Irreplaceable treasures embodying humanity's cultural, historical and natural legacy — UNESCO-listed sites and those on the tentative list.
149 programs
North of Buenos Aires, the Parana delta breaks into a maze of brown channels reached only by boat. At its edge, Tigre and its Puerto de Frutos, once a landing for fruit, timber and wicker from the islands, has become one of the region's liveliest markets.
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Founded in the tenth century on the Lori plateau, Haghpat grew into a monastery, a school and a scriptorium. Its churches, vaulted porches, bell tower and carved cross-stones are inscribed on the World Heritage List alongside its neighbour, Sanahin.
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At the end of a gorge of red cliffs in southern Armenia, Noravank is celebrated for its two-storey church of the Holy Mother of God, reached by two flights of narrow steps projecting from the facade, and for the sculpted tympana attributed to the master Momik.
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Built in the seventh century at Vagharshapat, beside the mother see of the Armenian Church, Saint Gayane is a domed basilica of striking clarity. It stands over the tomb of the abbess Gayane and is inscribed on the World Heritage List with the churches of Echmiadzin.
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Founded in the tenth century above the Debed gorge, Sanahin was a monastery, a school and a scriptorium. Its churches, porch-halls, library and covered gallery form a dense stone ensemble inscribed on the World Heritage List with nearby Haghpat.
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Perched on a basalt promontory above the Vorotan gorge, in southern Armenia, Tatev was a fortified monastery and one of the great universities of the medieval Armenian world. It is now reached by a cable car that crosses the canyon in a single span.
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Standing alone on a bare plateau in the province of Shirak, Yereruyk is the ruin of an early Christian basilica raised on a stepped platform. Its colonnades, carved doorways and open arcades make it one of the oldest and most singular monuments in Armenia.
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The old city of Mostar is organised around a single arch of stone thrown across the Neretva in the sixteenth century, destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt using traditional methods. Reopened in 2004, the bridge and its quarter are inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Plovdiv is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe, and it wears its history in layers. At its centre, the Dzhumaya Mosque, one of the oldest Ottoman mosques in the Balkans, stands a few steps from the excavated end of a Roman stadium.
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This programme pairs the fortified archaeological complex of Kaleto with the Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park, a limestone massif of gorges, caves, waterfalls and cliffs. Together they show how a defensive site and its landscape were always one and the same thing.
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The Vrachanski Balkan Nature Park protects a karst massif of caves, gorges and vertical cliffs in north-western Bulgaria. Within the same landscape, the Kaleto archaeological complex preserves the fortifications of a site whose position was determined by the rock.
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Mountain fortresses, city walls, stone pyramids and burial chambers covered in murals: the archaeological legacy of the Koguryo kingdom in north-east China, inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Before the Forbidden City, there was Shenyang. The Mukden Palace preserves the ceremonial architecture of the early Qing rulers, a blend of Manchu, Han and Mongol traditions listed as World Heritage.
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Moat, gates, marble terraces and the great ceremonial halls: the first part follows the Forbidden City along its imperial axis, from the outer defences to the throne of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
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The second part moves past the ceremonial halls into the inner court, the residential palaces, the gardens and the collections, where the daily life of the imperial household comes into focus.
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Walls, bastions and a fortress on the hill protect a colonial city of balconies, plazas and churches. Cartagena de Indias, inscribed on the World Heritage List, is filmed as port, stronghold and living town.
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Founded by Greek settlers and inhabited for close to two millennia, Tauric Chersonesos preserves streets, walls, a theatre and basilica columns above the sea. A World Heritage site.
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In the forests west of Prague, Krivoklat and Karlstejn stand as complementary faces of medieval Bohemia: a Gothic hunting residence and a hilltop castle raised to shelter the imperial regalia.
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From the castle above the Vltava to the Charles Bridge and the Old Town Square, Prague offers a thousand years of European architecture in a single walk. A World Heritage centre.
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Set high in the Andes, Quito's historic core is one of the first sites ever inscribed on the World Heritage List. Part one follows its squares, churches and monumental architecture.
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Part two leaves the great squares for the working city: stepped streets, markets, workshops, festivals and the neighbourhoods that keep Quito's historic centre inhabited.
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Three pyramids, the Sphinx, temples and causeways: the Giza plateau remains the most ambitious funerary landscape ever built, and a World Heritage site of unmatched recognition.
