San Franscisco is indeed truly marvelous city for the visitor. There are innumerable places to eat, drink, look at, and do. But approximately a metric squillion tourists descend on Fisherman’s Wharf, a truly awful collection of overpriced take-away joints and T-shirt shops (parts of Height-Ashbury are not much better, to be honest). I don’t mind; if they’re happy to spend time there, it means that there’s less tourists crowding the interesting spots. But while I was taken there as part of the conference I attended, I wouldn’t go there voluntarily without a very large financial incentive. It is, perhaps, the nastiest tourist trap I have ever visited, its only redeeming feature being that you catch the ferry to Alcatraz there.
Recalling that, I came across this list of the world’s top tourist traps, which features Fisherman’s Wharf and the Leaning Tower of Pisa amongst a number of others. For what it’s worth, I’m not convinced they distinguish adequately between “places that are interesting, but have been surrounded by so much tourist crap it’s offputting”, and “places where the main attaction itself isn’t that great”. To take two examples I’m familiar with, the tourist paraphernalia surrounding the Forbidden City and Niagara Falls are annoying. But the City, and the Falls, are still great. Take away the souvenir shops from Fisherman’s Wharf, by contrast, and there’s nothing there.
While the parlous state of the Aussie dollar has increased the cost of travel, the way it’s going the collapse in the oil price and the general malaise around the world economy might just about compensate. And Australia has its own nasty tourist traps; the southern bit of Lygon St. Carlton, and the entirety of Surfers Paradise come to mind. I’m curious: what are the nastiest tourist traps the LP readership has come across?
The hubby is off to San Fran on Wednesday for work, but will have some leisure time as well. What would you suggest he a) see and b) avoid apart from Fisherman’s Wharf?
Perhaps a tad snobby there, Robert? I fail to see what’s so aesthetically revolting about Fisherman’s Wharf. Go there, chance the crowds, have a look at the seals. What’s not to like? And what’s wrong with southern Carlton? The Trades Hall (I like it. Go to shows there all the time.) La Mama theatre? Readings, and their iconic wall featuring housing and flatmate advertisements?
Every city has overpriced overcrowded joints – they’re usually a sign of popularity and are in their own ways an icon of the city. Sydney for instance would have Darling Harbour. They’re perhaps not the ‘best’ part of a city, but for tourists, people who only visit a city for a few days or a week, they’re a useful place to meet up, and interesting in their own way. And I know from close experience of at least one of those places – (Lygon Street, Carlton) – that it’s got a hell of a lot to offer.
At the risk of sounding like a complete pedant – it’s Haight-Ashbury by the way. (I rather like the name – I enjoy the irony that one of the cultural centres of the ’summer of love’ was a street named Haight.)
London … around picadilly and leicester square. uuggghhhh.
Rome … across the road from the Colosseum was the only bad lunch I ever had in Italy. Fuck it was awful and waaayyy overpriced.
Venice … St Mark’s piazza. Luckily for us, no need to eat or drink there, found a great place in the run down back streets well away from there.
Sydney … Circular Quay. living in woollomooloo all those years, i could see that place was tourist hell.
On the other hand, Helsinki and Berlin (all of Germany really – apart from Munich, I’ve never been) were just dreamy. Oh I guess Berlin gets very touristy around the Brandenburg Gate.
I note with interest that the linked article reckons Londoners like leicester square. hmmm. I found it dismal. in 2000.
Confining myself to places visited during cycling, hitching and train trips around Australia, I would say:
* the entire Gold Coast between Coomera River and Tallebudgera Creek;
* the Sky Tour at Sydney’s Centrepoint Tower (this entails paying an exorbitant sum of money for a guided tour whereas previously, for a much lower admission fee, you could just ascend the lift and see the sights at your leisure);
* the “Mystery Craters” west of Bundaberg;
* Karuah;
* Taree.
I didn’t have a huge amount of recreation time, but one I tried and thoroughly recommend (assuming the weather isn’t too bad) is hiring a bicycle and doing the bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. It’s only about 20 kilometres and the ferry takes you back, if I recall correctly.
The food is good pretty much everywhere except Fisherman’s Wharf.
I didn’t get to visit Alcatraz properly, but it looks fascinating from the outside (we went past it on a bay cruise) and gets excellent reviews.
There’s one place that sticks in my mind as being a (quite literal) tourist trap but fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.
That’s Sun City in South Africa. I blew a weekend there a few years ago after working in Johannesburg for a couple of weeks (Joburg, for people who’ve never been there, is scary in parts).
Sun City is north of there – the only practical way to get there is to drive, at warp speed. When you rent a car, they give you a little photocopied map of how to get out of Joburg and an important instruction: stop for nobody. The rented Nissan maxed out at 150km/h and I was overtaken by a Ferrari like I was standing still. The advice I was given about the police (just pay the fine they ask for) sounds foolish in hindsight – luckily none were around I suppose.
I didn’t take that “stop for nothing” advice completely, I stopped at the segregated markets near the big Hartbeesport dam, a fascinating place (one side upmarket tourist tat, the other side of the road a massive roadside market) but off topic.
Anywhoooo, Sun City is like visiting FutureWorld (it has a monorail!), Las Vegas, Disneyland, Wet’n'wild and a movie set all in the same place. It’s styled as a kind of lost city in the Jungle (complete with golf courses) but is really a grouping of casinos, bars, a swimming park (complete with wave machine) and entertainment arena.
Once you’re in, there’s no getting out. Once you’re there, there’s nowhere to stay except in the hotels (aside from a few locals who come in for concerts). Sure, it’s tourist trap mecca (every attraction is man made) but it’s history, place in pop culture (“I ain’t gonna play Sun City”) and the sheer outrageous over the top stylings and the scale of the join left me dumbfounded. Also, normally I would avoid Enrique Eglesias like the plague, but he played there that weekend and the show was actually pretty good. Tourist traps can be fun just for their own sake.
Fishermans Wharf – sure it’s a trap and not a very clean or attractive one, but where else are you going to get the world’s most expensive chowder and sourdough bowl? And why else would you catch the trolley cars?
TimT: OK, yes, I spelled Haight-Ashbury wrong. But Fisherman’s Wharf is just awful. If your idea of a good holiday is wandering from shop to shop selling T-shirts that say “My auntie went to Fisherman’s Wharf and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” knock yourself out, you’ll have a great time. But there’s bugger-all else there. Yes, if you wander a bit further there’s the maritime museum, and you can take the cable car from there (except that the queue can be so long you walk walk the entire route by the time you can get on). But I can’t see why you’d want to spend any more time there than required to get to one of those specific attractions.
As for Lyges, nothing wrong with Trades Hall or La Mama, but the strip of restaurants between Queensberry and Faraday is almost (note: almost) uniformly overpriced, low-quality, and bland food. From Faraday onwards is generally better.
I can’t believe somebody actually went to the Mystery Craters.
I used to work in a number of World Heritage sites in Tasmania, and have a pretty good understanding of what constitutes a significant “natural” landscape to and for visitors. I now spend a good portion of each year traveling, camping and fishing on the “big island”.
