Churches and Convents of Goa 2.5

Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay 2.5

Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape 2.5

Drottningholm 2.5

Engelsberg Ironworks 2.5

Euphrasian Basilica in Porec 2.5

Forth Bridge 2.5

Fortifications of Vauban 2.5

Genoa 2.5

Hildesheim Cathedral and Church 2.5

Imperial Tombs 2.5

Ironbridge Gorge 2.5

Joggins Fossil Cliffs 2.5

Kairouan 2.5

Karlskrona 2.5

Kutna Hora 2.5

Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley 2.5

Maritime Greenwich 2.5

Medieval Monuments in Kosovo 2.5

Medina of Fez 2.5

Medina of Marrakesh 2.5

Medina of Sousse 2.5

Medina of Tunis 2.5

Miguasha National Park 2.5

Monastery of Horezu 2.5

Morelia 2.5

Nancy 2.5

Nice 2.5

Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin 2.5

Palmeral of Elche 2.5

Panamá 2.5

Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro 2.5

Peking Man Site 2.5

Petäjävesi Old Church 2.5

Puebla 2.5

Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos 2.5

Red Fort 2.5

Regensburg 2.5

Rock Drawings in Valcamonica 2.5

Roman Walls of Lugo 2.5

Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France 2.5

Royal Joseon Tombs 2.5

Seowon, Neo-Confucian Academies 2.5

Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District 2.5

Stećci 2.5

Thingvellir 2.5

Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont 2.5

Vézelay 2.5

Úbeda and Baeza 2.5

Ahmadabad 2

Arslantepe Mound 2

Baptism Site "Bethany Beyond the Jordan" 2

Birka and Hovgarden 2

Bom Jesus do Monte 2

Cathedral of St. James in Sibenik 2

Coa Valley and Siega Verde 2

Fagus Factory 2

Fertö/Neusiedlersee 2

Fossil Hominid Sites 2

Frontiers of the Roman Empire 2

Gyeongju 2

Hahoe and Yangdong 2

Holasovice 2

Hollókö 2

Holy Trinity Column 2

Ichkeul National Park 2

Ivrea 2

Jodrell Bank Observatory 2

Jongmyo Shrine 2

Kerkuane 2

Lake District 2

Land of Frankincense 2

Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt 2

Medina Azahara 2

Mount Carmel Caves 2

Naumburg Cathedral 2

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai 2

Primeval Beech Forests 2

Reichenau 2

Rjukan / Notodden 2

Rock-Art of the Mediterranean Basin 2

Roskilde Cathedral 2

Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans 2

San Cristobal de La Laguna 2

Speyer Cathedral 2

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier 2

The Porticoes of Bologna 2

Thracian tomb of Kazanlak 2

Tokaji Wine Region 2

Tugendhat Villa 2

Val d'Orcia 2

Aflaj irrigation system 1.5

Al Ain 1.5

Atapuerca 1.5

Bahla Fort 1.5

Bauhaus Sites 1.5

Bridgetown 1.5

Canal du Midi 1.5

Caves and Ice Age Art 1.5

Colonies of Benevolence 1.5

Corvey 1.5

Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs 1.5

Flemish Béguinages 1.5

Hedeby and Danevirke 1.5

Luther Memorials 1.5

Major Town Houses 1.5

Mining Sites of Wallonia 1.5

Monte San Giorgio 1.5

Qalhat 1.5

Rietveld Schröderhuis 1.5

ShUM Sites 1.5

Stari Grad Plain 1.5

Troy 1.5

Van Nellefabriek 1.5

Aapravasi Ghat 1

Abbey and Altenmünster of Lorsch 1

Al Zubarah 1

Christiansfeld 1

Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland 1

Dilmun Burial Mounds 1

Grand Pré 1

Jelling 1

Kernavė 1

Kladruby nad Labem 1

La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle 1

Lower German Limes 1

Messel Pit 1

Mining Cultural Landscape Erzgebirge 1

Prehistoric Pile Dwellings 1

Sammallahdenmäki 1

Schokland 1

Srebarna Nature Reserve 1

The Prosecco Hills 1

Water Management System of Augsburg 1

White City of Tel-Aviv 1

As-Salt 0.5

Battir 0.5

Beemster Polder 0.5

Berlin Modernism Housing Estates 0.5

Danube Limes 0.5

Hortobágy 0.5

Lenggong Valley 0.5

Madara Rider 0.5

Par force hunting landscape 0.5

Stoclet House 0.5

Struve Geodetic Arc 0.5

Valongo Wharf 0.5

Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque

Banska Stiavnica

Cahokia Mounds

El Tajin

Great Smoky Mountains

Hospicio Cabañas

Mammoth Cave

Paraty and Ilha Grande

Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley

Tequila

Tlacotalpan

Vlkolinec

World Heritage Site

for World Heritage Travellers

Philipp Peterer Profile

Visited Sites Philipp Peterer

Legend

Recent Reviews Philipp Peterer

Mahabalipuram

Dholavira: A Harappan City

Abbey of St Gall

Historical Centre of Puerto Plata (T)

Lower German Limes

Profile Data

Recently Visited WHS

Visited WHS

Reviewed WHS

Visited TWHS

Reviewed TWHS

Top 50 Missing Sites

Top 200 WHS