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Divided between the upper town of the rulers and the lower town of the merchants, Tallinn's old quarter preserves one of the most complete medieval townscapes in northern Europe.
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Round towers with red conical roofs, wall-walks and fortified gates: Tallinn's medieval enceinte survives in exceptional measure and still frames the city it once protected.
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In the wine country of eastern Georgia, the cathedral of Alaverdi rises above its enclosure walls and the Alazani valley. One of the tallest medieval churches in the country, it remains a working monastery.
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Above a reservoir on the Georgian Military Highway, the towers and churches of Ananuri form one of the country's most photogenic fortified ensembles, built by a dynasty that controlled the route into the mountains.
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Founded by King David the Builder, Gelati was conceived as both a monastery and a centre of learning. Its mosaics and wall paintings survive as one of the outstanding ensembles of medieval Georgian art, on the World Heritage List.
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Set on a rocky ridge above the confluence of the Kura and Aragvi, Jvari is one of the earliest surviving Georgian churches and a model for those that followed. It belongs to the World Heritage site of Mtskheta.
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On a plateau south of Rethymno, Arkadi is known for two things: the Venetian Renaissance facade of its church, and the events of 1866, when the monastery became the emblem of the Cretan struggle against Ottoman rule.
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On the slope between the harbour and the hilltop monastery, a small grotto is venerated as the place where John received the visions of the Book of Revelation. It lies at the heart of the World Heritage site of Patmos.
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Budapest can be read as a section through Central European history: a Roman provincial town, a medieval royal seat, an Ottoman frontier city, then the imperial capital whose boulevards, bridges and baths still define it.
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Rising from open ground at Trowulan, Candi Brahu is one of the largest brick temples of East Java. It stands in the area long identified with the capital of the Majapahit kingdom.
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Excavated below ground level at Trowulan, Candi Tikus is a brick water structure with basins, channels and spouts. It documents the sophisticated hydraulic architecture of an East Javanese capital.
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Around Fatahillah Square, the old town of Jakarta preserves the colonial city of Batavia: Dutch administrative buildings, warehouses, a drawbridge and canals, now surrounded by one of Asia's largest urban regions.
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Built in the ninth century in central Java, Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple compound in Indonesia. Its soaring shrines to Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma are carved with a full narrative cycle of the Ramayana.
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In the old quarter of Kashan, the Agha Bozorg complex combines a mosque and a madrasa on two levels, arranged around a courtyard sunk below street level. Built in the late eighteenth century, it is one of the most rigorously composed buildings in central Iran.
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Just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, the Abbey of the Dormition marks the place where tradition holds that the Virgin Mary fell asleep. Built for a German Benedictine community in the early twentieth century, it is one of the landmarks of Mount Zion.
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Acre is one of the rare places where a medieval city survives almost intact beneath a later one. Below the Ottoman streets and mosques of the walled town lie the vaulted halls of the Crusader capital, rediscovered and excavated over the last century.
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Rising on a spur above the Negev desert, Avdat was one of the staging cities of the Nabataean incense route and later a Roman and Byzantine town. Its acropolis, churches, wine press and terraced fields are inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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Beneath the soft chalk hills of the Judean lowlands lies a honeycomb of man-made caves: quarries with domed ceilings, columbaria, oil presses, cisterns and painted burial chambers. The site is inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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At the foot of an ancient tell, the excavated centre of Scythopolis spreads over several hectares: paved streets lined with columns, a large theatre, bath complexes and public fountains, left as an eighth-century earthquake brought them down.
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Carved into the limestone of the Lower Galilee, the burial caves of Beit She'arim hold hundreds of sarcophagi and inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The necropolis is inscribed on the World Heritage List as a landmark of Jewish renewal.
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Perched on the lip of the escarpment high above the Jordan valley, Belvoir is one of the best-preserved Crusader castles in the region. Built by the Hospitaller order on a concentric plan, it resisted a long siege before falling.
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Caesarea was raised by Herod on a shore with no natural anchorage, and given an artificial harbour of unprecedented scale. Its theatre, hippodrome, aqueduct and later Crusader fortifications line one of the most spectacular coastal sites in the region.
