Religions

A group of temples, each with a pointed roof, at Ayutthaya

Historic City of Ayutthaya

A 14th-18th century city that served as a seat of the Siamese royal court and whose art and architecture show international influences.

Baroque towers on the Abbey's cathedral.

Abbey of St. Gall

An 8th-century monastery with a beautiful Baroque cathedral and an ancient library.

Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain

A small mountain with a very long history as a sacred site.

The church is primarily rectangular shapes, with no high church tower, but all of the edges - the roof lines and the windows - are embellished with detailed gothic-style stone lacework.

Monastery of Batalha

A well-preserved and impressive masterpiece of Late Flamboyant Gothic architecture with Manueline Baroque elements.

Below where this photo was shot is a line of large statues of saints along the edge of the church's roof. Beyond that is Saint Peter's square, which is round, with pillared colonnades around the sides, except the far section which is open to a straight boulevard. The city of Rome spreads very far in the distance.

Vatican City

A tiny city-state with a long history at the center of the Catholic Church and containing magnificent works of art and architecture.

A very elegant central entrance: stairs up to an arched doorway, a rose window above that, rows of statues on the ground floor and above the door, three square towers on top, all with detailed carved ornamentation. The rest of the building is much smaller and extends on both sides out of the picture, two stories tall with simple rows of windows.

Monastery of Alcobaça

A masterpiece of Gothic Cistercian art and architecture.

The hall is large, with a row of pillars down the center and tall arched windows on either side. the pillars support a ceiling with gothic arches.

Maulbronn Monastery Complex

An intact and complete medieval monastery that demonstrates the transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture.

A white mosque with gray domes and very tall slender minarets. Beside it is a structure that looks like a castle's keep, round with crenellations around the top.

Historic Cairo

A collection of more than 800(!) structures – a fortress, religious sites, houses, cemeteries and many more – dating from about 100 AD until the 18th century.

Convent of Christ in Tomar

An architectural retrospective of Portugal and the Knights Templar in the form of a monastic center dating to the 12th-16th century.

The front of the cathedral in Modena, with typical Romanesque rounded arches above the entry door and upper windows.

Cathedral, Torre Civica and Piazza Grande, Modena

Romanesque architecture and art in harmony, in a charming Italian city.

Delos

Extensive archeological site of an ancient Greek commercial center on an Aegean island.

View over the old town of Dubrovnik: lots of red roofs and the blue sea beyond that.

Old City of Dubrovnik

A well-preserved medieval, Renaissance and Baroque city inside extensive intact fortifications.

Mont-Saint-Michel appears as a pile of stone structures up a hill, forming a conical shape with a recognizably Gothic church spire at the top.

Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay

A magnificent Gothic abbey on top of a small island in a bay with dramatic tides.

In Lumbini, Nepal, a long white building with a railing around the roof and flags on the corners.

Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha

The holiest place in Buddhism, containing archeological evidence of Lumbini’s importance as a pilgrimage site.

My Son Sanctuary

Evocative ruins of Champa kingdom Hindu temples, elaborately carved, with brick towers.

In a shaded grove, a large abstract artwork that has rather organic shapes with an arch extending over them.

Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove

An ancient forest where Yoruba gods reside and ancient religious practices continue.

High rocks like columns. Front center, low in the photo, is a monastery, in white plaster with a red roof, on a small outcropping. Behind it is a far taller rock, and at the very top right of the photo, more buildings are visible, looking tiny on the top of the rock. Mountains in the distance behind.

Meteora

Perched on high rocks, these monasteries served as places of retreat and prayer for monastic communities.

A cobbled street curves ahead, lined by simple two-story houses, each covered in plaster and painted a pastel white or brown.

Jewish Quarter and St Procopius’ Basilica in Třebíč

A historical Jewish neighborhood and a Catholic Basilica illustrate how Jews and Christians co-existed peacefully.

The Torii gate stands on two massive poles, each with two smaller poles flanking it. A lower, straight crosspiece near the top, and along the very top, a crosspiece that is slightly curved upward at each end. The whole thing is painted reddish-orange. It stands in a flat field, with a wooded hill behind.

