Destinations which have disappointed you

New York City: the subway smelled like piss and I don't think it was the pussies that did it.

Gross, R1. The London tube is pretty grim too. The same grey carriages likes tins of baked beans that they've had since the 1960s.

Koh Samui in August. The sea was opaque because of the monsoon and the mosquitoes attacked even in the daylight hours.

San Francisco was awful when I was there in June. Shitty weather and the streets full of the homeless

Hong Kong. Hot, humid, crowded, none of the cosmopolitan glamour you would expect. Air smelled like diesel.

R2 The Paris Metro is even worse. Smells of urine and body odor and it’s full of sketchy people.

Nothing fancy, however Indianapolis is the most disgusting, crime-ridden, disease carrying, homophobic Republican trash city in the Midwest! My advice, AVOID.

London in that heatwave they had last year. Temps in the 90s for days on end and none of the Air b and bs had air conditioning. We hopped on a cheap Easyjet to Mallorca and stayed in a 3* hotel for the same money as the air b and b. It had effective A/C and the sea was beautiful there.

What about me?

Bangkok I was expecting shining, golden temples to dot the skyline, but they were dwarfed by new skyscrapers and are covered in soot and the streets smell of vendor-cart grilled foods and diesel mixed.

Malta. There are some incredible archeological sites there (Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life) but the country as whole feels like an uglier and overdeveloped version of Sicily.

Timbuktu. Very dusty, the books were burned, as was the coffee, when you could find coffee.

Savannah. Small, boring—a couple of nice streets, but overall a huge disappointment.

[quote]The famed town atop the cliffs had a wonderful view over the caldera, but all the cute white and grey pumice stone alleyways stank of cat piss.

I don't know -- it seemed rather fragrant to me.

So these are places where nothing seems to breathe peace and freedom and make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

R11, I remember that the main town in Malta, Valetta, was quite depressing. Every building was built in the same gunmetal grey stone and looked kind of grim. Preferred the beautiful Aolian islands off Sicily, like Panarea and Stromboli.

Cuba - Holguin. Cockroaches in a 5* hotel and the only confectionery available was Haribo.

Phoenix. I thought it would a metropolis in the desert but what I found was a Mexican ghetto.

San Francisco - what a literal shit hole. Never going back. Almost got into a fist fight with two in-your- face lesbians. The rest of the population seemed to have a chip on their shoulder too. Nasty city coated in feces.

Sinagpore. A perfectly generic city with no distinguishing character whatsoever, and that goes for the food as well.

New York, Sydney, Berlin, London, San Francisco....I hate them all.

R20, Sinaporeans also have the worst accents I have ever heard. Listening to them speak English is painful. And there are no good looking people in Singapore.

Stonehenge--very lame. The thought of lining up to see a bunch of rocks is just dumb.

Every US city except Los Angeles.

Palace of Knossos in Crete. Very small.

Athens, Greece. Oh my goodness, a polluted cesspit with homely looking people and so much of the architecture is ugly.

Tie:

Budapest. Dirty, charmless, middling food (the KFC was far tastier than the chicken paprikash). The one bright spot in an otherwise drab town: Buda Castle lit up at night.

Santa Katerina, Sinai. Greek Orthodox monastery in the middle of nowhere Sinai. A long trip through the desert to see fuck nothing. Go to Meteora instead.

Me, once I finally got there.

Another vote for Budapest- gray and ugly

Melbourne, Australia.

While Sydney is glorious, Melbourne is cold, rainy, charmless. There’s no reason to ever go back

LA, dirty. Not the shiny place one expects

Singapore is what happens when stuck with capitalism on steroids. Every step is about money

[quote]Gross, [R1]. The London tube is pretty grim too. The same grey carriages likes tins of baked beans that they've had since the 1960s.

Noonsense. They've been updated a dozen times since then - in fact they've done away with carriages.

Why do people say these things?

[quote]San Francisco was awful when I was there in June. Shitty weather and the streets full of the homeless

I had to wear a sweater in August. I had thought California, Summer Of Love etc...and the cable cars were just tourist rides. People don't use them to get from place to place.

Loved Santorini. I never smelled cat piss, but it is true that dogs and cats rule the island. I walked up to the top of the village to take a snapshot of the caldera when a golden lab jumped onto the short wall next to me and actually posed alongside me for the photo, which came out fabulous! Then he hopped down and, I assume, waited for the next tourist. They have little collection boxes along the walks for the upkeep of the dogs and cats.

Some people are so dead inside that they can not enjoy anything.

Salt Lake City. Full of judgmental people, and the Great Salt Lake was awful--the land is so salty that nothing grows for miles around there. It stinks

New Orleans. Depressing place. We were introduced to some old New Orleans families. Half of them had killed themselves.

& we went on a boat on the Mississippi and the toilets were flooded and the "cafe" sold nasty plastic hot dogs.

& the poverty in the countryside nr N.Orleans had to be seen to be believed - people living in shacks with holes in the walls.

'Santa Katerina, Sinai. Greek Orthodox monastery in the middle of nowhere Sinai. A long trip through the desert to see fuck nothing. Go to Meteora instead.'