Apart from Surfers Paradise, the worst tourist trap I’ve encountered is Cobbold Gorge in FNQ – well off the beaten track, with no indication en route that the only way to actually visit the gorge costs $$$$$ ($30 being the minimum charge in 2002). The gorge is pretty, (sandstone and water), about 500m long, and otherwise unspectacular, in terms of gorge landforms, and much better gorges can be seen all over Australia, with most costing nothing to visit.
Phi Phi Island in Thailand for me. Brilliant natural landscape completely trashed by tourist traps in sardine-like proximity.
Robert, definitely agree that most restaurants at the southern end of Lygon St are overpriced with very average food – but for sheer buzz on a warm evening the whole of Lygon St from Queensbury to Elgin is hard to beat. And I’ve never got the impression that it’s mainly tourists.
No argument about Surfers’ though.
“I didn’t get to visit Alcatraz properly, but it looks fascinating from the outside (we went past it on a bay cruise) and gets excellent reviews.”
The only reason to go to Fisherman’s Wharf is to get the ferry to Alcatraz, which was an unmitigated delight. Audio tour with the voices of actual former inmates and guards, work at your own pace with basically the run of the whole island, spectacular scenery, etc etc.
I second Lygon Street as a trap – I’ve had okay meals at Tiamo 2 and Balzari, but the rule is expensive pap.
Bah! Moniker madness.
Actually, there is one worse tourist trap in California than Fisherman’s Wharf and that is Hollywood Boulevard. Horrible, dirty, awful, awful, awful. There is quite literally nothing to see other than other bewildered tourists trying to find names on the walk of fame through the chewing gum, dirt and vomit. Even the air tastes bad. Avoid it.
Oh and Notredame (from the Forbes list) is definitely an example of a worthwhile site spoiled by far too many visitors. I don’t mind big crowds of people particularly, but not inside a cathedral. At the Eiffel tower the crowds were actually somewhat comforting, if for nothing else than the body warmth! OTOH waiting for 45 minutes to get up wasn’t so fun.
Mindy – I agree with Robert.
The bridge is brilliant, especially at sunset and sunrise.
I only had half a day, but walking the bridge was great. I caught the bus to and from it.
Back on topic – I’m assured the little mermaid in Copenhagen is a measure of how gullible a tourist you really are; I didn’t bother.
If you’re still reading Mindy – go to Muir Woods too. Coastal Redwood forest, steelhead salmon spawning run (if you time it right), cheap to visit, and can be combined with a trip over the GGB – which I did in a car, but still enjoyed.
All of the US.
Stay away.
We’re all rednecks and you’ll be put in Guatanamo.
Honolulu, although I suppose people have covered that already with the numerous seconding of Surfer’s Paradise. I didn’t make it off that island, but I didn’t have to since the northern shore of Oahu is almost a different island anyway.
And Vegas. Actually Vegas is probably a no brainer; Vegas feels no shame, no need to hide its trapiness behind a facade. Its facades are part of the trap. It exists solely for the separating of tourists from their money, has done so ever since canny men decided to build somewhere for LA celebrities to go and debauch without gossip columnists around. Now we can all go and delude ourselves a the big dam or an iconic sign makes the place less of a trap. And never mind the lights, how many forests are the prostitute spruikers killing daily? So many discarded business cards lying in the street but its totally worth it because there’s just enough lonely tourists trapped in the place.
Going up the Empire State building to see the worst smog ever ( up till 1967 anyway) was pretty bad – but I see the airs a lot clearer there now.
AN
I’ve had okay meals at Tiamo 2 and Balzari, but the rule is expensive pap.
Sorry – you really need to visit Broome to appreciate “expensive” and “pap”. Lygon street has got nothing on the restaurants here. Decent dinner for a family of 5 at Papa Ginos for $100. We’d be lucky to get away with that for dinner for 2 in Broome. And it would still be crap in all but 3 restaurants.
And tourist trap? – trapped in the Cable Beach Sunset Bar paying top dollar for crap food watching a squillion cars entering or exiting north of the rocks at Cable Beach.
Onimod: I walked about 5 km through the Danish twilight to see that statue. The walk was very pleasant. The statue is considerably less interesting than your average piece of Melbourne freeway art.
Hmmm, but aren’t places like Fisherman’s Wharf as much of a part of the ‘real, authentic’ San Francisco as, say, City Lights bookshop or the Castro Theatre? I’ll admit I didn’t find the Wharf that interesting when compared to the City Lights bookshop, but by the same token, the books they had at City Lights I could have gotten on the net or at any good Melbourne bookstore.
I read a bit of the Forbes article. They list Times Square as a tourist trap, and say that the ‘real’ Manhattan can be found just blocks away. But in a modern, commercial, well-populated tourist oriented city like New York, tourists traps like Times Square are surely just as real as some of the still-existing Greenwich dives (say) or older Wall Street buildings.
Sometimes when you’re a tourist the garish parts of a city are just as interesting as the more atmospheric parts.
Oh that reminds me of one nasty tourist trap – Riga, Latvia. When I visited, you couldn’t walk more than 50 metres without being accosted by spruikers for strip clubs. Even our backpacker hostel was on top of – you guessed it – a strip club. Thank you, untold thousands of English bucks’ nights for whom Prague is a bit too classy and expensive…
It’s a shame, because if the sex industry spruikers toned down their act a little it’d be a really pleasant city with a gorgeous Old Town.
TimT wrote:
Seconded. Although, the best way to find the good and bad bits is walking, which people seem increasingly unable/less than eager to do. I loved Las Vegas though, despite the snowstorm of prostitute advertisements blowing in the wind. It’s just so, I dunno, strange.
Agree with FDB on Muir Woods. Fisherman’s wharf is truly awful, yes, but i saw it more as a necesssary/ functional place. eg to get to Alcatraz; to hire a bike so you can ride over the bridge to Sausolito (which, inxcidentally, I highly recommend). In that sense I found it quite unobjectionable – conveniently organised etc.
What… are you saying some people go there just to see Fisherman’s Wharf? Weird!
King’s Cross, Sydney?
David, Hollywood Boulevard seconded here. It really is one of the worst parts of LA, and most of LA is pretty bad as it is.
Times Square OTOH we enjoyed, as much as anything because of the crowds.
And Vegas is…well…Vegas…I don’t think you can call it a tourist trap though: it’s pretty much exactly what you expect if you’ve ever seen it in the movies or on TV. We actually spent the few two nights of our honeymoon there – and two nights was more than enough.
I went to the Steve Irwin zoo last weekend.
That was ME at #29, not poor Anthony who probably was sensible enough to stay away from the Steve Irwin zoo.
Im usually pretty good at avoiding them, but Chintzy tourist traps I’ve accidentally encountered include:
- the entire Gold Coast. Yech. Go Sunshine Coast or to the Moreton bay islands.
- the “The Land’s End Experience”, Cornwall (although, its funny to say out loud)
- anywhere in London hosting more than 20 Australians.
- Byron Bay – the town, that is. Those uptight shop-owning ex-hippies make me want to run a mile
- la Rambla, Barcelona – sorry but: Meh, overrated.
