Insipired by the Mount Rushmore thread, I got to thinking what places or monuments or other things have you visited in real life and when you actually saw it for real were unimpressed.
The Gold Gate Bridge for me was a HUGE disapointment. It looks so much prettier in pictures. I got there and I was “ew it’s red” LOL
I then I walked over it and I was like OK big deal. It was much more fun to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge (and that had places to sit too :))
I was also disapointed in the Statue of Liberty. It’s very cool walking up it, but it’s nothing like I thought it would be. It’s definately worth going to if you can still walk up the insides, but if that is closed to the public, there’s no point to it.
The Alamo in San Antonio. The whole story seemed so larger than life then when I actually saw it, I was struck at how small it was. It was great to see but it did take some mental adjustments.
The Mona Lisa is a painting like 4 inches tall and displayed in a box that blocks out all light so you can’t see it, and what you can see is distorted by eight inches of glass.
(Slightly exaggerated, but it’s the impression the real thing left in the Louvre.)
Two things from the opposite sides of this spectrum, both when driving around in northern Italy:
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, three guys tilting their heads: “It’s leaning.” “Yup, sure is.” “Let’s get a beer.”
Venice. What *were *they thinking when they founded it? It’s totally insane and doesn’t look real. It looks like a Hollywod backdrop, only there are boats and traffic lights at intersection and busses and real people milling about and the creepy pigeons. Maybe I wasn’t impressed, but sure perplexed.
We’ve done this thread before and I came in to repeat what you said. The Leaning Tower really failed to impress. On postcards it looks cool, in reality it’s not that big and it’s surrounded by tourist trap central.
The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The lines are long, you finally get there and only have a few seconds for each one, and they’re unimpressive. Both are too faded to read (they really should have pristine copies next to each) and of course under bulletproof glass. The mosaics in the building are nice though.
A lot of europe was for me, The mona lisa is like really small and hard to see. The leaning tower of Pisa? i didnt even bring my camera because the city looked like it had nothing good i nit
One of the standard answers in a thread like this is Stonehenge. I try to give its Neolithic builders a break–if I had similar tools and help, I doubt I’d have the vision or stamina to set up a bunch of 50-ton, 15+ foot tall sarsen stones. But I have to admit that it does look much smaller than expected in person (in comparison to the impressions conveyed by dramatic photographs), and after about four minutes of walking around, it takes a lot of effort to maintain much interest in what you see in front of you.
One of the greatest artistic losses in history was the near-total destruction of Pisa’s Camposanto, almost next door to the Leaning Tower. It was badly damaged by an Allied bomb during the Second World War, and although some of the frescoes and sarcophagi were salvageable, the majority were completely obliterated. It’s really a ghost of its former self.
I’d expect that, even if the Camposanto were still intact, most tourists would still come primarily to see the Leaning Tower. Had it not been so damaged, however, at least it would have offered people something else to see while in Pisa, something that’s more interesting than just getting a silly photo in front of the tower.* Seriously, the Camposanto was the fourteenth-century equivalent of the Sistine Chapel in terms of its artistic value, and now there’s hardly anything left to see. Sad, really.
*At least you still have Nicola Pisano’s sculpted pulpit in the Pisa baptistery. And there’s also the little church of Santa Maria della Spina, even though its current appearance is largely the result of nineteenth-century “restoration.”
Ok I’m gonna be one to defend the poor Leaning Tower, I happened to think that it was a very nice area, especially compared to the rest of Pisa. I thought the little park area thing that it sits in was quite pretty, the tower looked nice, and the Camposanto was a very nice compliment, so there…Leaning Tower isn’t bad to everyone.
However…
The Spanish Steps. I was so used to seeing them all by their lonesome in pictures, and when I was standing in front of it, I literally lost it in the crowd. Since they let you on the steps, there’s just 150 people on there just sitting there doing nothing. It was kinda cool to say “Hey I sat on the Spanish Steps and had a gelato”, but overall, I was very unimpressed with its lack of inherent beauty, and the fact that people are swarmed all over it.
I haven’t seen the Sphinx in person, but I’ve had friends of mine show me photographs of it… taken from inside the Pizza Hut less than half a km away. That kinda killed the buzz for me right there.
London Bridge (not the Tower Bridge, the actual London Bridge) wasn’t all that impressive. Of course I had no idea I was actually walking across it until I saw the plaque at the halfway mark. The only thing that made it interesting was that I sang the song and danced in a little circle.
I don’t know, by the time I got there, I’d been listening to years and years of people explaining the Mona Lisa like that. When I finally got there, I was actually impressed because of their exaggerations. It was a lot bigger and more visible than I expected.
What I found surprising about tha Almo was its location. You have a mental picture of the Alamo being out in the middle of the open plains. A hundred and fifty years ago it probably was but now the Alamo is in the middle of downtown San Antonio surrounded by office buildings that tower over it.
Admittedly, it’s amazing in scope. It is endless and really is the largest “palace” I can conceive. Having said that, all the good artifacts were taken to Taiwan, so most of it is empty or contains replicas.
They had a Starbucks built in it when I saw it, which made it a bit lame too. They’ve taken that out now, but it is something only worth visiting once and for about an hour tops.
Salem, MA (of the witch trials fame) is much the same. I was expecting quaint New England village with a town green and a church with a steeple out in the middle of farm country. Instead, its a largish, not particularly photogenic town with a thriving, tacky, tourist trap occult industry.
I tend to notice this trend a lot overseas. It’s amazing how you can be in the middle of a city tour (Canterbury, England is my most recent experience) and the tour guide say something to the effect of “This building was built around the 1500s for use as a safeway house to hide from the king’s tyranny” and when you see the building, it has become a Starbucks
I was always amazed that everything in Europe was about 800 years old, and that about half those buildings are either Starbucks or gift shops
Also kind of on subject, every church has scaffolding around it as well…which I didn’t mind because it’s about preservation…but it’s comical nonetheless
Sort of silly, but I expected the Appalachian Trail to be a big wide trail . Instead it’s just a trail like every other trail I have been on - a narrow dirt path in the woods.