#6 I was in Oia in Santorini and it ain’t that difficult to get many great pictures with no people in it.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was fine for what it is, but Superman 3 had made me expect a different setting, years before (solitary wonky tower in its own circular plaza). Whereas in real life it hangs off the corner of an impressive campus of grand buildings. Buildings which were built properly.
Yeah, too many of the pictures in the Op were just that fog had settled in on that day.
But my friends were unimpressed with the Mona Lisa. They went back the next day and avoided that area, and sawa lot of great art.
I was just at Stonehenge earlier this week, and it wasn’t too bad. You can get closer than what I expected, but definitely not in among the stones.
I think this is a case of low expectations meaning that anything good was satisfying, because what I anticipated was tempered by exactly the kinds of things others up thread said.
I don’t recommend it unless you are really into that kind of thing, and can go during the off season.
The problem I had when I went to Stonehenge (1987) was a tour group of some sort (archeology/history field trip?) was wandering around inside the perimeter. Between them and their backpacks that were laying all over the place it was really hard to get a photo without some anachronistic item visible in amongst the stones.
I first went in the mid-50s on a school trip. The coach parked in an adjacent car park and we walked to the stones, where we were able to wander around freely. One of our party was sent back to the coach because he was trying to scratch his name on a stone. There was no “visitor centre” and no facilities at all. The sign with information about the stones had been vandalised.
It’s still possible to get up close and personal with the stones by booking a VIP Stone Circle Experience.
Visits last for an hour and take place in the early morning or evening, outside normal visiting hours. They’re also subject to very limited availability, with a maximum of 30 people per session.
The do this in Bergen, Norway as well. I found it uniquely interesting!
Brussels
Manneken Pis statue in Brussels was underwhelming despite its age and history. So tiny!
Reims, France
The Reims cathedral was awesome and worth every minute of the tour.
Aruba
The beaches are awesome and look like the photos. Gorgeous crystal, clear turquoise water. It’s getting a bit more crowded as the years go by but I plan on going every year until I can’t.
Planning an Ireland trip in September so I imagine I will have some notable experiences.
I actually found the Mona Lisa to be bigger than I expected. Granted, it’s not a huge painting, but after years of hearing about how small it is, I guess I was expecting it to be postcard sized.
It is 2′ 6″ x 1′ 9″, but since you cant get close it looks smaller.
Really it is not that great. But it became famous after the french gave it a lot of publicity after it’s theft in 1911. But of course since there are less that 20 Da Vinci painting around, it is still an important artwork.
It is also not quite the original having been touched up several times and revarnished.
And Da Vinci did at least 3 different versions of it.
In Florence we were recommended to the Piazzale Michelangelo by our hotel - ’ Not very crowded, great view’. We got to Florence in the late afternoon, so we did the half-hour walk up the hill, dodging the huge crowd to the top. Yes, it was a great view - with about 400 people in front of us.
A couple of mornings later we went for a pre-breakfast walk - to the Piazza. The view was even better and there was us and a few pigeons there.
Before breakfast is always the best time.
Yabbut there’s over 8 billion humans on the planet, but there’s only one of me. Therefore, I am not the problem! 
It is indeed sad how so many of those places are spoiled simply by the presence of vast masses of humanity. And many of the ones that aren’t spoiled by that direct presence are spoiled by the indirect effects – climate change and pollution.
Sometimes I feel that the planet is staggering under the weight of us all, and in many ways, it is.
Yeah, “I went there, and I can’t believe other people went there”
Hey, @Slow_Moving_Vehicle, you didn’t have a wild tour guide named Andreas, did you?
Our Lutheran church has been doing coach tours around areas in Germany associated with Martin Luther.
We just got back from this year’s tour (of the Balkans and the Alps). And Andreas got us hiking up to castles and salt mines, and a monastery with its own distillery. And samples… much fun!
We stayed off the touristy track (and got great prices) by staying in ski resort towns after the snow had melted. Each hotel had gourmet meals, chairlifts up to stunning vistas… and some wonderful spas!
My mother did a tour like that about 20 years ago. As luck would have it, I was in Germany for work at the same time. I took a train and met up with her group for a weekend in Vienna.
No, it really is that great. Groundbreaking.
Famous to laypeople. Artists and critics had always realized its worth, even in Leonardo’s own lifetime.
None of the other versions are accepted by a majority of art historians as Leonardo’s work.
I’ve read the Mona Lisa is small because Da Vinci traveled and worked on it where ever he lived. I can imagine it in a leather bag and getting banged around with his other luggage.
Art conservatives today would faint at the thought of the Mona Lisa in the back of a muddy horse drawn carriage.
The modern virtual tours of art museums gives everyone an opportunity to view art in extremely high detail. It’s still fun to visit museums in person.
I was there a year earlier, in 1977 – I could walk among the stones and touch them.