- Panajechel, Guatemala. Otherwise known as ‘Gringotenango’ to the locals. Yanks fly in, buy crap, fly out again.
- Dublin – sheesh, is there a worse place in Ireland? The rest of the contry’s great.
- Punta del Este, Uruguay: Don’t ask.
- Philidelphia: I’m so bored I can hardly move. Please post me back to New York.
Kuta and Legian in Bali (and probably points east and west of there too, as I haven’t been for a long time.) I’ve been to Bali twice on a low budget and each time stayed one night in Kuta before branching out to Ubud or the north coast. Each time I shuddered at the sheer mess made by the largely Australian tourist industry. Sitting drinking loudly and eating pizza and hamburgers every night. WHy go to another country at all?
Agree about Muir woods, cycling across the bridge and Alcatraz for things to do in SF. Definitely want to book ahead for the Alcatraz tours otherwise you end up lining up ages (or missing out). And the tours to Muir woods don’t let you stay there nearly long enough, so having your own transport is a big advantage.
As for Vegas – its the place you travel to in order to get to the Grand Canyon. That or Phoenix and I’d rather go to Vegas any day – at least you can have some fun in Vegas.
TimT: I suppose, but aside from matters of taste, the problem with tourist traps is that they’re exactly the same as each other.
They all have a Starbucks. They all have a Ripley’s Believe it or Not. They all have a Hard Rock Cafe. The bigger ones have an Imax cinema. They all have endless strips of T-shirt shops with pretty much the same slogans on them.
The point of traveling half way round the world is to see things you can’t see at home, in my view.
On the other hand, the old-town part of Tallin, Estonia, is a delightful medieval town full of weird little alleys and shitloads of tourist-trap shops and restaurants. But we vastly enjoyed our day trip there (90 min ferry trip from Helsinki). Bear in mind, it was winter … so pretty empty.
Which is a fair point Robert – I can’t imagine recommending Lygon St to any visitor that already came from any vibrant multicultural city with a cafe culture, but a lot of people don’t live in such cities…
You must be kidding. After 20 years living in or near the Cross, it’s a fucking great place, in as much as living anywhere in Sydney can still be considered “great” (last time I went back, earlier this year, the whole place felt like a foreign land). Train to Bondi Jnctn, then busses to excellent beaches that are not Bondi. A $20 cab ride if you’re lazy or the Sunday timetable is a bit thin. 10 minute walk to the best urban park in Australia – Royal Botanic Garden. 20 min walk to work through the second-best urban park in Australia. The best street life and assorted derros in the country (is ‘John’ still found singing along to bad AM radio along Darlo Rd? He once asked me for change to buy some batteries for his radio and I gave him $10 … best street performance art I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing). Strip-club street mafioso that keep the streets relatively safe for returning residents at 3.a.m. What’s not to like? Has Clover managed to fuck it over?
A real tourist trap is the collection of electronics stores at the harbour end of Nathan Road in Kowloon.
These bright, gaudy shops specialise in cheating tourists when they try and buy any product.
There is no effective consumer protection legislation in Hong Kong – just a name and shame policy which is hopeless when you have to leave in 2-3 days.
All the tricks are used – bait and switch , leave a deposit and they then sell you all the attachments as extras , blatant substitutions , limited warranties ( usually valid only in HK), sale of parallel imports ( product sourced outside the official agents so any warranty invalid) etc etc etc .
If you do realise you are being ripped off they will not hesitate to fight with you in the store! You loose you money the item and your dignity.
Hong Kong newspapers are frequently reporting how the poor tourists are left screwed and without any path to obtaining restitution.
Don’t kid yourself you can outsmart these sharks – they have all been in operation for decades and the locals attitude is bluntly caveat emptor .
The deals on offer all sound good – you’ll never see a price displayed that bears any relationship to the product being sold, all the “deals” are verbal offers .
.
On the other hand The Stanley Markets , while cramped and garish are a great place to get inexpensive clothes . Don’t touch anything else , the clothes are fantastic value though.
Lefty E wrote:
Seconded. A beautiful place now destroyed by the sheer mass of humanity crawling around it. The disease is spreading too – the entire coast hinterland is now infected with up-market kitchen shops, expensive french toy stores and assorted ex Eastern Suburbs types from Sydney who sold up their over-priced apartment to “live the dream” – ripping people off somewhere other than the George St. Mall. There must be thousands of the bastards beavering away in sheds painting furniture white.
Yes Bangalow, I’m looking at you. Nobody on the planet needs a $200 broom and I don’t care if those sticky fingermarks on your overpriced stainless steel tea kettle look remarkably like my toddlers, I was merely trying to find out the tiny hand-written price (and failing not to say “fuck me” unfortunately loudly when I found it). I’ve never been escorted from a kitchen shop before, but the thrill was so profound it won’t be the last time.
Tyro,
The Cross used to be a great place to live – I lived there for 15 years til the mid 70s, but its not good for tourists, only the denizens. Left it because it was getting a bvit violent and had a yen for the country life.
Thanks FDB. David Rubie – great story. I’ve never been escorted out of a shop, but if I ever go to Byron Bay, I will attempt to do just that.
“The disease is spreading too – the entire coast hinterland is now infected with up-market kitchen shops, expensive french toy stores and assorted ex Eastern Suburbs types from Sydney who sold up their over-priced apartment to “live the dream” – ripping people off somewhere other than the George St. Mall.”
.
C’mon now David don’t exaggerate – you know if you head down the Armidale Rd into the Macleay Valley ( note to others- it’s “Nature’s Wonderland”!) you’ll still find an authentic rural area.
It may be the last area of the east coast to go boho seachange but I think we will be safe for a while yet.
I remember Fisherman’s wharf from when I was seven, Dad said it’s the most over-touristed place he’d ever seen (and he’s been all over Europe).
As an aside, when I was in India I stayed two minutes walk from the Taj Mahal and tourists can walk around the area relatively easily without too much hassle, compared to the continual hassle you deal with in a lot of Rajasthan.
Heh Murph. It’s already too late, there are truckloads of white furniture paint, shiny red toasters and indescribably adorable little toy-french-knitting-sets-in-adorable-tiny-suitcases headed for the Macleay Valley as we speak. Soon, the pubs will close and a little frou frou boutique full of size 8 cotton dresses will appear. The entire business model of these fools seems to be when tourists fail to bite, they start selling expensive tat to each other, in an ever accelerating version of “musical chairs”. When the music stops in Byron and Bangalow, they’ll go bust and crawl up the valley. Just watch them
Spooky dook. This is actually now me, Anthony talking, but the Leave a Reply box on my PC has defaulted to calling me Laura.
No, I’m Spartacus.
My grandmother lived at Federal near Bangalow. I remember well when Bangalow was a nothing town that you passed through onto somewhere else (like the Gold Coast) back in the 70s and 80s. Was up there last in 2002 I think but was aghast at how the area had changed. And for the worse.
I remember the Gold Coast well before Jupiters Casino and the descent in tourism hell. The island Jupiters is on used to be a great caravan park that my family went to every Christmas. It wasn’t bad place back then.