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Beside the ancient city, a museum brings together objects recovered from Caesarea and its submerged harbour: statuary, architectural fragments, coins and everyday items that put faces and names to the ruins along the shore.
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On the Via Dolorosa, an ancient arch spans the street and continues inside the convent of the Sisters of Zion. Below lie the great flagstones of the Lithostrotos and a vast Roman cistern cut into the rock.
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On the eastern slope of Mount Zion, this sanctuary commemorates Peter's denial of Christ before the cock crowed. A golden rooster crowns its roof; beneath the church lie rock-cut chambers and cisterns, and outside, an ancient stepped street.
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Close to the old harbour of Acre, the Franciscan church of Saint John and the adjoining Terra Sancta buildings serve the Latin community of the walled city. Their green dome is one of the markers of the seafront skyline.
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In the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, the Holy Sepulchre encloses both the rock of Golgotha and the tomb venerated as that of Christ. Six Christian communities share the building under an arrangement that fixes every stone and every hour.
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One of the oldest churches still in use, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem stands over the grotto venerated as the birthplace of Jesus. Entered through a door barely a metre and a half high, it is inscribed on the World Heritage List.
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On the western edge of Jerusalem, Ein Kerem gathers churches, convents and a spring in a single narrow valley. Tradition places here the birth of John the Baptist and the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.
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Rising above the roofs of old Acre, the mosque built by Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar is the largest in the country outside Jerusalem. Its arcaded courtyard, fountains and reused antique columns anchor a walled city inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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On a steep, flat-topped hill above the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Greco-Roman city of Hippos-Sussita reveals its colonnaded street, its Byzantine churches and the fallen columns left by the earthquake that ended it.
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In the oasis of Jericho stand the remains of an Umayyad palace complex: carved stucco, a monumental bathhouse, a stone rosette window, and the celebrated Tree of Life mosaic, among the finest of the early Islamic period.
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At Kursi, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the excavated remains of a large Byzantine monastery and basilica mark the traditional site of the healing of the possessed man and the herd of swine.
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Among the best-preserved of the Negev desert towns, Mamshit shows the Nabataean city in detail: stairways, arched houses, painted rooms, Byzantine churches with mosaics, and the dams that captured the winter floods.
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On an isolated plateau above the Dead Sea, Herod's fortified palace descends the cliff in three terraces. Below, the Roman camps and siege ramp remain visible — one of the most complete battlefields of antiquity.
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At the start of the Via Dolorosa, the Franciscan complex of the Flagellation and Condemnation combines two chapels, a courtyard, and an archaeological collection assembled by scholars who have excavated the Holy Land for generations.
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East of the Old City, the Mount of Olives rises above the Kidron Valley in a slope of white tombs, olive groves and churches. It offers the defining view of Jerusalem and gathers, on a single hillside, some of the most charged sites of Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition.
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Set on a low hill in the western Negev, Nitzana is one of the desert towns that grew along the trade and pilgrimage routes crossing the arid south. Its ruined churches, cisterns and dwellings, and the celebrated cache of papyri found here, document daily life at the edge of the desert.
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Standing alone in the Negev, Shivta preserves the plan of a desert town with its churches, streets, houses and remarkable water systems. Part of the World Heritage landscape of the Negev desert cities, it shows how life was engineered in an arid land.
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Tel Arad joins two sites in one: a large fortified city of the Early Bronze Age spread across the plain, and above it an Iron Age citadel containing a sanctuary — a rare and much-studied find in the archaeology of ancient Israel.
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Tel Aviv holds one of the largest concentrations of International Style architecture in the world. Balconies, ribbon windows, curved corners and raised pilotis form a coherent modernist city, recognised as a World Heritage site.
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Overlooking the Negev, Tel Be'er Sheva preserves the plan of an Iron Age town built to a deliberate design: a ring of houses inside the wall, a gate, storehouses and a remarkable underground water system. It belongs to the World Heritage Biblical Tels.
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Guarding the pass into the Jezreel Valley, Megiddo piled city upon city over millennia. Its gates, palaces, grain silo and rock-cut water tunnel make it one of the key archaeological sites of the Near East — and the origin of the name Armageddon.
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Under the streets of Acre lies the fortress of the Knights Hospitaller: a complex of vaulted halls, courtyards and passages buried when the Ottoman city was built above it, and now excavated. It is a highlight of the World Heritage old city.