I went there on a side trip from Sharm el Sheikh. It felt very exposed and vulnerable. You could imagine hordes of Al Qaeda storming down on you from the surrounding dust baked hills.

[QUOTE] Noonsense. They've been updated a dozen times since then - in fact they've done away with carriages.

Excuse me? I'm guessing you never left Zone 1, and possibly mistook the Docklands Light Railway for the tube. The grim Northern Line still has the nasty grey, rattling carriages from the 70s. Get on at Camden and head out towards High Barnet or Edgware and you'll find them.

Wales in August. It rained every single day. Relentless.

San Francisco is a dump: homeless people crapping in the street in the city centre in broad daylight, and even the gay quarter / scene is lifeless.

Venice is a tourist trap, and like Barcelona, is full of pickpockets.

Paris is extremely boring. Outside the main tourist spots (also full of pickpockets and wealthy-looking beggars), it’s very dull, grey and hardly romantic. Whether is worse than London too.

Vienna also very boring but don’t think I expected much else.

As much as New York and London have their flaws, there is a little bit of life in them at least.

*Weather not whether, stupid me

The Alamo. Very small and no basement.

Stockholm was a huge disappointment for me. Very little to see or do, Swedish customer service is horrible. It's a great city for walking, but there's nothing to walk to.

I swear the doggiest gay men in the world can be found in San Francisco. The lesbians even look good compsred to the men. And the fog that pours into the city is crap. It is fucking cold there. And don't get me started on the homeless.

I agree the alamo is one big disappointment.

Yosemite. Landscape looked exactly like it looks in the Ansel Adams photos, no surprises and no interesting detail. Getting up close while camping in the back country didn’t reveal any new things.

Plus the number of people in the park is insane. Mostly people who have never been on a hike in their lives. And it’s $375 a night for a small, crappy old motel room with dated decor if you want to stay in the park.

[quote]Paris is extremely boring. Outside the main tourist spots (also full of pickpockets and wealthy-looking beggars), it’s very dull, grey and hardly romantic.

OMG. I thought if I have to sit it another of those fucking corner cafe´s "people watching".

[quote] Whether is worse than London too.

The winters! The winds howl in from Siberia and INTO you.

Went on to London and it was sunny and mild - in FEBRUARY.

The Alhambra, Grenada, Spain. It looked way better from a distance. Up close, a few mosaics and endless thin long goldfish ponds. Blazing 100f heat and not much shelter.

Paris, apart from the museums, Notre Dame and Montmartre cemetery. I've been to many different districts and didn't find any of them as beautiful or charming as they were made out to be.

New York...again, apart from a few fine cultural institutions, not appealing to me at all. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it back in the late 70s-80s era, but they killed everything that made it mysterious and interesting long ago.

Amsterdam, surly locals, aggressive cyclists and the worst tourists ever on "lads' weekends"...ugh!

I'm not a hater of all large cities, but these 3 just leave me cold.

[quote]The Alhambra, Grenada, Spain. It looked way better from a distance. Up close, a few mosaics and endless thin long goldfish ponds.

Bit like New Orleans - once you've seen a dozen of those fucking balconies...

R50, London is big enough to create its own heat island, and the south downs protect it from the worst of the winds that sweep across from the East. The weather can be very humid and unpleasant in the summer, with a brown haze hanging over central London and air that tastes metallic.

[quote]Amsterdam, surly locals

You'd be pretty surly if your town was full of the trashiest tourists who just come for the pot and the prostitutes.

Austin Texas, nothing to see and faux hippie culture.

I hate anything faux.

Playa de las Americas, Tenerife. Chav central with people from the north of England yelling and cussing each other out. The beaches were an ugly black sand and the sea was cold. Windy, too.

[quote]Playa de las Americas, Tenerife. Chav central

It disappointed you? What were you expecting?

Don't understand how anyone can be less than enchanted with Paris!

[quote]Chav central with people from the north of England yelling and cussing each other out.

Same mob in much of southwest Spain and the Balereac Islands.

Zurich. Very clean. Very boring. Very pushy. Like if the Nazis had won the war.

^^^southEAST Spain ^^^

LA, Ca ugh... Strange plastic people

R62 I actually liked Zurich for just those qualities (well, not had the Nazis been victorious party)--but I was there for about 18 hours. I think that if I had stayed longer I would have gone out of my mind. My first exposure to Swiss efficiency, calm, and bluntness but it could be wearying.

^^*part, not party, but both work actually^^

Charleston -- a bit snooty and uptight. I enjoyed Savannah much more.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone -- full of crowds, can only be viewed from a great distance, and very anticlimactic.

Dominican Republic. We stayed at a hotel called Casa del Mar in Bayahibe. Beautiful clear, warm turquoise ocean but there were so many noisy hoes all over the beach and an ugly trampoline tethered just offshore which again caused much screeching.

Thomson had just cancelled all day trips out from the resort because the local roads were so dangerous so there was no escaping it. We walked to the local village and stocked up on antibiotics for the next year so there was that.

mars

jupiter

Having been spoiled by the splendor, beauty, and sheer enormity of western US's national parks, most of the national parks east of the Rockies. For wild lands, the west is where it's at.