I remember when having an onion on your belt was the fashion as well.
Now get off my lawn!
Robert,
FWIW – The whole of Tamworth in Country Music week is pretty bad
Katoomba is getting really bad now (the lookout is the worst) – rest of the Bluies seems to be OK (thank god).
Audio Nerd is right – Alcatraz is well worth it (one of the few places in the USA where they seem to have kept the actual ruins and not just ‘dozed the lot for a bunch of condos).
For those of us who are interested in space (outer that is) – Space Centre Houston (Tx) is an unmitigated pile of shite.
Lots of stuff for teh kidz (a jungle gym took up most of the indoors area). The only thing really of interest was a few bits of hardware rusting outside ’cause it’s too expensive to build a shed over the top! The “tour train” took you on a drive between buildings which were pointed out at a distance (“ooh look there’s liquid oxygen storage”) and they had such a tight schedule that if you lingered for more than 0.3 minutes at one particular site they’d get suspicious.
Not one of the guides knew the first thing – they just had their set-piece and that was it.
Pretty much a place the locals take the kids on a weekend if they’re bored.
Next time I’ll try to get to Florida to see a launch – anybody been to the Cape?
What David Rubie said @ 39 – reminds me of Leura in the Blue Mountains – twee to the nth degree.
What Helen said about Kuta, but Ubud and other parts north are still wonderful.
Ankor Wat in Cambodia, but still worth going to if you can avoid the Japanese tourists who only have 46.35 minutes to see the wholer complex and take a million photos to prove they’ve been there.
Vang Vien in Laos – beautiful scenery spoilt by the backpackers, most of whom only go there to eat pizza and hang out with other western backpackers and imagine how cool they are. As someone else said – what’s the point?
Darling Harbour, Sydney – yuck.
San Francisco – endless wonderful joints. Around a dozen completely unique neighbourhoods, bear with me here, it’s been a few years:
- Balboa – way out on the coastline, check out whatever development has taken place on the old Sutro Baths space. Also the Cliff House. The district it self is a funky neighbourhood, but the baths and the Cliff House crucial parts of SFO iconography. There’ll be pics aplenty of the Baths in their glory – fabulous.
- eats – go to Chowhound.com, and see what’s listed as good by the locals – there are lots on Chowhound. I do recall at various times eating superb Japanese, Chinese, and seafood – the places come & go.
- Mission district – it’s changing all the time, but the notional home of Hispanic SFO, plenty of bookshops, galleries, and the border of Mission and SOMA has a nice mix of cosy & upmarket bars & eateries.
- Castro district – the new film set in Castro, “Milk” has just opened in USA on limited release with a gigantic screen average, it will be a hit in the cities. Go see the sad little tribute to the much-loved mayor, Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn in the fillum). That sad little statue will be a tourist destination afore long. Also, so see a matinee at the Castro Cinema, one of the world’s finest vintage screens.
Drink excellent West Coast beers & wines, gosh, I could go on forever. Didn’t know I still had a big crush on the city, my first American love.
Enjoy.
Helen @ 32, seconded – add Senggigi, Lombok.
steveh at #48 – I disagree about Katoomba. I think it and the rest of the Blue Mountains have done a great job of retaining authenticity and charm despite the influx of tourists. Echo Point is the exception, but whilst it’s overdeveloped, most of the time there aren’t enough people there to make it an unpleasant place to be, and in any case nothing could detract from the views over the valley. The actual Katoomba township is pretty good, in my opinion. It certainly doesn’t have the atmosphere of twee artifice of somewhere like Nundle in New England, which is my nomination for most appalling destruction of a country town to attract yuppie tourists.
I second TimT and others in pointing out that some tourist traps have their own ineffable charm.
Was in both Vegas and strolling along Hollywood Boulevard just last month and I enjoyed them both immensely – but perhaps not for the reasons I was intended too.
As a destination, Vegas is only 60 years old, in the middle of a desert and built on two basic emotions, greed and hope. It’s a giant pinballmachine and you are the ball. And it’s completely honest about this. It also has excellent restaurants, galleries and museums But just flanuering about Vegas on a Saturday night was highly entertaining. It’s a great place to fall into conversations at bars with some very surprising people. And then get invited back to very strange hotel room parties.
“..despite the snowstorm of prostitute advertisements blowing in the wind.”
Oh yeah, it is weird walking down the Strip, treading on the faces of lingerie-clad women who litter the ground like autumn leaves.
I also thought Hollywood Boulevard had its own weird charm compounded out of gormless tourists, local hipsters, street crazies and very polite hustlers. Walking past Grauman’s Chinese with its menagerie of costumed characters (where else can you see Darth Vader, Spiderman and Marilyn Monroe discussing cell phone carriers) one evening enroute to dinner, I had Ironman complement me on my jacket and saw Dorothy in her red shoes tapdancing with great aplomb to the afro-polyrhythms of a dreadlocked drummer.
One place I half suspected would a real tourist trap but wasn’t was NOLA’s French Quarter. True Bourbon St is a neon intestine peristaltically passing along drunken frat boys and dazed junketeers but the bands were great. Then you get away from that down to Decatur and Frenchman Sts where the music is even better and full of odd little bars, bistros and clubs where the locals are very hospitable indeed. On more than one occasion I had to raise my voice to demand I at least pay for one meal or round. Despite Nawlins’ best efforts at being professionally touristy, it’s still too full of slightly seedy, high Southern courtesy, laissez faire charm to be a real tourist trap.
I’d agree though with many above that Byron Bay is a great example of a tourist trap where what first brought people there has been erased by too many people going there.
Also I don’t see why this an either/or equation. There’s nothing to stop one both visiting tourist traps and off the beaten tracks.
Speaking of beaten tracks, this time in the US I got an Amtrak USA rail pass and upgraded to sleepers whenever I could. Beats the hell out of air travel in terms of comfort, views and meeting the locals and was generally cheaper (not least because you don’t have to fork out for additional airport shuttle costs etc).
PS: I suspect one of the reasons I enjoyed Vegas and the Big Easy so much is they are about the only two major western cities left where you can smoke at the bar and drink in the street.
“Because you can’t smoke indoors anymore.”
Nick Cave on being asked why he thought today’s rock music had no boundary-busting and carnal edge anymore.
“Next time I’ll try to get to Florida to see a launch – anybody been to the Cape?”
I was planning to do that but they kept shifting the date of the launch so I gave up. However still have some costings and details if you’d like ‘em. Better hurry though – only nine shuttle launches to go before they shut down the program.
I’m off to SF again after Xmas. What a great city. Once I walked all of Haight St, down through Golden Gate park to Ocean Beach and the cliff house/baths. Caught a bus to the bridge, cycled across to Sausalito. Came back and hung around the Palace of Fine Arts. Spent a lot of time just walking around Castro, Fillmore, and Mission.
The only reason to visit Fisherman’s Wharf is to get to Alcatraz IMHO.
