Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Eiffel Tower Most Disappointing Tourist Spot?



Natalie Paris (fittingly) reports in the UK Telegraph about the top 10 'most disappointing' tourist spots:

1) The Eiffel Tower
2) The Louvre (Mona Lisa)
3) Times Square
4) Las Ramblas, Spain
5) Statue of Liberty
6) Spanish Steps, Rome
7) The White House
8) The Pyramids, Egypt
9) The Brandenburg Gate, Germany
10) The Leaning Tower of Pisa

The Eiffel Tower is "frustratingly overcrowded and overpriced" while Stonehenge is "just a load of old rocks" according to a report which has named the top ten most disappointing tourist spots.

The Louvre's Mona Lisa and New York's Times Square also have difficulty enticing tourists to rush back, the survey reveals.

Even Egypt's great pyramids, one of the seven wonders of the world, made the list of underwhelming and overrated attractions, because of the oppressive heat and the persistent hawkers.

But top of the list was Paris's famous tower, which almost a quarter of the 1,000 plus British tourists questioned dubbed a flop. (Read more)

2 comments:

Alan Le Bras said...

The Eiffel Tower is a mere visual nuisance for the people living in its vicinity.
It was meant to be demolished when the Universal Exhibition of 1889 would be over. The local authorities of the time decided to keep it as well as the Trocadero building, the one facing the Eiffel Tower and that has a lovely communist-like architecture.
Many people have tried to have it broken down by the past, but to no avail...
Now, the Ministry of of Heritage and Historical Monuments is trapped and tied by the Ministry of Tourism. The Eiffel Tower is a very good milk-cow for the city of Paris and since the tower is more than a century old, it is by law part of the French Heritage building, therefore very difficult to dismantle at this stage.

Anonymous said...

a 'visual nuisance'?! how differently non-Parisians and the world see it...so many of us 'dream' of going there and taking a photo of the two near the fountains, etc.

considering how much $$ is brought in, maybe at least it can be celebrate as a revenue-generating nuisance? (grin)