Timbuktu - The Adventure of Arrival, Mali (79/418)

Home of the prestigious Koranic Sankore University and other médersas, Timbuktu was in the 15th and 16th centuries an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the expansion of Islam throughout Africa. Its three great mosques, the Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, speak of Timbuktu's Golden Age. Although restored in the 16th century, these monuments are today threatened by the encroachment of sand.