I’m leaving SF and heading to Utah for January. Salt Lake City doesn’t seem too appealing for NYE so maybe a drive down to Vegas is on the cards. Trashy, sleazy and dirty as hell but that’s what NYE is all about.
Bryn@52 – Sorry I should’ve been more specific, yes Echo point was what I meant. Nundle is a bit of a shocker isn’t it – unfortunately it seems old mining towns in Australia end up as either a weed-infested paddock, or twee gimmick-ridden tourist holes
Only other bad spot is the bottom of the vertical railway – you need to pretend you’re a bulldozer just to get through the throngs to the Mt Solitary track.
Nabakov@55 – I’d be interested in details if you can PM me (not sure how to do that through the blog?!). Always a problem with launches – guess it would just be a matter of luck
I swear the ‘must see’ Water Puppets in Hanoi are the most overrated, excruciating cacophony of noise i have ever heard. After 5 minutes the kids were bored, we were bored, and we had another hour or so to wait out the wretched thing.
Don’t bother.
I third Byron Bay. God, I hate hippies. And all those poor little junkies hanging out are just really sad.
Place du Tertre in Paris. Up the top of the Mont in Montmartre and it’s stinking full of ‘artists’ doing shocking paintings for the tourists, ‘typical’ French bistros that are just awful. I don’t get it. Walk five minutes in any direction and you can’t help but find a nice neighbourhood bar/cafe/restaurant where you can while away a few lovely hours watching the world go by. But people choose to hang out there.
I’d love to go to Las Vegas and catch a lounge show.
Hollywood Boulevard is garish on the surface, but myriad charms are still to be found – gee, who’da thunk it in Hollywood!?
Musso & Frank Restuarant & Cocktail Bar is as real, and unpredictable as you could hope, visit after visit. The truly cosmopolitan staff seem to have been de-iced from the mortuary pre-service, and their moods swing the whole gamut from A to B too.
What they lack in customer relations they more than make up for in character, service, and excellent cocktails.
There’s Whacko’s Novelties a little farther up towards Silverlake, and maybe someone can help out here – is The Tiki Hut on Hollywood? A bar that has been run by a Hawaian family through 3 generations, and seats about 16 people max. Unmissable.
And if Hollywood Bl doesn’t do it for ya, almost every street to the side holds a neat trick, a piece of history, a shortcut to Scientology
“I swear the ‘must see’ Water Puppets in Hanoi are the most overrated, excruciating cacophony of noise i have ever heard.”
Hear! Hear!
Fortunately I brought my hipflask with me.
However the Cu Chi tunnels are worth doing, especially if you share the vert sardonic Vietnamese sense of humour. Like when you’re shown the 1960s propaganda films at the end. All these terribly decent birkenstock wearing US liberals squirming with embarrassment at crackling scratchy footage of some Viet Cong cadre member awarded the “Killer of Americans medal, Second class” while the Aussies, Brits and Frogs up the front chuckle away as the Vietnamese smirk in the background.
The firing range is good fun too. I shot off a AK47 clip and a M16 clip. But dipped out on the .50 machine gun at a US dollar per round.
Hoi An is a real tourist trap in Vietnam, at least at first. A beautiful place but boy do you get hassled in the street as a Westerner. I had to resort to saying ‘Nyet” (The Vietnamese do not like Russians at all. That was one doomed alliance.) Once you’re there for a few days though, the hustlers lay off a bit. And they do like Australians, not least because the ANZ is one of the most prominent and trustworthy financial institutions in the country.
Cancun, Mexico is the most hellish tourist trap I have ever encountered. Hotels shaped like pyramids, I kid you not. And every bar is free entry and free drinks for women, $50 bucks (probably more now) for men. Just terrible.
Fishermans Wharf is pretty bad, but there is this amazing museum of coin-operated amusement machines. Get a bunch of quarters and get your fortune told by the most primative animatronic fortune teller imaginable, or check out the “execution” series of machines – only a quarter to witness the English, French or American executions. Brilliant.
“Nabakov@55 – I’d be interested in details if you can PM me (not sure how to do that through the blog?!). Always a problem with launches – guess it would just be a matter of luck”
The launches are scheduled years in advance but keep changing at the last minute mainly due to weather. As far as I could see, unless you have a car, you need to stay in Orlando and spend around $US 100 plus on a day long expedition (inclusive of all fees) where they pick you up from your hotel, take you to the Kennedy Space Centre where you can see all the sites and sights and then position you on the NASA causeway with a good view of the shuttle launch across the water. I shopped around a bit (there’s tons of companies offering such packages) and this mob came well recommended by some locals.
http://www.viator.com/tours/Orlando/Kennedy-Space-Center-at-Cape-Canaveral/d663-3525KENNEDY
Or you could hire a car and go there – but what with car parking and entry fees, it doesn’t wind out much cheaper than an organised trip.
Of course it also means spends a few days in Orlando. Disneyworld! But I reckon it’s not really worth doing unless you’re sure you’re gonna see a shuttle launch. And I wasn’t.
“…maybe someone can help out here – is The Tiki Hut on Hollywood? A bar that has been run by a Hawaian family through 3 generations, and seats about 16 people max. Unmissable.”
I think you may mean the Tiki-Ti, down the empty end of Sunset Boulevard, LA’s oldest Tiki bar. I ended up there one night with another commenter on this blog around 1 am sucking back the Stealths and Zombies. Yes it seats about 16 but stands 50 plus. In a space the size of half a tram. With every surface layered with three generations of Hollywood mixocologist and Tiki memorabilia. And very smokey. “This a family business. We don’t actually employ anyone so we don’t have to worry about OSHA regulations.”
And yes, unmissable.
La Ramblas, Barcelona – (As LE pointed out) It’s a bit different from the Fisherman’s Wharf style tourist trap in that the locals use it to heard tourists so they can literally steal their wallets.
The harbour, Barcelona – Pretty sure it even has an IMAX theater.
The Golden Dachl, Innsbruck – One of the world’s oldest tourist traps. It actually was built way back whenever to attract tourists (like the Alps weren’t interesting enough to do that on it’s own?).
The pier, Brighton – Very Fisherman’s Wharfish.
Fisherman’s Wharf, Monteray – So lame…
Oktoberfest, Munich – This is controversial and if there was someone from Munich sitting next to me they’d probably punch me. But seriously, it’s a bunch of people getting drunk in lederhosen and dirndles. While I’ve been twice it’s only cause I was in the neighbourhood – definitely not worth flying half the world to witness it. If you are from Brisbane go to the Jube during the Ekka and you basically have the same experience.
Piccadily Circus, London – Pretty pointless as far as I can tell. On the other hand you can walk for 5 minutes and then you are in Soho which is infinitely interesting (and has spectacular coffee).
Pisa – Just avoid it. Really not that interesting. I mean, yay(!) the tower is half falling but aside from that it is a pretty damned boring ruralish Italian town.
Santa Monica, Los Angeles – Um, basically it is Surfers Paradise.
That dumb cafe 50km or so South of Big Sur – If you’d driven Big Sur you know the one I mean. It’s the only cafe for a long long way so a coke’ll cost you about $7 or somthing like that. Unfortunately it also has kick ass views. To be fair though, if you stop anywhere on that road it also has kick ass views.
