Worst European attractions

Martin wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:53:48 +0100,
(David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
prestwich tesco 24h offy) wrote:
[]
My ideal would be for the next 4 weeks to get much cooler, good amount
of rain, and then have it sunny and warm when we're in Croatia
mid-August!

NL has closed all the sluices that allow water to flow out of NL and
raised the water level of the IJsselmeer in preparation for a drought.

I was in Birmingham yesterday, and quite a bit of disruption caused as
speed restrictions were put on some of the high speed trains due to
heat. Luckily, the a/c was working fine on the train (type of train
where you can't open windows!)- my colleage, who took a train down to
Southampton wasn't as lucky, and complained he was melting.

A lot of the golf courses I've seen look unusually yellow.

--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org

Martin wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:23:36 +0100,
(David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
prestwich tesco 24h offy) wrote:


A lot of the golf courses I've seen look unusually yellow.

Every lack of cloud has silver lining.

I'm not a golfer, but I'm surprised some of the courses I've seen fropm
the train etc. haven't been using sprinklers- as in some of those areas
there's no ban that I've heard of anyway.

--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 22:51:55 +0000 (UTC), quiqueg
wrote:

wrote in news:86dqb2docroaevo28m8og0pq4p1uqcmnm9@
4ax.com:

What do you think are the least impressive things you've done in your
European travels?

Bratislava. Not completely awful, but didn't touch a chord either.

Yes, I found it like that too. Just pretty unremarkable.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

personally thought Ponte Vecchio was really nice and seemingly relatively
unchanged - i went at xmas and it was beautifully illuminated, the shops
looked amazing and there were no beggars - not sure what u were expecting
from it - Brandenberg Gate too i thought was quite nice..i mean its a
historical gate..not an amusement park so theres not much to do there but it
was very clean with history info plaques and the square was nice - the
nearby new shopping centre is an architectural marvel

living in Dublin and cant understand why anyone would want to visit - would
be interested to see numbers of repeat visitors to the city but dont reckon
it would be too high - the streets are filthy, the traffic is life
threatening and regularly feel intimated by scumbags on the public
transport - but if youre after a weekend on the beer its great


"Iceman" wrote in message
oups.com...
wrote:
What do you think are the least impressive things you've done in your
European travels?

For me two things stand out:

Eiffel tower - As impressive as this structure is, the experience of
visiting it was a let down. I wish I'd taken a few photos from down
river by the Tuillerie and been done with it. There was not enough
information on the history of the tower available. Waiting in line for
so long probably made the experience worse too.

Basically if you've been to The Sears Tower, Seattle space needle or
any other super tall structure on the planet, you got the same thing;
tiny houses that don't look particularly french, American or anything
else and pencil dot sized people and cars moving around.

The world looks pretty much the same from 1,000 feet up wherever you
are. Save your money and spend the time at the Louvre or St. Chapelle.

Dublin - Yep I mean the whole city. The entire nation of Ireland is a
gemstone. I loved visiting every part of it, except Dublin. The place
is a dump. None of the restaurants particularly impressive. None of
the hotels nearly as comfortable as the B&Bs in the countryside. Who
really cares where James Joyce had a drink? Guiness is great beer but
thier factory is a huge bore. The best part was Dublin Castle and
Trinity and I saw better castles and churches elsewhere in Ireland.

I would love to hear what other people would advise does not live up
to the hype in theri travels.

Three famous places that totally suck when you see them up close are
the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the Spanish Steps in Rome, and the
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, not to take anything away from the
incredible cities around them.

The most disappointing city I saw was Athens. It's polluted, dirty,
sprawls on endlessly in every direction, the ruins are underwhelming
and will take about an hour to see, the only old part of the city the
Plaka is just tourist restaurants and souvenier stores, and the modern
city has absolutely nothing of interest. Fly directly to the Greek
islands and skip this dump.

Dave Frightens Me writes:

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 22:51:55 +0000 (UTC), quiqueg
wrote:

Bratislava. Not completely awful, but didn't touch a chord either.

Yes, I found it like that too. Just pretty unremarkable.

I rather liked it. Unpretentious, enough old architecture to keep
me interested, lots of cheap food, very few other people around... and
plenty of insane communist-era structures, like the bridge with the flying
saucer[1] on it, and Radio Slovakia's upside down pyramid building

How can anyone not like that?

Cheers,

Paul.