Sometimes, vacation destinations can be shaded by your circumstances. Were you with someone you love? Were you with a good friend? By yourself? Paris and a lot of places on this thread can be a fantasy, especially if you're discovering them together for the first time.

Nobody has mentioned the tragic island of Jamaica? Hard to believe.

Haiti.

Actually I could go on posting all day because I had a father who managed to find the worst fucking places.

Haiti - we stayed at some fancy hotel where they'd shot some movie in the '60s with Elizabeth Taylor (everyone kept telling us about this). Trouble is we couldn't leave because they were rioting in the town. That was ALL I saw of Haiti...what we did see from the taxi to and from the airport didn't look like much. My father eventually admitted defeat and we went to America.

The very worst place I ever visited was the Gambia, Africa. We were only 26 and wanted some winter sun from the UK, and this was all we could afford.

I love swimming in the sea, but there the waves are permanently huge and knocked you over as soon as you stepped into the water. After the second day, there was a jellyfish invasion - huge pink and blue Portuguese Man O' War or similar scattered all over the beach. Disgusting.

Every time we stepped outside the hotel, several local men approached and aggressively declared that they were employess of the government and had to be paid to accompany us everywhere we went. They trailed us until we returned to the hotel, having purchased a $10 tube of Pringles to assuage our misery.

Mykonos. Sure, it can be pretty to look at the whitewashed buildings and cobblestone streets, around and see the legendary windmills. Then what? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I understand there is a nightlife, expensive and for the very young. But I'm not young any more and I found it disappointing.

[quote]Mykonos. Sure, it can be pretty to look at the whitewashed buildings and cobblestone streets, around and see the legendary windmills. Then what?

The Pelican!

[quote]Mykonos. Sure, it can be pretty to look at the whitewashed buildings and cobblestone streets, around and see the legendary windmills. Then what?

I hate islands. I feel trapped.

New Orleans for sure. those fucking water bugs roaches or whatever the fuck they are called, so disgusting.

Isn't Singapore well known for money washing? That's what I heard. Went there on a biz trip, had some interesting food but it was very, very humid.

R76, Mykonos is one of the ugly, arid Greek islands and it is incredibly windy there in the summer when the Meltemi blows. Santorini is similar. I prefer the mainland - the Mani or Arcadia are beautiful, with so much to explore...Methoni, Olympia.

[quote]Nobody has mentioned the tragic island of Jamaica? Hard to believe.

I think its reputation as a homophobic shithole keeps people from going in the first place, so they don't get to be disappointed.

A straight friend of mine went and said it was a nightmare. Drugs (hotel guests sticking arms thru fences to get injections) and grifters everywhere. People demanded money because they were in the background of your photo.

Staten Island was a huge disappointment. No island vibe at all. No island cuisine. No island music. Just Fedders specials, Trump lawn signs, and big-box stores. I’m never going back.

R1 Don't forget the smell of hot garbage in the street. Gag!

I took a gangbang booking for Michelangelo's Palace of the Holy Office in Rome, owned by the Vatican. The bishops had regrettable anal hygiene and the suite was no better than a Ramada Plaza.

r84 Yeah, I think we all read that in your Yelp review.

Galveston beach. Hard sand with lots of pebbles that hurt your bare feet. Stinky and dirty.

I preferred Charleston over Savannah. My visit was just two weeks after Hurricane Matthew though, so lots of places were closed or torn up a bit.

Las Vegas. The worst of humanity, empty of substance and full of desperation, all gathered together under the tacky veneer of phony glitz.

For those disappointed in Jamaica, *location* is the key to your experience. I've gone to Jamaica for ten summers and I find it lovely. But then again, I don't stay in the main tourist areas, rather, in small coastal villages where I walk to the loveliest tree shaded beaches on the island, swim in the cool blue water and lounge in my hammock. I stay in houses with a kitchen and cook fresh seafood and vegetarian stuff, or BBQ on the beach. Local restaurants are not great. Weed is good and cheap if you have a helpful connection. It can be a rip off otherwise (depending where you come from).

It's true people try all kinds of hustles because of widespread poverty and an ever increasing cost of living. Even people with jobs (restaurant workers, hotel employees, life guards, day laborers and construction workers, shop clerks) make about $20US/day, so life is not easy. The farther you are from Negril or Mo Bay, the less aggressive is the hustling.

In 25+ months on the island, interacting with many types of people, I have heard mild (non-murderous) gay negative comments about five times and, in those instances I was able to reason with the people who commented. Not saying I won hearts and permanently changed minds, but those conversations may have planted seeds of tolerance. My observation is that as gay rights have been achieved and become more accepted in the US and world-wide, Jamaica is slowly coming around to similar viewpoints.

To answer the OP's question: In my travels, I found Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia to be a grey, grim, polluted, Brutalist shit hole. (I never planned to go there so I wasn't sadly disappointed, just appalled at how depressingly ugly it was.)

R88, parts of Jamaica are gorgeous. I loved Dunnes River Falls and the sea around Negril. The Blue Mountains are beautiful too.

when I was young, I thought Negril was a portmanteau or contraction of Negro Ville

R88 thanks for your update - I had always heard to stay away from Jamaica. Nice to know.

