Name a place you have visited that never lived up to the hype.

Venice and MIlan

Venice just full of tourists and shop selling masks and mossies biting you 24 hours a day

And Milan because theres nowt there apart from a nice church and the san siro
 
Benidorm - lads ***ed up and throwing up in the Tiki bar at midday. Sticky Vicki etc.

Still go there every year though 😁

Malta was nice but went to a cove which was meant to be spectacular and crystal clear blue sea. Could only get there by boat.

Arrived and there were hundreds of boats everywhere, thousands of people in the sea. The sea was muddied by all the sand kicked up by the thousands. Couldn't see a thing.

Wasted a full day there.
 
Normanby_Red said:
Glad someone mentioned Pisa. Absolute sh!thole. I couldn't stand the place. Around the tower it's okay with some nice restaurants but the further away from the tower you go the more it becomes a massive dive of an area.
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The same as many continental towns and cities. Beautiful medieval centres, surrounded by acres of industrial units and apartments.
A bit like here, only we knocked down much of our medieval heritage in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
as cities become older and more or more tourists trash the place I suppose you'll always be let down in some way shape or form. For instance, I love Paris, but it's fair to say that the metro system is dangerous and so dirty [in parts] that older people feel very uneasy taking public transportation. Then there's all the other sad reasons not to visit, the homeless, expensive tickets for the Louvre amongst other things but I think it has a lot of charm and the locals are nice. I definitely say Milan is way over hyped although it's a good stop off point if you're on the train and visiting Rome or Venice. Horses for courses as they say.
 
Tintagel - went this year on a month back in blighty and found it quite tacky, loved all the other Cornish villages

Death Valley - it rained. On a drive from Vegas to LA via Tonapah - was expecting roasting hot weather too.
 
Egypt - Sharm El-Sheikh.

Went there on a family holiday and hated it. We'd visited the local village 'Naama Bay' on the first day but we were harassed walking past every shop, bar and restaurant, to the point where we decided we'd just stay in the hotel complex and would only leave the complex to visit Cairo for the day, but we didn't even get to do that as my Mam was bitten by Mosquitos and ended up having a bad reaction to it.

A lot of the men were sleazy as hell as well, even some of the hotel staff who tried flirting with my sister, despite her only being a teenager at the time. Only saving grace was that we went all inclusive, so I just spent the time over there getting pis*ed.

Oh, and the food was crap. I remember one night they had a British themed menu and the yorkshire puddings were like pancakes :ROFLMAO:
 
Carcassonne - oh it's impressive, but the tackiness of the shops inside absolutely ruins it (this is a "disappointed by" thread, rather than "it's a dump" thread I believe ?)
 
Malaguena said:
Carcassonne - oh it's impressive, but the tackiness of the shops inside absolutely ruins it (this is a "disappointed by" thread, rather than "it's a dump" thread I believe ?)
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It's best when the festival is on in July and includes probably the most dramatic Bastille day fireworks anywhere
 
Cambsred said:
I really want to go to the pyramids and Athens for the acropolis but I have seen so little positivity about either. Maybe I need to go on a cruise and just pass through.

I love how subjective peoples experiences are in life, really crazy how one can perceive a place/ experience and another can have the total opposite finding.

I think Mona Lisa was uninspiring compared to such other amazing items in the Louvre and the beauty of parts of Paris more generally.

Not much at Landsend either.
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Egypt are slowly sorting the pyramid area out. Pulling lots of buildings down, new museum has been built etc.
 
Malaguena said:
It's not the attitude of Parisians to Brits, it's the attitude of Parisians to anybody who isn't Parisian

Having said that, it's an absolutely fantastic city, especially if you know your way around and can speak a bit of the language,
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I've had several French matelot acquaintances who all said pretty much the same. The Parisians can be unpleasant, and it's the place where none of them wanted to work. They'd sooner be in Toulon or Le Havre (and that's saying something!)
 
Wasn't very happy with Palace of Versailles many years back, the customer service was terrible, and some of the rooms had graffiti on the mirrors. My wife is a history buff and knew a lot of the detail around rooms and the gardens, when she asked questions the 'guide' was clueless - probably on some scheme and given a script that she couldn't veer from. A disappointing visit - only the grandeur of the fittings and the beauty of the gardens saved it from being a complete disaster.

Cornwall - Wasn't impressed at all, thought we are lucky enough to have better in North Yorkshire and Northumberland.
 
Thought of another one for me.......The Amazon.

Now I realise that this is a MASSIVE area so to be clear I am talking about the part of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest most commonly visited by tourists flying in to Manaus. The vision in my head was the "David Attenburgh Amazon" with a dense canopy, brightly coloured frogs and birds, massive, noisy insects and piranhas in the water. The one I got was a few trees, absolutely zero in the way of interesting flora and fauna (except for a couple of wild pigs and some tame monkeys). The only exotic thing we managed to see were some pink dolphins in a tributary nearby. After visiting rainforests in Costa Rica, Borneo and Cambodia, this was definitely a let down.

For those wanting to visit Brazil to see wildlife and not wanting to pay thousands and thousands to travel deeper into the jungle, save your money and go to the Pantanal instead and see the jaguars. Far more fun!
 
Definitely New York and London. They are the type of places that were exciting as a kid but once you grow up and mature and you realise what they are all about - they're very disappointing. They are now basically places for the supposed elite and people who desire to be amongst them.

Vegas is a very sad place. Would agree with Cornwall as well, was probably okay decades ago but not really worth a trip, especially if you're nearer North Yorks, North East or Scottish coast. Would much rather spend money in the North or Scotland as well.
 
Egypt.
Awful food. Made to feel pretty unwelcome most of the time we were there.
Stunning history and monuments. I would never ever set foot in the place again.

A year or so afterwards some IS guy blew himself up in the small public toilet at the entrance to the temple in Luxor. They showed footage of the aftermath on the news.

I remember thinking that suicide bomb has made no difference to the interior at all. That's exactly how it looked as I left it. (I did have an upset stomach at the time, mind)
 
JustTheGent said:
Definitely New York and London. They are the type of places that were exciting as a kid but once you grow up and mature and you realise what they are all about - they're very disappointing. They are now basically places for the supposed elite and people who desire to be amongst them.

Vegas is a very sad place. Would agree with Cornwall as well, was probably okay decades ago but not really worth a trip, especially if you're nearer North Yorks, North East or Scottish coast. Would much rather spend money in the North or Scotland as well.
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You do talk some cobblers. Whilst your comments about Las Vegas I can empathise with your NY and London observations are way off.
 
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