As a rule I’d try to avoid anywhere with loads of English stag parties on the go. That pretty much rules out anywhere that Ryan Air flies to, which means that you have a double awesome holiday as you get to avoid flying Ryan Air.
And they do like Australians, not least because the ANZ is one of the most prominent and trustworthy financial institutions in the country.
.
Really? Innerestin’. Considering the relative solidity of Oz banks after the latest House of greed collapse maybe we can extend our influence thru the financial market.
.
Let’s become an Empire. Forget history. Sure it always ends badly. Sure people take ages to stop hating you. But think of the power.
“Really? Innerestin’. Considering the relative solidity of Oz banks after the latest House of greed collapse maybe we can extend our influence thru the financial market.”
After 1975, the Yanks imposed an economic embargo on Vietnam. However the Aussies, Brits and French didn’t. And so got a head start on everyone else during Doi moi. Which is why now there you do your banking with ANZ, Barclays or HKSBC while enjoying excellent French wines with your meals.
Good to hear of people getting pleasure out of supposedly crap tourist destinations.
Tourist trap is an oxymoron. If you think of yourself as a tourist, ergo, you are entrapped.
As Dot Parker said in the word game using the word ‘horticulture’: “You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think”.
Or, if you prefer, “nothing is more important than imagination.” Einstein
Tourist traps and complaining about them serve a need for a certain class of people. The aim is to excite the envy of others on the basis of the mere naming of places other supposedly less fortunate haven’t visited at the same time as whining about how goddam awful these places really are and, by implication, how brilliant and deservedly fortunate the intrepid tourist hero-narrators are to have chosen to spend their lives in far superior boxes and boltholes.
This gives tourists some solace, it seems.
What a precious comment. The Vietnamese don’t hate us. The vast majority wouldn’t even know of our involvement in their war and plenty in the South would think it was a good thing if they were told of it. As Nabs points out with his “nyet” observation there are others whom the Vietnamese really dislike.
Against that the ANZ bank has an excellent reputation in Vietnam, not least because it introduced ATMs. Try withdrawing money in a Vietnamese bank and you’d soon realise what a godsend ATMs are.
Still if you think uninformed cynicism puts you at the cutting of of wit I’ll leave you to wallow in your ignorance. Perhaps you should get around a bit more.
That’s interesting Nabs – the ANZ bank is the only AU bank in East Timor too. I didnt know they had some international profile. Well regarded, as far as I can see – though they charge a bit on transfers.
“Cancun, Mexico is the most hellish tourist trap I have ever encountered. Hotels shaped like pyramids, I kid you not. And every bar is free entry and free drinks for women, $50 bucks (probably more now) for men. Just terrible.”
Now we’re talking. What a joint. We got waylaid en route to Havan for a few hours, took the shuttle bus into town. And yup, it’s a huge strip of gorgeous beach punctuated by heinous malls, uber-malls too. This thread is appealing to the deep inner snob in me. “Look honey, they have a Gap here!” said one woman as we passed the sixth mall.
Great.
Glad we flew from Texas to find a Gap at the end of Mexico.
“I think you may mean the Tiki-Ti, down the empty end of Sunset Boulevard, LA’s oldest Tiki bar.”
I do indeed, and thanks for the assist.
Minor concern: You must have downed 3 to 4 times the cocktails I did at last visit, but you have the details to hand.
Must be intelligent design.
Lygon St is a horrible place. Shyster restaurants. Brunswick street going that way fast – - but still pockets of resistance. Tourism eats itself anywhere.
David Rubie@7 – Sun City is indeed weird and fascinating. High Kitsch mecca. Go surfing in the desert! I tried to steal the table decoration at one bar, slipping a highly coloured plastic palm tree complete with monkey and coconut into my handbag, and was nearly sent to Robbin Island. Bad mistake. Only got out of the place by spending vast amounts of money on gold bracelets.
My next stop was Pilanesberg Nature Reserve, one of the creepiest places on the planet. Driving through the reserve late in the afternoon, trying to spot “nature” through the scrubby acacias, it gradually dawned on me that there were only two of every species: two antelope, two buffalo, two rhinos, two monkeys etc. Strange way to keep animals, especially those that flock together naturally. And it was sooo quiet. It was only later when I got back to Australia, that I was told an elephant had killed a tourist a couple of days before my visit. No wonder.
Place du Tertre isn’t that bad – it was pissing it down with rain when we were there, so maybe that kept the worst of the crowds away, but we spent a pleasant couple of hours in the general area, including a great little Dali museum that we ended up in just to get out of the rain! The bistro we ate at was pretty average (it was supposedly where Edith Piaf was discovered), but to be honest of all the bistros we ate at in Paris only one was exceptional – the one near our apartment, not in a tourist area (despite being only 15 minutes walk from the Eiffel Tower). Overpriced and rather average restaurants are also a feature of Champs-Elysees though – in fact probably almost anywhere where a significant percentage of customers are “passing through” rather than regulars.
Nabakov – thanks for that!
Paris was an eclectic mixture of tourist guff and some of the most wonderful architecture on the planet.
People were very friendly once they realised I’d made some sort of effort to learn basic phrases (worked quite a lot on the pronunciation). The only time I saw “attitude” was when we had one of the ubiquitous “you can’t understand me so I’LL TALK LOUD” tourists who needed some help with translation.
Major dichotomy – Paris above ground, then seeing the cops and other “charactors” on the metro below ground. Scary.
I agree the area around Place du Tertre is wonderful. It’s the actual little square that’s awful.
Parisians are very friendly, in my experience, if you make just the smallest effort to speak some French.
I should add, despite the Water Puppets, i adored Hanoi. One of the most amazing places on the planet. Can’t wait to go back.
wbb
try Lygon Street in East Brunswick: Gelo Bar, Rumi’s, etc
Here’s a question – when do areas morph into tourist traps and under what conditions?
If we accept for the sake of argument that Lygon St is one – I can recall going there for the first time in 88, and drinking in good student pubs and having a very decent pizza at that very decent pizza place that had been there forever. A few years laster, had a not bad at all meal one block up from Readings. Last time I was there in 06, I was somewhat shellshocked by all the restaurant touts and the place I picked to dine was – errr, awful.
I am surprised some of Singapore hasn’t had a mention. I visited Sentosa island about a decade ago. We swam at a mademade “beach” which had a boom across it about 50 metres out to stop the oil from the tankers flowing in. There was appalling Chinese dragon kitch all around, and to add to the bizarre nature of the place, I was told that Singapore’s longest serving political prisoner was housed there in some kind of internal exile. It made me think that perhaps Guantanimo Bay should be closed and all the prisoners moved tio Disneyland, to live their lives out in some kind of American nightmare.
Agreed about the town of Bryon Bay. Hastings Street in Noosa is up there too, along with Ackland Street in St Kilda, which went from interesting to awful in a decade (or less).
Stone Henge. Bloody great wire fence around it, and it’s on a motorway, so cars whizzing past. Hugely overrated, and there’s a much better stone circle at Avebury.