[1] And I'm thankful it was there, as it gave me a good idea of which direction
to head, when I walked through the nearly endless apartment blocks to the city
centre, from station Petrzalka, not having had any Slovak currency with which
to buy a bus ticket.


--
Paul Dwerryhouse | PGP Key ID: 0x6B91B584
================================================== ======================
Paul's travel photos:
http://leapster.org/paul/photos/

Iceman wrote:

wrote:
What do you think are the least impressive things you've done in your
European travels?

For me two things stand out:

Eiffel tower - As impressive as this structure is, the experience of
visiting it was a let down. I wish I'd taken a few photos from down
river by the Tuillerie and been done with it. There was not enough
information on the history of the tower available. Waiting in line for
so long probably made the experience worse too.

Basically if you've been to The Sears Tower, Seattle space needle or
any other super tall structure on the planet, you got the same thing;
tiny houses that don't look particularly french, American or anything
else and pencil dot sized people and cars moving around.

The world looks pretty much the same from 1,000 feet up wherever you
are. Save your money and spend the time at the Louvre or St. Chapelle.

Dublin - Yep I mean the whole city. The entire nation of Ireland is a
gemstone. I loved visiting every part of it, except Dublin. The place
is a dump. None of the restaurants particularly impressive. None of
the hotels nearly as comfortable as the B&Bs in the countryside. Who
really cares where James Joyce had a drink? Guiness is great beer but
thier factory is a huge bore. The best part was Dublin Castle and
Trinity and I saw better castles and churches elsewhere in Ireland.

I would love to hear what other people would advise does not live up
to the hype in theri travels.

Three famous places that totally suck when you see them up close are
the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the Spanish Steps in Rome, and the
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, not to take anything away from the
incredible cities around them.

snip

Well, Rome and Berlin are still on the list of to-do's but I spent a week
in Florence once and the Ponte Vecchio was crossed every day and yes, it
was a little underwhelming, but only in direct contrast to the rest of
that wonderful city.

However the interest in the Ponte Vecchio is not solely in the organic
form of the built work that we, the citizens of the world can stroll
across, but in the fact that a passage existed at high level in the time
of the Medicis across it, running from the Piazza della Signoria down the
Uffizi Palace to the Pitti Palace, so that The Medici could pass from one
to the other unmolested.

European Cities are all about their past history as much as theire
present, and Florence in the time of the Medicis was once the centre of
the world - its nice to see a bit of its "hidden history" in plain sight,
as it were.

M.

Following up to

Eiffel tower - As impressive as this structure is, the experience of
visiting it was a let down. I wish I'd taken a few photos from down
river by the Tuillerie and been done with it. There was not enough
information on the history of the tower available. Waiting in line for
so long probably made the experience worse too.

I thought it was a tower with a view of Paris, which is OK.
Queuing would be a pain, I wouldn't do it. Last time I was there
a queue existed so I didnt bother.

Basically if you've been to The Sears Tower, Seattle space needle or
any other super tall structure on the planet, you got the same thing;
tiny houses that don't look particularly french, American or anything
else and pencil dot sized people and cars moving around.

Yes, all these view points are similar, did you expect otherwise?
Question the hype, not the structure. You are Usian, right? Are
Paris and Dublin the most hyped places in Europe, for you?
If I said Mesquita, would you be familiar with it?

Who really cares where James Joyce had a drink?

people who read his books?

Guiness is great beer but thier factory is a huge bore.

no it isnt, modern Guinless its a fairly tastless keg pasturised
advertsiing ploy with a recognisable colour and texture.

I would love to hear what other people would advise does not live up
to the hype in theri travels.

I advise people to avoid Madam Two Swords unless they are
braindead.

Also avoid anything you are not really interested and wouldnt do
at home (if it was available) in but are there for the "trophy".
For me thats most art galleries, I save the time for bars and
restaurants.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Following up to

What do you think are the least impressive things you've done in your
European travels?

my attempt to chat up a barmaid in Tossa del Mar while ****ed.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Following up to BB

As far as leisure travel, probably the boat trip in Amsterdam. It was
essentially the same thing we'd seen on foot, but with the added feature
of being cooked in a moving greenhouse.

the evening cheese and wine boat tour is much better.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Following up to David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of
besses o' th' barn and prestwich tesco 24h offy

My ideal would be for the next 4 weeks to get much cooler,

Oy! You were saying the warm weather was OK a few days ago?
(its 12 in Shetland).
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap