To ask what tourist sites you’ve visited that met or exceeded expectations?

[VenerableFreed]

AIBU to ask what tourist sites you’ve visited that have genuinely lived up to expectations and have gone beyond them?

For me, it was seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper in person in Milan. I’m not particularly emotional, particularly about art, but it was genuinely moving to see the real thing. Visitor numbers were restricted, meaning you actually got a good look and there were no distractions. The setting, in a darkened room in an old convent, really helped too. It felt really intimate and special.

Ooh yes, Eibsee is wonderful.

The Burren in Ireland. Bizarre and spectacular.

David in Florence was awesome, I was transfixed.

A few already mentioned - Vasa museum, Venice, Matera and everything in Iceland exceeded expectations. Others:

• Syria - Aleppo and Krak de Chavaliers (pre war).
• Thailand - Cheow Lan Lake
• Bosnia - Mostar and the Sarajevo-Mostar train journey.

Where is the poster who was thrown out of the sistine chapel for swooning/wailing?

Skellig Michael
Pompeii
Sacre Coeur
Cloisters, Manhattan
Chaozhou, China

The Vasa Museum in Stockholm is amazing. I also found the moment when they reveal the Shuttle at the Kennedy Space centre similarly breathtaking.

Every time I go through Glen Coe I am amazed by the scenery.

I love Venice, sitting people watching with an Aperol Spritz in St Marks square or just wandering through the quiet back streets.

The elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai (the one where you walk among the elephants but don’t touch them) was absolutely wonderful, such amazing animals.

Sagrada Familia when the evening light shines through the stained glass windows, beautiful.

Best food I’ve ever eaten was in a back street of venice. Cost me about €12. The islands are lovely.

Agree with venice. Also the first time I went to Rome, came out of the metro and the colostrum was Right There (and huge). Same with Trevi fountain - approached down a narrow alley and suddenly this massive fountain. Both were busy but nowhere near as busy when I visited again 15 years later - still beautiful but not the same wow factor.

Also in Rome, Case Romane del Celio. Frescos etc like pompeii but not cordoned off at all - you can just walk on the mosaics. Very quiet too.

Will try and think of some non Italy ones lol

• Mont st Michel; beautiful, otherworldly and would love to go back. Also la Cité de la mer for la redoubtable
• Isle of Skye, especially the fairy pools. We stayed at glenbrittle beach. Ullapool as well, fabulous
• Alcatraz & eating seafood on pier 39 with a view of the sea lions!
• durdle door, lulworth cove, new forest & exbury gardens
• Conwy, llanberis, borth - all so gorgeous (rheidol railway and devils bridge a particular highlight), also tintern abbey (studied the poem at school!)
• New Orleans, incredible, history round every corner
• Orkney, everything about it. We seriously considered moving there!
• Extraterrestrial highway & around Area 51 👽
• Palatine hill was fab & I would like to do underground at the colosseum in rome
• The Lorraine hotel/ MLK museum, I cried a lot embarrassingly
• Cuba
• St Patrick’s well in Orvieto, absolutely incredible
• Kayaking under the pont du gard when the giant wooden marionettes were installed there (a man asleep in a deckchair!!)
• Disney (US & Paris), dying to take my LOs as have great memories from when I was younger
• eyam and crich are exceptional places (tram museum & lovers leap highlights)
• the Alamo in Texas
• The shoe installation at the Danube & the communist museum in Budapest

Disliked/ Wouldn’t go back to:

• Sheikh zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi
• Bayeux tapestry
• Anywhere in Dubai (saw the shard/ palm etc)
• Grand Canyon (but do go to the indigenous side rather than the vegas tour if possible)
• Arizona was disgustingly hot and felt very barren and unfriendly in the town around horseshoe bend (unusual for USA)
• The Spanish steps - rome
• Most of London
• turkey
• Tunisia
• menorca
• yosemite
• Lanzarote

Griffith

The Rocky Mountains in Canada. Just insanely beautiful and we saw bears, moose, eagles, beavers and elk just while we were literally just driving from place to place.