Itsukushima Shinto Shrine

A well-preserved shrine dating to the 12th century and harmonizing beautifully with the surrounding landscape.

A bright yellow temple with curving roofs on each story, standing on the shore of a lake.

Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, Uji and Otsu

A set of 17 sites comprising culturally-significant religious architecture and landscaped gardens.

A young man dressed in walking clothes and carrying a small backpack passes a sign reading "Santiago de la Compostela 790"

Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino Francés and Routes of Northern Spain

Ancient long-distance pilgrimage routes, still walked today.

The castle is perched on a hill, with a single square tower in its middle. The left'hand wing is brick and/or stone, while the right-hand wing is white plaster with exposed timber beams.

Wartburg Castle

An imposing castle, important because of its role in Martin Luther’s life.

The entrance to the cave is set into the side of a hill. The cave is quite large, perhaps 2-3 stories tall, judging by the people standing right inside the entrance., and has four very large square columns holding up the wide rectangular entrance.

Elephanta Caves

Caves devoted to the Hindu deity Shiva, containing art dating to the 5th and 6th centuries.

An image of Jesus washing the feet of the apostles. The Apostles are grouped on the right, int robes of blue and capes of red or white. They have halos around their heads. Jesus is on the left, washing the feet of a man who is presumably sitting, but the painting is rather unsophisticated so the man just looks smaller than the others, who are standing.

Wooden Churches of Maramureş

Elegant timber-built church architecture, filled with bright vernacular religious imagery.

A gnarled tree and its roots grow on top of and around a piece of a ruined temple. Walls of the temple are behind.

Angkor

Evocative archeological site with 1000+ temples testifying to an exceptional civilization.

Side view of the cathedral, with the spires at the right and a side entrance in front. Incredibly ornate in typical gothic style, with gothic arched windows, flying buttresses and elaborate sculptural details around every available surface.

Cologne Cathedral

An undisputed masterpiece of Gothic architecture.

A tomb stands on a pedestal in a niche, all of it painted white as well as the wall behind it. On top of the tomb is a pillar with what looks like an urn on the top and a relief of the person's face halfway up the side. Below the tomb, a figure leans on each side of the pedestal: both are women in white marble. The left hand one leans her elbow on the pedestal and her face on her hand. On the right the woman has her hands clasped on the pedestal and looks up at the tomb.

Roskilde Cathedral

A medieval cathedral in a unique mix of styles that inspired cathedrals throughout Northern Europe.

Two large rocks, each with runes carved into it, each in a separate glass-sided case.

Jelling Mounds, Runic Stones and Church

The place where King Harald Bluetooth in 965 AD declared Denmark a unified country and announced its Christianization.

Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc

The tallest memorial column in Czechia, a masterpiece of Moravian Baroque.

In the foreground, a pond. Beyond the pond, a mosque: very symmetrical, with a gold dome on its top and two tall minarets, one on each front corner of the building. Porticos extending out both sides of the building.

Bolgar Historical and Archaeological Complex

The first capital of the Golden Horde, a place of historical cultural exchange, and still a pilgrimage destination for Tatar Muslims.

A large building with typical curved roof and festooned with colorful banners.

Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara

A collection of ancient Buddhist and Shinto shrines in the old capital of the Japanese empire.

Gothic arches, flying buttresses, and 3 pointed spires on the roof.

Kutná Hora: Historical Town Centre with the Church of St Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec

An intact medieval town center and two fine late-Gothic churches.

A number of stupas scattered across a flat landscape.

Bagan

An archeological zone of thousands of Buddhist structures dating to the 11th-13th centuries.

The top of Assumption cathedral: red brick with shiny silver-colored roofs on the turrets and the domes.

Assumption Cathedral and Monastery of the town-island of Sviyazhsk

A fortified monastery used by Ivan the Terrible in his efforts to defeat the Muslim Khanate of Kazan.

Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin

The only surviving Tatar fortress, with impressive architecture of two religions.

Sceilg Mhichíl

An early monastic settlement over 1000 years old, situated on an isolated rock island in the Atlantic Ocean.