travel

Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites lie within 1.5 hours of Nicosia — a 9,000-year-old Neolithic village, nine Byzantine fresco churches in the Troodos Mountains, and Roman mosaic villas at Paphos.

Malta holds three UNESCO World Heritage Sites within one island: the Baroque capital of Valletta, a 5,000-year-old underground temple at Ħal Saflieni, and seven megalithic temples that predate the Egyptian pyramids.

Kyiv’s two UNESCO World Heritage Sites — Saint-Sophia Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra — hold the oldest Byzantine mosaics in Eastern Europe and nearly a millennium of Orthodox monastic history.

Bali’s single UNESCO World Heritage Site spans five locations within 65 km of Denpasar: rice terraces, volcanic temples, and a living water-management network over a thousand years old.

Two UNESCO World Heritage Sites await from Kolkata: the Sundarbans mangrove delta with its swimming Bengal tigers, and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a 610mm steam line climbing to 2,200 metres.

Three UNESCO sites within reach of Lahore: the Mughal fort, Shalamar Gardens, and the fortress of Rohtas — spanning 500 years of South Asian history.

Kazan and its surrounding region hold three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Kremlin’s unique Orthodox-Islamic ensemble, the medieval Islamic centre of Bolgar, and the fortified island-town of Sviyazhsk.

The Golden Mountains of Altai, UNESCO-inscribed in 1998, lie 350–700 km southeast of Novosibirsk via the legendary Chuysky Trakt highway — snow leopard habitat, glaciated peaks, and the frozen burial site of the 2,500-year-old Ice Maiden.

Mandalay is the gateway to Myanmar’s two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the 3,500-temple plain of Bagan and the ancient Pyu walled cities, the oldest urban culture in the region.