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On the slope of the Mount of Olives above Gethsemane, the Russian Orthodox monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene raises its gilded onion domes among the olive trees. Built by the Russian imperial family, it is one of the most photographed silhouettes in Jerusalem.
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Set well below sea level between basalt hills and the Golan escarpment, the Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake, a fishing ground and one of the central landscapes of the Gospels. Its shoreline strings together sanctuaries, ancient sites and working harbours.
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From the Lions' Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa threads the covered souks and stone lanes of the Old City of Jerusalem. Marked by fourteen Stations of the Cross, it is walked by pilgrims from every continent.
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In the old city of Acre, one of the Mediterranean's great walled ports, the Zawiyat al-Shadhiliyya serves as mosque and lodge for a community of the Shadhili Sufi tradition. Its courtyard opens onto a quarter of vaulted lanes and sea ramparts.
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In the Itria Valley of Puglia, Alberobello preserves entire districts of trulli — whitewashed dwellings roofed with corbelled cones of dry-laid limestone. Listed by UNESCO, the town is the most complete survival of a vernacular building technique.
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Behind the beaches of the Costa Smeralda, the granite hills of Arzachena hold one of Sardinia's densest concentrations of prehistoric monuments: giants' tombs with their curved forecourts, megalithic burial circles and the dry-stone tower of a nuraghe.
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Half an hour by boat from Venice, Burano is a fishing island where every house is painted a different colour and the bell tower of San Martino leans over the canal. Its other inheritance is needle lace, worked here for centuries.
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On a terrace overlooking the Aosta Valley, the Royal Castle of Sarre owes its present form to Victor Emmanuel II, who made it the base for his hunting expeditions in the mountains that later became the Gran Paradiso National Park.
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The interiors of the Royal Castle of Sarre are unlike any other Savoy residence: whole galleries decorated with ibex horns and chamois trophies, alongside apartments, portraits and furnishings that recount the dynasty's alpine life.
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Introd stands where the Val di Rhêmes and the Valsavarenche open off the main Aosta Valley. Its castle, rebuilt over the centuries around an irregular, almost circular plan, watches over the meadows and larch woods at the gateway to the Gran Paradiso.
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In the Aosta Valley, where almost every rocky spur carries a tower, the castle of La Mothe overlooks the village that grew in its shadow. Stone walls, narrow lanes and high pastures compose a picture of alpine life shaped by the fortress above.
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Set apart from the main road, Montmayeur belongs to the chain of castles that guard the Aosta Valley. Reached through woods and pasture, it presents a strong silhouette against the mountains and a landscape of great cinematic quality.
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At the heart of Aosta, the collegiate church of Sant'Orso gathers a thousand years of building: a Romanesque bell tower and cloister whose historiated capitals are among the finest in the Alps, a Gothic nave, and early frescoes preserved in the roof space.
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No city has been more filmed and fewer are better understood. This first part looks at how Venice came to exist: a settlement on the islands of a lagoon, built on forests of wooden piles, whose geography dictated its architecture and its power.
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The second part turns to the Serenissima: the republic that ruled the eastern Mediterranean for centuries, and the palaces, churches and public buildings in which its wealth, its institutions and its taste took visible form.
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The third part leaves the main routes for the quieter Venice: working canals, neighbourhood squares, artisans' workshops and the lagoon islands — together with the pressures of high water, depopulation and mass tourism that the city faces today.
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Aosta was founded as Augusta Praetoria, a Roman colony controlling the routes to the Alpine passes. Of its forum there survives a remarkable structure: a semi-underground double gallery, barrel-vaulted and lit by narrow openings, running around the sacred precinct.
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At the narrowest point of the lower Aosta Valley, a rocky outcrop blocks the passage. The stronghold built on it delayed Napoleon's army during its crossing of the Alps in 1800 — and was demolished on his orders soon afterwards.
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Rebuilt by the House of Savoy in the nineteenth century, Fort Bard is a complete system of stepped works climbing the rock. Restored after long abandonment, it now houses museums and exhibition spaces within its casemates and courtyards.
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Graines occupies a rocky knoll above Brusson, in the Val d'Ayas. What survives is a ring of curtain walls enclosing the remains of a keep and a small chapel — the archaic type of alpine castle, built for control of a valley rather than for comfort.