For me, nothing comes to mind. I know each city I have visited has some challenges but those are typically the areas I stay away from.

I went to Lisbon and Barcelona last year and felt both were vastly overrated. Oppressively hot in August (almost sticky - and i'm from Australia!), rather dirty, and filled with pickpockets and drug dealers. Couldn't walk 5 metres without being asked if I wanted some. And the streets were actually quite hard to walk on too. Most people there seemed to be early 20s hostel party boys and girls having their first trip away from home. The 'contiki' types. Yes there were some nice aspects of both (a day trip to Sintra, some decent bars and dining in Barcelona) but mostly hot, polluted tourist traps. The architecture wasn't *that* nice. And even the live music was just okay.

Having said that, I think it's hard to write off a place based on one visit. The first time I went to Paris I hated it (^for some of these same reasons). The second time I really found some great neighbourhoods and areas, stayed a little longer, met more people, and really fell in love with the city. It's hard to get a full view of a place when you don't have the time to really explore it. Sometimes even just a few blocks away could be a much nicer place to holiday.

Oh God, my one and only trip to NYC was in the late seventies, when I was a teenager being dragged along with my family. There was some family drama going on, with someone having mental health issues that were exacerbated by having the whole family jam into single hotel rooms, but I absolutely the "gritty" New York of the 1970s.

The streets were filthy, and even though were staying in a "good" part of Manhattan the street hookers started appearing at about five PM. Everyone on the streets looked miserable and angry, everything was gray except the night skies which were orange, the subways were terrifying to a girly little prisspot like me, and my parents constantly complained about how expensive everything was and made me feel guilty for ride in a taxi instead of the frightening subways... or expecting to be fed. The glories of the Metropolitan Museum of Art didn't begin to compensate for the misery of the experience, and I've never been back.

New York in the 70s was the shithole that San Francisco is today. Shame because SF is basically a gorgeous city..

Another NYC disappointment here. If I never go back, that’d be A-OK.

Anchorage. Not that I was expecting much, but what a dumpy, bleak, backwater town.

Siberia. It’s just one big salt pan.

Frankfurt.

Germany's Atlanta.

R16 To be fair Valletta in Malta (and most of the Island) was flattened in WW2 and the rebuilding was funded by a very impoverished British Government. Almost every building has been rebuilt or heavily repaired over the past 70 years.

Almost none of the buildings in Malta are as old as they seem, the local stone is very poor quality and looks 200 years old after about 20 years.

When you're landing on Malta you get a good look at Valletta and The Three Cities (if you're lucky to sit on the right side of the airplane) from above and that fortification system around these places looks damn impressive. Unfortunately it looks a lot less amazing when viewed from the ground.

The most interesting thing to see in Valletta is that bar where Oliver Reed drank himself to death.

Egypt. The entire country. Filthy polluted collapsing overpopulated corrupt shithole.

Never again.

Egypt. The entire country. Filthy polluted collapsing overpopulated corrupt shithole.

Never again.

Agree with New Orleans. One and done. See the French quarter and garden district, have some muffuletta or po boy (basically sandwiches), hit the few gay bars, listen to music. But dirty, depressing, and the architecture even gets old. It’s just that it’s all surrounded by desperate poverty.

R100 The Maltese are terrible at managing tourism.

A prime example is Auberge de Castille in Valletta, very impressive externally since the restoration in 2014.

Thing is you can't go inside as it is used as the office of the Prime Minister. I have managed to get access a few times through a friend and it would make a great place for tourists to visit.

They should dump the PM in the shitty new Parliament building - Google it.

[quote] Nothing fancy, however Indianapolis is the most disgusting, crime-ridden, disease carrying, homophobic Republican trash city in the Midwest! My advice, AVOID.

So, you’re saying that none of the locals were willing to have sex with you and this frustrated you?

Every place I have been to around the world as met or surpassed my expectations except NYC and Venice, Italy. I loved The Met, but found pretty much everything else to be underwhelming. The 9/11 area was emotional, but everything else was just meh. I was bored after a few days and was glad to leave. Venice in the late 80s and early 90s just seemed filthy and not at all romantic like the Hepburn movie.

[quote]Nothing fancy, however Indianapolis is the most disgusting, crime-ridden, disease carrying, homophobic Republican trash city in the Midwest! My advice, AVOID.

My one weekend there seemed to involved endless laps around this weird Interstate Highway bypass that forms a circle around the city. No matter where you want to go it involves getting on that fucking thing.

Mount Rushmore is a waste of time. I didn't expect to be crawling around the thing like Cary Grant in North by Northwest, but all you do is stand at the visitor center and stare at it in the distance. Buy a postcard and stare at it for 5 minutes and you'll get the same experience.

I've been to Venice twice--once for 3 days 10 years ago and because I loved it so much I went back in 2013 for a week. The first time I stayed near the train station in an area that wasn't difficult to navigate in a nice little apartment--it was beginning of June, it had just rained so it was clean air, not humid and not many tourists for Venice. Since in the right conditions, Venice is so uniquely beautiful, I couldn't wait to go back. Four years later it was late September, unspeakably humid, I was in another area of the city where it was impossible NOT to get lost and the crowds were unreal--like freeways stalled with people instead of cars. It finally rained and the air cleared and became cool, and the next day I had to leave. It is much more beautiful than Rome or Florence if you time it right--maybe mid to late October? Otherwise, don't bother.

Florence, by the way, is much shabbier than I expected, but it's a walkable size, the gelato is the best in Italy, and there is too much great art to see it all in a month (I was there a month--too long. Two weeks is about right.)

London many years ago really disappointed me but it was winter and damp and cold. It's very gray and spread out and I was there for 5 weeks. I have never had a desire to go back.

R102 I had forgotten how wretched Cairo was. Thanks for the reminder.

Fort Lauderdale. Strip mall hell, awful traffic jams. The town is full of Eldergays on a fixed income and young’s alcoholics or drug addicts looking for a sugar daddy. Love the weather, but hate the vibe and culture.

Amsterdam - I had an image of it being an advanced society, but it was still old-world and primitive in a lot of ways. I'm glad I visited but don't have any desire to return.

Italy....though the cultural stuff is bigger and better than I expected, the Italians turned out to be a bunch of petty thieves. The gypsies have more self-respect. I've been to Europe 20 - 25 times and enjoyed it all, except Italy.

R111, primitive how?

r107=Clark Griswold at the Grand Canyon

Megève - pastiche architecture, horrible people, bad snow

Vienna. Especially as I'm a classical musician, I had high hopes for it but was left with the impression that it's the high-class hooker of Europe. Extremely expensive, racist, homophobic, and rude. Had a much more memorable time in Hungary and Slovakia.

Palm Springs.I was expecting a fabulous 1950's/60's time capsule but there are just a few examples of that era's architecture.

It does have a massive gay presence which makes it feel like a gayborhood and that's a good thing.

[quote]Italy....though the cultural stuff is bigger and better than I expected, the Italians turned out to be a bunch of petty thieves

If you have any problems of that type in Italy, you should report it. Such things are taken seriously, you will not be ignored.

Jamaica. Nasty beaches, nasty prople, totally homophobic.

Auckland, New Zealand. As beautiful as New Zealand is, Auckland felt completely unremarkable. There were some awfully good restaurants and the museum was not bad but the rest was spectacularly drab in spite of the wonderful natural setting., which probably made the nothingness of the city even more jarring.

Sorry, our Kiwi DLers, I loved it everywhere else in your amazing country but Auckland was the low point of my trip.

All the damn cities unless you're just there on a side trip from the beach. I loved Venice because I went back to Lake Garda the next day to swim in the lake and look up at the mountains. I liked Barcelona and Seville and Athens because I was back in the Med for a sunset swim at the end of the day. Going on vacation to cities and staying there the whole time is pointless to me.

R116 Are you saying Hungary and Slovakia are less racist and homophobic than Austria? That's a bit shocking.

I've been consistently surprised at how scruffy and dilapidated every single Italian city is.

^True.

A friend once told me that she was absolutely shocked at how much graffiti there was in Italian cities, and I told her, Uhhh, think of the etymology of the word graffiti, lol.

I didn't expect Paris to be a similar urban experience like New York. Lots of graffiti, wired shady men creating a distraction in the middle of the afternoon trying to rob you, getting lost all the time with the circling, curved streets.

Bordeaux was more what I had imagined Paris to be, and is my favorite city in Europe. I would recommend anyone interested in France to stop there.

yeah, Paris isn't that great esp that shitty CDG airport! really bad for a world class capital. Heathrow is a millions times better. I refuse to transit through CDG, nightmare and everybody is so lazy and inefficient.

R122 Yes, indeed. We (my Latino husband and I) had none of these issues in Hungary or Slovakia but did find it everywhere we went in Austria.

Is that crazy Persian guy still living at CDG?

[quote]If you have any problems of that type in Italy, you should report it. Such things are taken seriously, you will not be ignored.

R118 is being sarcastic. Two cops watched as a Roma attempted to open my backpack pursuant to grabbing pot luck. I yelled, the Roma turned and walked off. I then looked at the cops, who smiled at me and went back to talking, did nothing.

Mrs Patrick Campbell ended up in jail in Paris for slapping a Gypsy.

Venice. We were there in February, and you had to walk everywhere in a huge crowd. Nowhere to sit down; cappuccino in the square was €11.

Naples. The walk from the train station to the centre was strewn with garbage on both sides.

Monte Carlo. Basic apartments all stacked up the cliff sides, like a beehive.

Cannes, Antibes - quite seedy in places.

Naviglio (hipster area in Milan) - a dump, I thought.

Rome, Italy. Yes, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (Michelangelo's paintings) was great to see. I went to London on the same trip and realized how devoid of paintings Rome was. London had all the great Italian paintings (e.g., Raphael). The English pillaged Italy at some point. The huge sculptures (Trevi Fountain) were still in Rome, though. I kept hearing about pick-pockets, even in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

I didn't feel like this was a good walking city.

