Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, is a wonderful place. It is large, but also very human in scale. Unlike some “famous” homes, it is very easy to imagine Jefferson and his family walking around the rooms and using the place as a home.
No one else found this the least bit amusing? 
There’s no basement in the Alamo!
My own contribution is minor:
Archie Bunker’s chair is in the Smithsonian in DC…up close, it’s downright nasty. Greasy, dirty, sagging upholstery. I don’t know what I expected, but not that. Ack.
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London – I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. (Please bear in mind that this was many years ago, so I’m sure the exhibits have changed.) The wax museums I grew up (Like "Louis Tussaud’s in Atlantic City. No longer there, and I’m sure the only real relation to the more famous Tussaud’s is the name) with in the States were garish, over-the-top exhibitions of spectacle and gore. Cleopatra. Romeo and Juliet. Scenes from Famopus movies. The darkened Chamber of Horrors, with torture implements, the Turkish Hook (through the belly!), graphic depiction of Scalping, the Iron Maiden, etc.
What do I get at Madame Tussaud’s? A few Hollywood stars that don’t really look like them. A lot of Heads of State I never heard of (we really need to improve American educAtion and news, so that the names of all those African heads of state aren’t so obscure). and the Chamber of Horrors?
Well lit! Whoever heard of a well-lit Chamber of Horrors? It’s like having a well-lit Planetarium! No blood and gore. They had depictions of Famous Criminals I never heard of. One display featured two tweedy little men in cuffs who were famous for – I don’t know – some murder or something. Maybe you folks in Britain really are scared of tweedy little murderers, I don’t know. But give me the bloody Turkish Hook anyday!
Second vote for Plymouth Rock. I went to Boston with my mom on a business trip when I was eleven. I looked down and saw this tiny rock and I said, “This is it?” I think it was the most disapointing thing of the day.
Ah, that reminds me of one. The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. Copenhagen in general is a beautiful city, but the site of the statue is not one of the beauty spots. The Mermaid is a small statue whose background is not particularly scenic harbor containing rusting freighters. Tivoli wasn’t very exciting either.
Stratford on Avon in England – I was surprised at how…manicured and scenic the river was. In the US, we tend to ignore our rivers or dump warehouses on the banks.
First time I went to San Francisco, I drove straight to the Golden Gate bridge to check it out. And I’d say that it pretty much lives up to its hype. Beautiful bridge, particularly when viewed from the far side with the city in the background and the fog rolling in.
Alcatraz. It fits into the “smaller than I imagined it category.” At least the prison portion does. I pictured a huge, sprawling place but in reality it’s a couple of hundred cells down a couple of rows. It’s just sort of a normal sized building. I really expected something that would be harder to wrap my mind around. That said, it was still a really impressive place.
Along with the prison, I had no idea the extent of the buildings on the island. It never really occured to me that guards would need to live on the island so they would have living quarters, a chapel, etc etc. There were a ton of buildings out there and the vast majority have nothing to do with prisoners.
I was surprised to see the beautiful, ornate interior of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. I felt like I was walking the halls of some European palace rather than a library.
I live in Washington D.C. and am so used to most of the monuments and structures here being part of my life that I probably take for granted how spectacular they are. Except about 10 years ago when I finally took a tour of the White House. It was awe-inspiring to say the least. I can’t explain it, maybe it was the sense of history around me or just the incredible detail of every room and what it was used for, but I gained a newfound respect for it.
The Statue of Liberty was disappointing. Not the statue and what it stands for, but the ridiculous walk up the inside. Tiny, I mean TINY stairs that weave endlessly up a narrow staircase (don’t go if you’re even slightly clausterphobic), your face in someone’s ass the whole way up. Then you get to the top, and you’re looking through a glorified windshield for 10 seconds, then you go back down. When we came out we yelled to the line of tourists to save their money.
The hilly roads of San Francisco. I always thought it was exaggerated, but they really are amazingly hilly. When we were at the top of some of them I felt like I was at the top of a roller coaster. And Lombard Street REALLY IS that crooked! And people live in houses that are inches away from the tightest bends in the road!
Roswell, NM is a joke. The town rolls up at 5:00 PM. Yes, a town that bases its existance on aliens and UFOs closes the alien and UFO museums at 5:00.
Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory. I never imagined it was so damn small! The thing is about the size of the lid of a shoebox!
A lot of art close up amazes me. You can see stuff you never see in prints or pictures. Sometimes you can see the pencil outlines of the sketch, or smudges and stuff. Funny, somehow I always expected them to have been “prefect” in every way.
I’ll second the Grand Canyon. We went to Arizona and the DW wanted to go to the canyon and I was like, yea drive 5 hours, look at a hole in the ground for 5 minutes and then what? Well when we got there I was like a kid again. It is really neat. We ended up staying the night, dinner at the place right on the wall. Woke up and it was snowing. Real cool.
I didn’t really want to go to the Statue of Liberty, but my wife talked me into it. The statue itself was closed, but we spent a lot of time walking around looking up at it. My emotional reaction to the statue and to seeing Emma Lazarus’s The New Colossus poem for the first time took me by surprise. I’m glad I had that experience. The view of the statue from the ferry to and from the island, by the way, is better than from the ground below.
“Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” --Emma Lazarus, 1883
That’s an excerpt from the poem, which was written to help raise funds for the pedestal the statue stands on.
Not to be offensive, but the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Hawaii. I went there as a student-loving American history and WW2 in particular–I even had a great uncle who served in the Pacific Theater.
Bupkus–it did not move me or help me sense the tragedy that was that day.
Dachau, on the other hand, gave me nightmares(it exceeded my expectations).
Other things that did not live up to my expectations:
Plymouth Rock-my kids had the same rxn I did–dumbfounded that we had driven all this way to see that?
Niagra Falls–yes, they are stunning, for the first 5 minutes. And then…plus all the tat around them now–it’s horrible.
Disneyworld-we went years ago and after about half a day, looked at each other and said, “what are we doing here?” Epcot was at least interesting, if a little strange. I cannot imagine returning to DW for any reason…
Williamsburg–but only after I found out (thanks to Cecil, and Bill Bryson) that it ain’t all that old, frankly–US history, lite.
What impressed me more in Hawaii was the [url=http://www.greatsitkin.org/60sCruises/Pearl68-3.jpg]Punch Bowl cemetery. I thought that was moving with all the rows of gravestones. (my grandfather died at Pearl Harbor)
What disappointed me in person was Rockefeller center in New York. The plaza where they always show epople ice skating in winter is tiny. It looks a lot bigger in person.
This is what I came in here to say. And the inside is even more impressive.
Italy. All of it. I was going to list specific sites, but then I realized I was listing everything I saw. I read books, saw pictures, watched movies, but nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare me for how fucking awesome everything was.
I will say that the Duomo in Florence particularly took my breath away every time I saw it. I’d round a corner, and there it was, as big as life, and I would just gasp at the sheer, unbelievable beauty. David was also bigger than I expected.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned NYC’s Central Park. I remember, when I first moved to NY, how utterly amazed I was at its size. And it’s equally amazing that the city has resisted exploiting all that prime real estate.
Vatican City. I wasn’t prepared for all the commercialization. All the souvenir shops selling poorly-made, overpriced crap (including having your picture taken next to a cardboard pope). There’s even a souvenir shop on the roof of St. Peter’s, after you come down from climbing to the top of the dome - which was, in itself, a wonderful experience.
Pompeii. The excavations themselves are worth visiting, but the surrounding area is tourist trap hell.
The paintings of **Gustav Klimt **in Vienna. Klimt has always been one of my favorite painters, but I was totally unprepared for seeing the originals. They are way beyond any reproductions I’ve seen: the subtleties of color and light, the details where you can see exactly how he achieved a particular effect, and his use of gold. I was literally moved to tears.
The ocean. My god, the ocean!
I grew up in Idaho. so for me “horizon” was something not too far away, pointy, and usually at a much higher elevation than the viewer. Went to Oklahoma to visit relatives a couple of times and all that flat land gave me a headache. On top of that, I have never been a water-loving person. Lakes are too damn big for me. So it was totally no big deal that I had reached my 23rd birthday and never bothered seeing the ocean.
Then I came to Corpus Christi, TX. Looking at it hurt my brain. It was too big, too open, and just plain scary. (And this is only the Gulf!) All the stuff you read about the waves going on forever and the immensity of the ocean, all the images on tv and movies and everything, none of it prepared me for the reality.
Many of mine are already mentioned so I’ll put up something different.
The first close visual encounter with a woman’s private parts was far different than I had been trained to believe. It didn’t stink or taste the way I expected and somehow, I dont’ think it really made me a man either.
Adding my seconds or thirds or fourths.
Disappointing – Mt. Rushmore. I appreciate the work that went into it, but it isn’t nearly as ‘impressive’ as one might be led to believe. And the tourist crap surrounding it, gads!
Fight like hell to avoid it — Antelope Island (or whatever name is given to this desolate hell) on/in Salt Lake. Run Away! Run fast, run hard. You have been warned.
Pleasantly surprised – Devil’s Tower. Not for everyone, some will certainly say ‘meh’, but meanoldman family liked it.
Wasatch Range in Utah, near Salt Lake City. That’s nice!
Smaller than what was imagined – Dealy Plaza and Little Big Horn. As one stands in either, the question becomes “How could they NOT hit eachother?”
Meh — Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
Better on a cloudy day – Badlands. Otherwise the colors tend to wash out a bit.
Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone --maybe. Perhaps we’ve only been there on sunny days. Not the rich vibrant colors as often shown on TV and postcards. < hijack and rant > Dammit people, keep your hands and coins and what-not outta the geyser waters </hijack and rant >
More emotionally moving than imagined-- Vietnam War Memorial. “The Wall”. In a city where there are lots of monuments and memorials and statues and such, this was by far the most powerful. And I didn’t even know anybody that died there.
BIG disappointment and a yawner. DisneyWorld!
Not so bad if one is already in Orlando = Universal Studios .
Don’t open your eyes and look around during the daylight = Las Vegas.
Look at all these trees and hills = Pittsburgh. I always had the image of the Iron City as being a bleak, dreary, rusted steel everywhere kind of place. Decidely not so. Quite pleasant.