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The Roman walls of Aosta still carry a series of towers reworked in the Middle Ages. Two have become emblems of the city: the Leper's Tower, named after the recluse whose story inspired a famous novella, and the massive Bramafam on the enceinte's angle.
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Built for the della Rovere on designs by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, the Rocca of Mondavio is a textbook of early modern military architecture: sloping walls, a polygonal keep and firing galleries conceived against artillery. It survives essentially intact.
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Raised for Federico da Montefeltro, the Ducal Palace of Urbino is a defining building of the Italian Renaissance: the twin-turreted façade, the luminous courtyard, and the studiolo lined with trompe-l'œil marquetry. It now houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche.
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Saint-Germain belongs to the long line of fortified sites that guard the Aosta Valley. Set above the valley floor, its walls and the rock beneath them have merged into a single form, in a landscape of vineyards, woods and high summits.
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Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses lies at the head of the valley that climbs to the Great St Bernard Pass, a route used since antiquity and travelled by pilgrims bound for Rome. Stone houses, high pastures and a cured ham with protected status form its inheritance.
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Far from the tourist routes, in the western corner of Dorsoduro, San Nicolò dei Mendicoli is among the oldest church foundations in Venice. Its portico, gilded wooden interior and painted ceiling belong to a parish of fishermen and boatmen.
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Matera's Sassi are two districts of dwellings cut into the limestone of a ravine in Basilicata, inhabited for millennia. Emptied by law in the twentieth century after the poverty of its cave houses became a national scandal, the site is now a rebuilt city.
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Built as a summer residence for Queen Margherita of Savoy at Gressoney, Castel Savoia is an eclectic composition of turrets and gables set in an alpine garden, looking out towards the Monte Rosa massif at the head of the Lys valley.
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Above the town of Verrès, in Italy's Aosta Valley, a castle built as a single monolithic cube dominates a strategic alpine corridor. Held by the Challant family, it fuses fortress and residence in one uncompromising block of stone.
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Founded in Kamakura under the patronage of the Hojo regents and led by a Chinese Chan master, Kencho-ji was conceived as a full monastic training centre. First of the city's Five Mountains, it remains an active Rinzai monastery.
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Set on a peninsula where the Nam Khan meets the Mekong, Luang Prabang was the royal capital of Laos. Its inscription on the World Heritage List recognises a rare fusion of Lao monastic architecture and French colonial urbanism.
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On Malaysia's north-west coast, Penang and its historic capital George Town form a World Heritage site. Chinese clan houses, mosques, Hindu temples and British colonial buildings stand within minutes of one another.
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Perched on a hilltop in the centre of Malta, Mdina was the island's capital for centuries. Enclosed by bastions, its narrow shaded lanes, noble palaces and cathedral have earned it the name of the Silent City.
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Above the Raut river, in a limestone gorge, monks hollowed a monastery directly out of the rock. Orheiul Vechi combines a cave church, a hilltop chapel and an archaeological landscape occupied since antiquity.
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Below the slopes of Mount Rumija, the old town of Bar was abandoned after conflict and lies in ruins. Churches, a mosque, an aqueduct and a clock tower record the successive powers that ruled this stretch of the Adriatic.
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Dedicated to Saint Tryphon, patron of Kotor, the cathedral stands at the heart of the walled city on the Bay of Kotor. Its twin bell towers, Romanesque interior and treasury make it the principal monument of the old town.
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On the Bay of Kotor, the island of Saint George faces its celebrated neighbour offshore from Perast, a town of Baroque palaces built by sea captains. Nearby Risan preserves Roman mosaics from a much older settlement.
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One of the largest stupas in the world, Boudhanath is the centre of Tibetan Buddhist life in Kathmandu. Pilgrims circle its white dome day and night beneath the painted eyes of the tower, in a World Heritage valley.
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Crowning a hill west of Kathmandu, Swayambhunath is among the oldest and most venerated sanctuaries in Nepal. Reached by a long stairway, its stupa is a place of Buddhist and Hindu worship alike, within a World Heritage valley.
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The Ohrid region, in North Macedonia, is inscribed on the World Heritage List for both its natural and its cultural value. This second film continues the exploration of its churches, monasteries, fortress and shoreline.