Dunno Mark, and of course we’ve not defined precisely what a “tourist trap” is.
For instance, why Lygon St. and not Chapel St.
Anywhere selling t-shirts with “… and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” should qualify, but not all tourist traps will necessarily sell t-shirts.
Mark wrote:
That depends:
- if it’s untouched tropical paradise you’re after, it will be a tourist trap by the time you find out about it.
- if it’s in America, anywhere the first Winnebago shows up, because the Starbucks guys use them to scout new locations
- in Paris, anywhere that promises nudity and/or has been used in a film.
- in Australia, anywhere the home/style/fashion magazines are currently pushing will have turned before you arrive. Strangely, if at some point the residents either constructed or planned to construct a “big something” – said town will return to normalcy quickly. Compare Ballina and it’s Big Prawn and Byron Bay – Ballina is still relatively pleasant while Byron is a frou-frou macrobiotic hell. That Big Prawn keeps the idiots away!
Oh c’mon Acland St isn’t that bad – I was there recently and had a very pleasant lunch at Vineyard. Didn’t spend that long on Acland St itself, but there’s no way I’d describe it as “awful”, in the way that, say, Highpoint Shopping Centre is “awful”.
And Ballina is one of the poorest and roughest towns in the area!
I echo Byron, Cancun, bits of Venice and Rome and add Cannery Row in Monteray, California.
“Here’s a question – when do areas morph into tourist traps and under what conditions?”
Mark i think that in many cases it has something to do with mainstream acceptance of the lifestyle or some other factor that brought the place to prominance.
Cannery Row obviously came to everyones attention ’cause of Steinbeck’s novel. When he got the nobel, it started to get school groups and every aspect of the place from it’s otters to the aquariam became attractions and tshirt slogans. My Hairy Otter tshirt remains a hit at kids parties.
for byron it seemed to coincide with that point where you didn’t get beaten up at school for having mung beans and alfalfa sprouts in your lunch bag.
Mark: was it “Toto’s” pizza place?, dating back to the 1950’s before Pizza entered Huts. Lygon Street in the 60s and 70s was still relatively quiet, no “boutique” clothes shops, etc. Still had a local, Italian feel.
A pleasant place changes into a trap at the moment YOU feel uncomfortable, harassed, overcrowded, or dudded.
The change takes place when there’s spruikers trying to drag you into restaurants.
Acland St is still great during the week. It’s just a wee bit overcrowded on the weekends. But there’s still decent places to hang out there.
Unfortunately that old staple Scherezade on Acland St (where the schnitzel was schitzel but the borscht was brilliant) has gone the way of the dodo, thanks to a dispute over rent. But it’ll be okay as long as the famous cake shops stay on. (Though those cake shops might have a problem in the EU now…)
Hey, what happens when you’re in Italy, standing in line to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
*You have to mind your Pisan queues!!*
Sorry, but I’ve been waiting for years for an excuse to do that one. Hey, what happens on a clear day in Southern California? — UCLA!! I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.
Believe it or not, a tourist actually really did once ask me “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” (Those really were his exact words.). So of course I had to say, “Practice!!”
I’m quite a piss-poor local, as you can see, so stay far away from me if you’re on a trip.
But if you’re visiting Los Angeles, skip the usual crap and check out the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Don’t ask what it is, just close your eyes and cross your fingers for luck. You won’t see anything quite like it anywhere else.
I’m not going to discuss the weird cool places in New York.
Btw, (utterly unrelated question), where’s Graham Bell these days? He’s missed.
“I’m quite a piss-poor local, as you can see, so stay far away from me if you’re on a trip.”
Not true.
I stayed away, albeit pneumonia-induced, and it cost me dinner at Peter Luger’s Steakhouse. The payoff of a day in emergency at St. Luke’s, sweating and coughing and watching homeless guys try to avoid getting discharged was not up to scratch.
Stonehenge? I know a lass whose family used to stop the car (circa 1960) right next to Stonehenge, for a cuppa, on their way south to the coast. No fences, no concrete paths, no kiosk, no tickets, no guidebooks, no coaches. Just the stones, the fields, and a young family supping tea on a quiet morning. Magic.
Hey Stone Henge, talking about tourism, has your wife ever been to the West Indies? You know the rest. I felt I should have been standing there as you posted your comment, wearing a fez and a snare drum: ba-boom-tish with each line. Except for the Carnegie Hall one. You meant to say, surely: Practise, practise (Not practice)
“Believe it or not, a tourist actually really did once ask me “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” (Those really were his exact words.). So of course I had to say, “Practice!!””
Believe it or not, exactly the same thing happened to me while loitering at a traffic crossing on Columbus Circle. All the locals cracked up then cheerfully provided directions to the baffled Japanese lady in question. Mind you, being New Yorkers, they managed to completely confuse her and eachother with how to travel a couple of blocks south. I kept truckin’ north.
Travel myth 23: New Yorkers are rude and unfriendly. I’ve always found them very cheerful and often helpful if occasionally a bit brisk. Certainly much nicer and more effective with directions than Hong Kongers.
Let’s face it Stonehenge is a bloody ruin. Most of it has just fallen down. The sooner they repair it the better.
But yes Avebury is better. More haunted. As are Castle Acre and Binham Priories in Norfolk.
Agree, Avebury is superior. Though really, for stone age – go Celtic fringe. Much better than England’s fare: Ireland’s Newgrange, Knowth, the Currachs on the South Welsh Coast.
Nabakov: “travel myth 23…”
Well I’m very happy you’ve pointed this out. The idea that New Yorkers are rude has always been a gross misperception. The actual fact is of course that New Yorkers do everything TWENTY FUCKING TRILLION TIMES FASTER THAN THE REST OF YOU FUCKING MORONS. And this is what accounts for the discrepancy in perception.
We are very sorry for any misunderstandings which may have been caused.
Signed,
The people of Noo Yawk
“Hanoi…One of the most amazing places on the planet.”
Yes, those fucking water puppets aside, I agree. Giant banyan trees looming out of the morning mist on streets full of classic French colonial terraces. Wandering through the old quarter with its winding roads full of ancient crafts like the streets of tinsmiths, silkworkers, woodworkers and Tintin memorabilia knockoffs. I spent a hugely enjoyably hour there bargaining over an beautifully carved and well loved opium pipe. To celebrate the fact I’d beaten them down by A$1.50 from what was already overpriced at A$12, little cups of bitter black coffer cut with condensed milk started appearing. Hanoi is not all like Saigon.
Another great Hanoi memory. Eating ice creams at sunset at a Hoan Kiem Lake kiosk playing Bix Biederbecke and Jack Teagarden. It’s a curiously timeless city. Not a tourist trap.
Absolutely; Ive always found people friendly in New York. In fact, Americans are – as a rule – affable by early cultivation. Sure they do weird shit with their cutlery, but you cant call them rude. It’s always a relief in say, oh I dunno…. CANADA, to find a yank in a bar.
However, if you want unfriendly, I give you: London. Not that I cared a lot when I lived there. If you go Thames-side looking for a smile, you may be missing the point of that ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly f*cking great town.