Maybe I wasn't there long enough.

You're an idiot, r41. The same trains that run in zone 1 run through all the zones. That's how you get from one station to another. And no, the carriages aren't from the 1960s.

I haven't even been to NYC and I'm still disappointed with it.

R132 The reason that so many paintings by the Italian Great Masters are in England is because they were commissioned/purchased by the Aristocracy in the days of 'The Grand Tour' in the 17th/18th Century.

The British Empire didn't have any interest in occupying mainland Italy. They did occupy/defend Sicily for around 50 years during the Napoleonic wars when it was in independent Kingdom and at risk of invasion. The Italians later offered to sell it to the UK.

The Mona Lisa. Biggest fucking letdown. Little dinky painting with plexiglass over it.

Santorini is one of most beautiful places in the world, I have been many times, have never smelled cat piss anywhere.

R137 I agree. Never once smelled cat piss and haven't been to a more majestic place.

Fort Lauderdale. It has horrible traffic and is covered in strip malls and parking lots. The gay population is made up of either eldergays on limited fixed incomes, or young hustlers looking for a sugar daddy. Other than the weather, there's no reason to go there.

Another vote for San Francisco.

I don’t like Boston’s vibe, Cambridge is fun though.

Another vote for the Dominican Republic. Horrendous poverty, hustling, and humidity.

I've never been to Santorini but most old Mediterranean towns really do smell like cat excrement (thousands of scabietic pussies wondering around those ancient alleyways probaby has something to do with it). And the smell is even more awful because those alleys are so damn narrow that the ventilation is practically non-existent.

In some places they even allow those icky cats to enter any place they want. Here's a pic I took in Kotor, Montenegro recently. Yes, that's a street cat sleeping in the middle of the shoe store.

R116, that's really disappointing. Vienna is one of the top destinations on my bucket list--to me, it looks so much more appealing than Paris but what you described sounds shitty.Maybe I shouldn't go there.

Mykonos grossly overrated and overpriced

R144, my friend visited there recently and he found Greek men very unattractive and said at night, many closeted and not-closeted gay men line up in front of this one cave to hookup and have sex? Lame.

Love Mykonos , everything about it

Well, I liked Vienna much more than Paris. It's not the most exciting city, but it is beautiful in an old world way. Maybe if you are there for a long time you'd start noticing things, but I don't see how you could go wrong with a short trip.

You know how they say the capital cities rarely reflect their countries well? Vienna is the perfect example of that. That city was built to rule the mighty Habsburg empire, not some tiny landlocked country which Austria is today. The city may seem a bit conservative if you compare it to other West European capitals but it's by far the most liberal place in Austria, with every single mayor since the end of WWII coming from the socialist party. And about 40% of its inhabitants are of foreign descent which gives it a somewhat cosmopolitan vibe.

If R116 found Vienna to be racist and homophobic he should pay a little visit to some quaint nazi-worshipping town in Carinthia, populated with nothing but dirndl-wearing real Austrians. Then he'll get to experience the real scary side of that country.

I like Vienna when its really hot and sunny in the summer. Very organized bike lanes as in German cities, too, but without the intense crazy bike traffic of Holland. There are only a few tourist traps in Vienna, and it's a big city so you don't notice a tourist overload. It's a good mix of Germanic organization and sterility and Romantic creativity. Not completely destroyed in WWII. If you know some history and are interested in architecture for example, there's a lot to appreciate. Mediterranean rim countries are better of course for including ancient architecture through modern.

I remember walking the steps up to the top of St. Stephens Cathedral in early summer. Very closed in and smelled like 100 years of BO

[quote]I don’t like Boston’s vibe, Cambridge is fun though.

Yes, it's VERY provincial and the locals are miseries... and yes, Cambridge is better.

[quote]I kept hearing about pick-pockets, even in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

I'm surprised the Roman Catholic Church would allow the competition.

[quote]If [R116] found Vienna to be racist and homophobic he should pay a little visit to some quaint nazi-worshipping town in Carinthia, populated with nothing but dirndl-wearing real Austrians. Then he'll get to experience the real scary side of that country.

First time I was in Austria we stopped for lunch at the only bar restaurant in this village we were passing through, and when we both ordered wiener schnitzel it was like a scene from an old western when the stranger walks into the saloon--instantly dead quiet and we could feel every customer in the place looking at us. It was like that all through lunch, and it wasn't until we were back in the car that we realized it was Good Friday, and we had ordered meat.

This was about 10 years ago, but Southfork Ranch outside of Dallas was a total letdown. The property was boxed in by subdivisions and it wasn't the mansion depicted on the show. It was a nice 4 bedroom house, just was much, much smaller than what I was expecting.

Graceland was very small.

But it made it for that with the hilarious tackiness.

Reading this thread there's about 5% I agree with, 50% I disagree with and 45% mention places I've never seen so cannot comment.

I love Santorini and have spent most of the time I've been in Greece right there. The black sand is fucking hot tho!

Agree: Las Vegas is AWFUL. So is Cancún, which looked like Vegas plopped on a beach 20 years ago...it must be so much worse now.