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Rising from the sands of the Cholistan desert in southern Punjab, Derawar Fort presents an immense square enclosure ringed by dozens of towering bastions in patterned brick, with a royal mosque and necropolis alongside.
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Lima's Plaza Mayor was traced out when the city was founded in 1535, and its cathedral has been rebuilt again and again after the earthquakes that punctuate Peruvian history. Together they form the ceremonial heart of the capital's historic centre.
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First part of a portrait of Krakow, Poland's former royal capital. From Wawel hill to the largest medieval square in Europe, the film follows a city whose historic centre was among the earliest sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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Second part of the Krakow portrait. Beyond the Main Market Square, the film explores Kazimierz, the university quarter and the churches, palaces and courtyards that make the old city one of Europe's most complete historic ensembles.
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Built by the merchants of Porto as their stock exchange, the Palacio da Bolsa combines a glass-roofed neoclassical courtyard with the extraordinary Arab Room, a Moorish revival hall of carved and gilded arabesques.
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Founded in the twelfth century after the capture of Lisbon, the cathedral presents a Romanesque facade flanked by two towers. Its Gothic cloister covers excavations that have uncovered Roman, Islamic and medieval layers of the city.
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First part of a portrait of historic Lisbon. From the hillside alleys of the Alfama to the grid of the Baixa laid out after the earthquake of 1755, the film follows a city shaped by the Tagus, by trade and by catastrophe.
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Second part of the Lisbon portrait. The film continues through the great riverside squares, the hillside quarters and the churches, palaces and tiled facades that give the Portuguese capital its distinctive texture.
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Massive, crenellated and set on the highest point of the old city, Porto Cathedral began as a Romanesque fortress-church in the twelfth century. Its Gothic cloister, tiled walls and silver altarpiece trace eight centuries of additions.
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Designed by the Italian architect Nicolau Nasoni, the Palace of Freixo stands on the bank of the Douro east of Porto. Its curved facades, carved granite and decorated interiors represent Portuguese Baroque at its most refined.
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Set among the woods of north-eastern Romania, Vorona Monastery gathers church, bell tower and monastic quarters within a walled enclosure. A place shaped by the enduring rhythms of Orthodox monastic life.
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Founded by Peter the Great in 1710, the Alexander Nevsky Lavra holds the relics of the prince who defended Novgorod, a neoclassical cathedral and the cemeteries where Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Glinka are buried.
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On the banks of the Volga in Tatarstan, the archaeological complex of Bolgar preserves the remains of the capital of Volga Bulgaria, whose rulers adopted Islam in the tenth century. The site is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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Dedicated to Saint Catherine, this Russian cathedral gathers the elements of a working place of worship: a marked facade in the streetscape, a nave shaped for liturgy, icons, candlelight and the daily rhythm of a congregation.
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Built in 1532 in the royal estate of Kolomenskoye, this white church was the first masonry building in Russia crowned with a tented roof. Its soaring silhouette above the Moskva River is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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Capital citadel of Tatarstan, the Kazan Kremlin encloses within its white limestone walls the Qol Sharif Mosque, the Annunciation Cathedral and the leaning Söyembikä Tower. A UNESCO World Heritage site where two civilisations occupy one enclosure.
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Dedicated to the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, among the most venerated images in Russian Orthodoxy, this cathedral is filmed as architecture and as living devotion: facade and colonnade, nave and side chapels, candlelight and the movement of the faithful.
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Founded by Varlaam of Khutyn near Veliky Novgorod, this monastery of the Saviour's Transfiguration stands above the Volkhov River. Its white churches and belfry mark one of the great pilgrimage sites of the Russian north-west.
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On an island in Lake Onega, the Kizhi Pogost brings together the Church of the Transfiguration and its twenty-two aspen-shingled domes, the Church of the Intercession and a bell tower. A UNESCO World Heritage masterpiece of Russian carpentry.
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On the Velikaya River, Pskov is one of the oldest cities in Russia and the home of a distinctive architectural school. Its whitewashed churches with their squat domes and open belfries are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
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At the confluence of the Velikaya and the Pskova, the Krom is the fortified heart of Pskov. Behind its long white walls rises the Trinity Cathedral, seat of authority in a city that governed itself for centuries.