Another vote for Venice too. It's unique. Like no other city on Earth.

Sicily - Noto, Syracuse, Ragusa. All completely exceeded my expectations.

I also agree with the person above who said Salamis in Northern Cyprus. I hadn't even heard of it before I went there, but the ruins are incredible and it was almost deserted, plus you're left to wander round at will. Nothing was really behind any kind of barrier.

Also, the first time I went to the Western Isles of Scotland - Harris, Lewis, Barra, the Uists etc - my jaw basically dropped at how gorgeous it was. I knew it would be lovely but I wasn't prepared for it to be THAT lovely.

The Sistine Chapel. Was totally non plussed by it. Though I was so knackered by the time I’d traipsed through the museum, I just wanted to sit down. It was actually pretty empty as it was January.

Orkney... prettymuch all of it, but in particular, The Italian Chapel - built by prisoners of war out of a Nissan hut. Something so beautiful, from so little.

The Ring of Brodgar, and the new dig at the Ness. The tomb of the eagles. Maeshowe. And then over 300beaches.The Cathedral, the palaces...
Orkney has a huge number of tourist sites for such a small area. Well worth a visit.

Not so much a tourist destination but activity but I have great memories of a ski trip on a beautiful spring morning lapping an almost empty freshly groomed black Dou de Lanches run above Courchevel in France.

In line with main topic though, agree with
Gaudi buildings in Barcelona (though 20+ years ago)
Anne Frank Huis (DS13 especially taken by this)
Lake District when it's sunny
and I have a soft spot for the New Forest.

Oh my, yes: reproductions in books or posters or on a small screen can't begin to equal the effect of seeing the actual painting. So powerful.

Agree with lots of these, particularly the Grand Canyon, where pictures don’t do justice to the scale.

But the most stunning natural beauty I’ve ever seen was Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays in Australia, the most intense colours, was quite overwhelming.

Mycenae, in the Peloponnese. Some of the stones used to build it were so massive, even the ‘ancient’ 5thC BC Greeks, thought it must have been built by giants.

Later, seeing theb astonishing gold artefacts found in the graves, in the Athens museum.

It did make me wonder about what caused the evidently rapid decline of the Mycenaean culture. Very possibly it was linked to the huge catastrophic tsunami caused by whatever it was at Santorini (?) and I’ve wondered about the 7 years of famine, as mentioned in the Bible, perhaps being caused by years of ash and cloud cover from that catastrophe.

Venice....Sitting in Caffè Florian eating cake, gelato and drinking coffee....sheer bliss!

Krakow....In the main square, hearing the bugle call from the church tower warning of an imminent Tatar attack....magical!

Herculaneum....After a private tour of the site, being allowed to wander around alone, I stepped into a gloomy building and in the greenish light shot though by sun beams, I was suddenly walking on the bottom of the sea, surrounded by beautiful sea shells and realistic sea creatures. I was standing on a wonderful mosaic floor of a bath house....amazing!

San Gimignano in Tuscany. I had wanted to go for years and was blown away by it when we finally got there a couple of years ago. Luckily we were slightly out of season but imagine it can be pretty overrun at peak times

Throwing something different into the mix and not exotic, but I found Boston USA really interesting from the human and historical perspective. I walked the Freedom Trail which is depicted by a red line all along the route and connects 16 sites linked to the American Revolution .There are lots of information boards along the way and I found it fascinating.

I agree with this. It’s a very special beautiful place

Coventry cathedral.

Before anyone says anything my expectations were not high but I was pleasantly surprised.

I think thats why you were impressed. The rest of Coventry is so awful it looked good by comparison.
I had to spend 4 days in Coventry last year and I don't wish to return

I was In Rome after dark and unexpectedly came across the Trevi Fountain all lit up. It was fabulous. Very crowded but gorgeous.