I dunno what would ever make me visit Boston, for one example. I tried to think of what I might go see if I were there. I guess I'd be interested in seeing where that Great Molasses Flood happened. After that, I'd be stumped.

And, I have a question: How come so many people yearn for yesteryear's seediness when it comes to NYC (everyone wants it to look like the street scenes from "Taxi Driver") and everyone HATES SF for its current seediness?

Seems pretty two-faced!

R129 Do you have a problem with reading comprehension?

I was responding to this quote: “the Italians turned out to be a bunch of petty thieves”

So why are you now talking about the Roma?

They make their living on thievery, they have nothing to lose and there’s little the authorities can or will do, except to warn you to stay away from them. It's a Europe wide problem, especially in Rome and Paris.

Las Vegas really wasn't a disappointment because I expected not to like it.

Trieste. Drab and grey, with almost no vegetation.

I have a thing for decaying imperial ports so I fucking loved Trieste. It's a depressing place alright, but in a very romantic and nostalgic way. And let's not forget that Trieste is the coffee capital of Italy. If you're a coffee lover you're gonna be in paradise there.

R156- good point. I think the seediness in NYC existed while it was cheap and creative and fun - which is why seediness is mixed with the nostalgia for a better, more fun city. In SF, it’s not necessarily seediness - just homelessness. Its this insanely wealthy city where most creatives and fun got pushed out - so the homelessness is more tragic than nostalgic.

SF isn't "seedy", it's shitty.

Santa Maria, Sal in Cape Verde.

This pic is quite flattering, another 30 yards inland it is much worse. The food is mostly inedible (lathered in UN food aid Palm Oil) and the poverty is disturbing.

Don't go to any beach in Britain. I don't know why they enjoy suffering so much but you'll be laying on rocks. (They call them pebbles.)

Studland has sand but that's about it.

R164 You've never been to Southport?

When the tide is out it takes 10 minutes to walk across the vast sandy beech to the sea. Fuck all else to do there, but the beach is Big.

Two things I remember about going to the beach in England: The freezing cold water -- and the wind.

The thing I remember about beaches in America - no cafes or shops, just parking lots and maybe, if you're "lucky" a place (with the atmosphere of a garage) where you can get soda and a cheap hot dog.

R167, America is soooo big, there are lots of shops at many beaches! Coney Island in NY for one. too many to list.

In Mediterranean resorts, nasty skinny flea ridden felines will come slinking round your legs as you eat in the local restaurants. They're begging for food. The best way to get rid of them is to discreetly tip a glass of cheap beer over their heads.

The 5* Hyatt Regency, Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. Not only was a woman killed by a shark only ten metres from the beach in 2010, the breakfast breads are dive bombed by pigeons and sparrows. We came down late one day and witnessed a small brown dove taking a dust bath in a large bowl of porridge oats.

I also saw hummingbirds drinking from the soft drinks taps at the Jolly Beach Resort, Antigua. Beautiful setting, but the sea was again opaque with zero visibility.

R118, the people doing the petty thievery were the people an American would never consider to lower themselves to steal a few cents or a few dollars or two.....railroad ticket agents, for example. We ended up in a police station at the main train station in Naples (long story short, the one guy (a train conductor) we thought we had caught trying to scam us was actually telling the truth. We had found the last honest man in Italy). In the train police station, my cousin started talking to a police officer who happened to have grown up in Brooklyn (where we were from). All he said is that tourists are often treated badly here but there is little they could do. So, sorry, I don't believe you. I rate societies on their predatory nature, Italy is the worst, by far, in the first world. Other shit happened that would never happen in other 1st world countries. I consider Italians barely civilized.

Like I said, I've been to Europe 20+ times, also Japan, Israel, Iceland, Singapore and even Morocco....never encountered the bullshit I did in Italy.

There is a restaurant/resort in ialyssos, Rhodes, Greece that also operates as a cat rescue centre. They have over 50 resident felines running wild.

I won't name and shame them as they are otherwise nice people, just nuts. Safe to say that I don't eat there.

R136 and that’s NOT the real one. It’s kept in the vault.

R167 (and R168) the US has such an incredible amount of shoreline, you can find what you want; however, keep in mind that there are so many thousands of miles of coastline (even in just New York City!) that sparse places are very common. You have to go to specific places is you want boardwalks and restaurants, which can be found in many, many places.

R164 R166 That toughened the Brits and they ruled the globe! Rule Brittania

Corsica was staggering in its physical beauty but the Corsicans by and large ruined the experience with their surly, contemptuous attitude to the visitors they rely on for their local economy.

Someone mentioned Stonehenge. I had been warned about it. Though it is much smaller than one might expect, there is something about it and the plain it is built on that is worth experiencing. There is definitely a vibe there if one is sensitive to those sort of things (I am sort of. I found it all haunting and worth the visit, even in pelting rain). I am glad I visited it.

[quote]long story short, the one guy (a train conductor) we thought we had caught trying to scam us was actually telling the truth. We had found the last honest man in Italy

Uh, you sound rather nutty.

People who have bad experiences in Italy (outside of Naples and Venice during the tourist rush) are just trash.

I'm glad nobody has said Taiwan. Amazing country.