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Designed by Auguste de Montferrand and built between 1818 and 1858, Saint Isaac's Cathedral is the largest church in Saint Petersburg. Its granite colonnades, malachite and lapis columns and gilded dome make it a landmark of imperial ambition.
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On the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, a monastery founded in the 15th century built walls of colossal boulders against the Arctic light. A UNESCO World Heritage site whose 20th-century history as a labour camp remains inseparable from it.
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On the Volkhov near Veliky Novgorod, the Yuriev Monastery is among the oldest in Russia. Its Saint George's Cathedral, built in the 12th century, rises in austere white masses over the water meadows toward Lake Ilmen.
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Dedicated to the Ascension, this Russian cathedral is filmed as architecture and as living liturgy: the vertical drive of the exterior, the ordering of the nave, the icon screen, and the light that shapes the interior through the day.
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Behind its red brick walls and towers, rebuilt in the late 15th century by Italian architects, the Moscow Kremlin encloses Cathedral Square, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the palaces of Russian power. A UNESCO World Heritage site.
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One of the great neoclassical cathedrals of Saint Petersburg, the Trinity Cathedral is instantly recognisable by its deep blue domes strewn with gilded stars, rising above a quarter long associated with the imperial guard.
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Justiniana Prima was founded by Emperor Justinian near his birthplace and raised to an archbishopric. Fortified, colonnaded and lavishly furnished with churches, it was abandoned barely a lifetime later and lay buried until modern excavation.
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Behind massive fortified walls in the hills of eastern Serbia lies a late Roman imperial residence, complete with mosaic floors, baths and temples. Excavation has turned a farmer's field into one of the region's key ancient sites.
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Raised in the fifteenth century as the capital of the Serbian Despotate, Smederevo is one of the largest lowland fortresses in Europe. Its triangular plan and twenty-odd towers still command the confluence with the Danube.
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The stećci are monumental medieval tombstones carved with rosettes, arcades and dancing figures. At Perućac, above the Drina, one of the finest necropolises survives - part of a group inscribed as World Heritage by four countries together.
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Founded by Stefan Nemanja, Studenica is the most important monastic ensemble of medieval Serbia. Behind its circular walls stand marble churches whose thirteenth and fourteenth-century frescoes rank among the finest in Byzantine art.
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In southern Serbia, erosion has left a hillside covered with slender earth pyramids, each capped by a stone. Two extremely acidic springs and a well-known legend complete one of the country's strangest landscapes.
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Košice grew rich on trade routes, and its old town shows it: a long spindle-shaped square lined with palaces and churches, dominated by St Elisabeth's Cathedral, the largest church in Slovakia.
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Concealed in a narrow ravine near Cerkno, this wartime partisan hospital treated the wounded of many nationalities under German occupation. Swept away by a flash flood, it has since been faithfully reconstructed.
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Built at Suwon in the late eighteenth century by King Jeongjo, Hwaseong combines Korean and imported military engineering. Documented in exhaustive detail at the time, it could be restored precisely after wartime damage.
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Jongmyo is the Confucian royal ancestral shrine of the Joseon dynasty. Its austere main hall, extended over generations into an immense colonnade, still hosts the ancestral rite with its music and dance.
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Founded as the capital of the Lan Na kingdom, Chiang Mai's old city remains a perfect square defined by moat and brick walls. Inside, dozens of temples share the grid with markets, workshops and daily life.
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A short walk north of Chiang Mai's moat, Wat Lok Molee combines a massive brick chedi with a dark teak assembly hall. Long linked to the Lan Na ruling house, it remains a quiet, deeply atmospheric temple.
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Wat Prasat belongs to the everyday religious landscape of Thailand: a walled compound where the working life of a monastic community and the vocabulary of Thai temple architecture meet. The film observes rather than explains.
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Antalya holds the Mediterranean coast of Turkey where the Taurus Mountains meet the sea. Its old quarter, Kaleiçi, wraps around a Roman harbour and preserves in a few hundred metres the marks of Rome, Byzantium, the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
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A short drive from Antalya, Perge preserves one of the most complete urban plans of Roman Anatolia: a colonnaded avenue with its water channel, a theatre, one of the best preserved stadiums in the region and a Hellenistic gate with round towers.
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Seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and mother church of the Anglican Communion, Canterbury Cathedral has drawn pilgrims since the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Its Gothic quire and medieval glass anchor a World Heritage site.
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