Ribeira Sacra
The Ribeira Sacra is an area around the canyons of two rivers in the Spanish region Galicia: the Miño and the Sil. The Romans planted around 2000 years ago the first vineyards on the steep river banks, and that was the start of rich wine tradition that lasts until today. It also was the start of a metamorfosis of the river landscape. Generations of wine farmers and their families transformed the rough and steep mountains into thousands of terrace, an impressive and heroic piece of human effort. The Ribeira Sacra is also famous for its large number of Romanesque churches and monasteries. All together enough to be nominated World Heritage by Unesco; a decision is made in 2021. Go to turismo.ribeirasacra.org for detailed information.
Walking in the Serranía de Ronda
Who doesn’t know the historical city of Ronda in Southern Spain, famous for it’s history of bandoleros who lived in the nearby Sierras. Well, these mountains are called the Serranía de Ronda and consist of the Sierra de las Nieves and the Sierra the Grazalema, both UNESCO Biosphere reserves. This area offers a magnificent scenery for hiking.
Traveling in the Golden Ring
Over the last two years I visited most of the Golden Ring, a series of historical Russian cities northeast from Moscow. Most of them are Unesco World Heritage sites. The official Russian list includes Ivanono, Kostroma, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Rostov Veliky, Sergiev Posad (former Sagorsk), Suzdal, Vladimir and Yaroslavl. I did not visit yet the first two.