Stockholm. Expensive. Shitty food.

Copenhagen. Sterile, small, bland, boring. Amsterdam was much more fun and prettier - and as gray and Northern European spartan as I can handle.

I didn't like Copenhagen much either. Very dull place but ironically, the only place where I've ever felt slightly threatened on the street (mentally ill lady chased me & chucked a booze bottle at me near the train station). Malmo, Sweden, wasn't a destination I'll return to, either.

Amsterdam. They pretend to have a "red light district". The whole city is a red light district. Seedy, creepy, gross. It was how I imagined Prague would be, but Prague turned out to be nice.

Jamaica. I was there for a vacation in 2005 for five nights and that was too long. Two nights with friends of my parents. Three nights at a beach side resort.

Lots of homeless people, lots of hatred, not much to do or eat except fried food, fried dough, fried bananas. Nice beaches, but it's safer to stay at a gated resort. The vehicles were falling apart. Zombies asking for money or to sell me pot. Everyone smoked and hung out or robbed other people.

r132, did you try the private collection at the Borghese Gallery in Rome? You're right that many great Italian paintings are abroad especially in Britain, France and Germany. But everybody and their mother knows most of the best Italian paintings are in Florence.

R186 , I did not try the private collection at the Borghese Gallery. I just didn't have enough time in Rome (expensive city). I did see Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Teresa" in the Cornaro Chapel. The Chapel was small and there were very few people in there. I did not know about Florence, maybe one day ... I still would recommend Rome as a travel destination.

R170 Sharm el Sheikh has negative energy. Artificial resort built on complete desert. Not sure why anyone would go there. There are wonderful, alive yet ancient human habitations in Egypt.

R186 Most people also miss The Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome.

It is owned and tun by Prince Jonathan Doria Pamphilj and his Husband Elson Edeno Braga

R171 It's unfortunate that was your experience of Italy. We keep returning there on vacation. Not only is the food and scenery amazing, but I find Italians to be kind, courteous, and patient in helping yet another American with poor language skills. Maybe you should focus on smaller towns if you ever go back. The big cities are overrun with tourists and have lost a lot of their charm. On our last vacation, we found Rome to be the low point of an overall excellent trip. It was unbelievably crowded in October. It was sad to see so much graffiti in Trastevere that wasn't there before. I will try to fly through Milan next time just to avoid Rome.

Graffiti is an Italian tradition, they've been doing it since the Roman Empire. Just complaining about different things now.

I adore Jamaica's ethnic diversity!

Italians are also very racists. Just go to a football match (soccer) and racial insults and slurs are directed towards black players every game. They call them monkeys, throw bananas on the pitch, make monkey noises etc. Just awful.

*racist, sorry typo

Football (Soccer) Hooligans are racist/homophobic idiots in most European Countries.

Luckily they are a tiny minority of the populations.

[QUOTE] Sharm el Sheikh has negative energy. Artificial resort built on complete desert. Not sure why anyone would go there. There are wonderful, alive yet ancient human habitations

The diving and snorkelling there is superb. I found the town bustling and very friendly until the Russian plane crash. It's a bit quiet now, but you can get some fantastic deals at the 5*s .

Where else has temps in the 70s and even 80s in December-Feb and is only five hours flight time from the UK? I've been there half a dozen times. Stayed at the Hyatt twice pre shark, the Hilton Fayrouz, the Sofitel, the Movenpick and the Sonesta Beach.

There has been a big effort in the last few years to clean up the graffiti in Florence. The historic center is pretty much graffiti free now. It was really out of hand a few years ago.

Torres del Paine National Park (Chile)---lacks biodiversity, wet, poorly marked

Hurghada (Egypt) - boring, overpriced for what it is

Bodgaya (India)--where the Buddha became enlightened; there's a Bodhi tree that is supposedly a descendant of the one under which he sat; lots of local grifters

Atlanta---years of hype cannot make up for what a big nothing of a place it is

Asheville--quaint but not outstanding

I liked Florence, even the second string museums and cathedrals were worth seeing. Pisa was a really tourist trip, but was a great place for kitsch---Elvis souvenirs, for example.

Hurghada = fug.

Marsa Alam is nicer

Port el Kantoui in Tunisia - seaweed central, hoes everywhere and a beach massacre in 2015

Rome is one of those places I was glad I visited but a week was enough and I certainly don’t need to go back. As mentioned, dirty and lots of graffiti everywhere and the people seem miserable. Food was overrated too. Oh and there were posters up ALL over the city about gay marriage was awful and how Italy should reject it (and this was in 2015!). Definitely a backwards place in more ways than one.

R201, it's interesting how of all the major Southern European countries, Spain is probably the most pro-gay. For a long time, wasn't Spain poorer and less modern than Italy? Yet it seems like Spain is far more progressive in ways that Italy isn't.

Rome is my favourite city in the world. I want to move there. Paris is extremely overrated.

When a man is tired of Paris, he is tired of life ... so just kill yourself r203!

Says who?

R203, it's tired of LONDON not Paris, you silly chav.

Athens, Greece.

[quote]Says who?

Samuel Johnson