The doors of Europe

It may sound like an obvious statement….but we saw a lot of doors on our travels. Old doors, stylish doors, colourful doors, rugged doors, grand doors, quaint doors, decorated doors, plain doors.

As with so much of Europe, it’s the small details that are so charming. Monique made it her mission to capture the ones that caught her eye. Here is a small selection. 

UNESCO World Heritage sites

View from Skellig Michael, Ireland; 'The Hall of Mirrors', Palace of Versailles, France; A Pompeii room, Italy.

Way back in August at the start of our trip we came across our first UNESCO World Heritage site, Skellig Michael. We debated long and hard about whether or not to fork out the money for the boat trip across to the island. We eventually decided that we would, our reason being that ‘it’s not everyday you get to see a UNESCO World Heritage Site’.

Well, it turns out that assumption wasn’t entirely true.

As we went along we were incredibly fortunate to see some pretty amazing places that have been recognized by UNESCO for their ‘outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science’.

We feel amazingly lucky and humbled to have been able to see the following sites…

1. Skellig Michael, Ireland
2. Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, Scotland
3. Westminster Abbey, England
4. Tower of London, England
5. Kinderdijk, Holland
6. La Grand-Place of Brussels, Belgium
7. Historic Centre of Brugge, Belgium
8. 17^th Century canal ring area of Amsterdam, Holland
9. Luxembourg ancient city and fortifications, Luxembourg
10. Palace and Park of Versailles, France
11. Strasbourg Grand Ile, France
12. Cathedral of Notre-Dame, France
13. Banks of the Seine, France
14. Bern Old Town, Switzerland
15. Historic centre of Salzburg, Austria
16. Palace and Gardens of Schönbrunn, Austria
17. Historic centre of Graz, Austria
18. Historic centre of Vienna, Austria
19. Museum Island, Berlin, Germany
20. Historic centre of Prague, Czech Republic
21. Škocjan Caves, Slovenia
22. Historical complex of Split with the Palace of Diocletian, Croatia
23. Old City of Dubrovnik, Croatia
24. Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
25. The Cathedral of St. James in Šibenik, Croatia
26. Historic centre of Rome, Italy
27. Historic centre of Florence, Italy
28. Piazza del Duomo, Pisa, Italy
29. Venice and its Lagoon, Italy
30. Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Italy
31. Historic Centre of Naples, Italy
32. Historic Centre of Siena, Italy
33. Archeological centre of Pompeii, Italy
34. Villa Adriana, Tivoli, Italy
35. Val d'Orcia, Italy

Oh, and for the record, if we had our time over we would go to Skellig Michael again in a heartbeat.