And while I’m namechecking cool travel stuff, the next time anyone’s in Paris, it’s worth going to Chateau Rouge, the Parisian equivalent of Harlem ie: the black area. Despite the hyperventilating o certain anti-multicultarism commenters here, I’ve never felt spooked in Chateau Rouge by the locals. Although they have world class pickpockets there. But but the food, music and general vibe is really cool.
The scariest moment I had there was the Paris Metro police conducting one of their regular “sweeps” on the local metro station. They are really nasty bastards. Even though I’m patently a large prosperous WASP, it didn’t stop one of them from tapping my throat with his truncheon because I was bit slow in finding my metro ticket. I shudder to think what happened to the poor African bastards without “les docs” they were escorting into the windowless buses.
On a brighter note, watch out if a Parisienne invites you to lunch around Montmartre just before noon on the first Wednesday of the month. Apparently it’s a long standing joke on the unaware and it freaked the bejesus out of me when it was first played on me. Not least because everyone in the bistro from staff to customers gleefully played along.
Oh, and while we’re myth-busting around the world: how on earth did the British ever get a reputation for punctual and efficient public transport; especially re:trains?
The French, Germans, and yes, even the Italians are streets ahead. Maybe it was better before the Thatcherite wrecking-ball, but blimey, talk about 2nd-raters.
A question for those far more familiar with Paris than me, WTF is up with some of those old drinking establishments on the left bank with the middle eastern style squat toilets? *That* scared the bejeesus out of me, walking down a steep, tiny set of stairs pissed up to the eyeballs and a bit of local spliff, only to be confronted by a stinking hole with tiles either side of it. My first thought was that somebody had nicked the dunny.
Oh, and you have to see La Victoire de Samothrace before you die. The Louvre is rather disappointingly full of reproductions of classical greek and roman statues from the 18th century, but that thing is astonishing.
I was en route from Bundaberg to Mount Perry and saw the sign on the turnoff from the Bundaberg-Gin Gin road saying that they were just 100 metres to the left.
Accentuating the positive, can I put in a plug for Wooli on the NSW North Coast and Woodgate on Queensland’s Fraser Coast? And also Boreen Point, Pomona, Imbil and Kandanga in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.
David Rubie, they simply haven’t been renovated for a long time. It’s getting rarer to find a squat toilet in Paris. But I don’t think it’s a Middle Eastern influence. I lived in Paris in ‘92 and my toilet was a sqaut one shared by other people living on the same floor and cleaned by the concierge. When I was there last year I visited a friend and there was still a squat toilet on her floor, even though everyone had their own toilet. It’s just olde tyme Paris.
Fine wrote:
Ah, I see.
Paris is easily the oldest place I’ve visited, I tend to forget about the living history stuff in truly old places. Cheers for that.
On a contrary note – Dismal Swamp in Tasmania is excellent!
Has one of the most fun slide-shute thingies Ive even been on, and walking through the swamp is surprisingly cool, and the kiddies luv it.
Chateau Rouge is good fun as is Belleville, especially the markets. I bought a pair of leather gloves for 8 euro there last winter. Belleville also has great bars.
Except walking.
Sorry, I don’t know when Sydneysiders overtook New York for walking speed, but my wife and I keep running up the heels of the locals with monotonous regularity.
Get off the sidewalk already!
Mercurius — you’re quite right, the Art of Walking in American cities has declined horribly in recent years. In New York I blame it chiefly on the lack of actual New Yorkers.
btw, I must apologize for the comment which M. quoted above. It was meant as a sort of Unreliable Narrator joke, but when I see it in plain black and white, it’s easy to see how it could be read as simply obnoxious. Which was not the intention.
We apologize for any misunderstanding.
– the People of Noo Yawk, Hizzona M. Bloomberg presiding(at least I think; haven’t been reading the papers much).
By the way, don’t you think the word “obnoxious” is just fantastic? Look at the way it lays out on the page, it looks so weird. And forget the Latin roots for a moment (or, “your Latin ROOTS-ah!” as Fugazi would put it), the “noxious” part conveys all the strictly necessary meaning, but there’s this weird “ob” thing stuck on the front like a Halloween pumpkin. (Yes I know what it does but that’s not the point.)
Man, sometimes I just really adore the English language. Shaw, Wilde and Frank O’Hara would be no fun at all in Flemish. Hell, even Jacques Brel is funnier in translation, wai?
…. 2nd prize would have to go to the “Gnome Park” near Bristol in England.
These people distribute pamphlets all across southern England. In the pamphlet it sort of looks marginally on the sane side of bizzare, just enough to attract children who then insist on going.
In reality it is a garden of about an acre of a small farmhouse filled with garden gnomes. That’s it. There are some lame attempts to create some “dioramas” like gnomes placed round a small pond with improvised fishing poles and a sign saying the pond is a “wishing well” with an invitation to throw coins.
Bear in mind this place is about 2 hours drive from anywhere, and the kids are going to last about 5 minutes before they get bored. Truly horrific.
But first place goes to the model train ride (as in smallish ride-on model steam railway, guage about 10 inches) that runs through the grounds of a “stately home” in Dorset. The train ride is pretty good as far as things go, but the countryside is untended farmland and pretty uninteresting.
To spice it up you pass by a couple of copses of trees where old, wet moldy teddy bears have been nailed to tree branches. Yes you did read that right. It costs about 5 pounds, children are 2 and takes about 10 minutes.
Roadside America is a good place to look for really weird attractions. I bought a book (“Thew New Roadside America”) on my first trip to the states many years ago and it provided hours of fun trying to find some of the more bizarre attractions around California/Nevada. Sadly, a lot of the really weird stuff has disappeared (houses built out of bottles, wacky concrete gardens etc) but just flicking through the book is fun. Then again, any book that features a section called “Catholocism Unleashed” is worth a look.
In the 1980s I went to the country music festival in Tamworth with some friends from UNE. One of the guys was a local so we stayed at his place on the outskirts of Tamworth. We never went into the festival on his advice. But we did watch heaps of videos, consumed about ten slabs, two bottles of whisky, two bottles of Southern Comfort,several bottles of vodka, and, OMG, far too much tequila. And lots of those Vermouth and gin cocktails.
So I guess I avoided the tourist trap.
Got very pissed, though.
one of the places that i don’t want to go to is Corfu. This is despite the richness that the place has in my imagination care of the books of Gerald Durrell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Family_and_Other_Animals , and to a lesser extent his brother Larry. Of course it was GD’s books that helped turn it into such a destrctive tourist destination, the Wiki entry indicates that the D’s thought that and lamented it.
long after i read the Durrel Books i read Thucydides, it took several months before i made the connection between Corcyra and Corfu. so another reason to go, but not enough to add it to the itinery, unless i ever get around to the Mediterranian cycle circiut that i have oft pondered.
This seems to complement the post:
http://www.arionkudasz.com/tourist.html
j_p_z
is part of the pleaure that the weird “ob” reminds one of “knob”, that squat little lump of a word?
Maybe it’s time to nominate some (other) favourite words?