Most under/over whelming touristy thing you have seen ?

[Mr Celine]

The first time I saw Trafalgar Square I burst out laughing. It always looked big and impressive on Blue Peter, but it's tiny!

 

[gbb]

I did rather spoil it before it even began, on the way to Cairo airport I asked the driver if i had time to just look around Giza, not go in a pyramid but just go in the complex.
Scruffy, overwhelmed by sellers and guides who descend on you like voracious locusts. I was lucky, as the driver dropped me off I looked across at the coachpark to see hoards of sellers and locals almost mobbing the poor sods getting off.
I still got mobbed, found myself atop a horse (yes, I was weak) and trawlled around the complex to a scent museum....err it's a shop and an expensive one at that, round the back through a veritable rubbish tip with plastic whirling around everywhere...yes, visually the pyramids are great, the sphynx was memorable...but jeez, I walked out feeling like I was glad to get out of there.

 

[Spinney]

Ben Nevis. One of the ugliest heaps of rock on the planet.

It's not bad if you go up via the CMD arete.

 

[Lullabelle]

The Mona Lisa.. underwhelming

 

[MontyVeda]

I was over in Lancaster with my sisters last Saturday. We thought it looked really nice, though the traffic on its little ring road was a pain! We came back via Morecambe and were not impressed with that, though the view across the bay to the distant Lake District mountains was splendid.

Morecambe's lovely when you're on the prom with your back to Morecambe

 

[swee'pea99]

Everyone said 'Oh, even if you start out cynical you can't help but love Disneyland.' I didn't.

By contrast, New Zealand's Te Papa museum in Wellington was wonderful - all contemporary and interactive without being painfully right on and groovy, full of really interesting and imaginative and informative stuff, and - best of all - everywhere you went you were surrounded by lots of people of all ages looking like they were having a great time.

 

[accountantpete]

House Of Wax in Yarmouth.

Not sure if it was under or over...

 

[NorthernDave]

I have seen a lot of things in my time, and I think the one that made me go "What, that is it, really ?" was the Angel of the North - I had expected an enormous statue standing astride the gateway to Newcastle/Gateshead - but what it turned out to be was a rather uninspiring weirdly shaped angel plonked next to the M1.

Ah, the Gateshead Flasher?

Several years ago, Anthony Gormley pitched up in Leeds with grand plans to build a 100ft tall Brick Man on land at Holbeck Triangle near the railway station.
Being polite and not wishing to offend the visitor the great and the good listened to what he had to say, right up to the point where he asked for £600,000 to build it, at which point they told him to sling his hook.

You can imagine how they laughed a few years later, when virtually the same design but now with added "wings" appeared on a hill in Gateshead...

 

[Threevok]

Every Wildlife park I have been to.

It always seems to rain when I go and all the animals are sheltering nowhere to be seen.

 

[Aravis]

I love waterfalls, but the most underwhelming attraction I've been to, by a mile, was Hardraw Force. It cost 50p each for a look in 1991, and it was like a trickle from a sewage pipe. A couple of years ago we were back in the area and we thought of going back for old time's sake, but £4 each? No. We spent it on fish and chips instead

@petek - Donna Nook is brilliant, even without seal pups. I spent two weeks there on holiday a few years back, and apart from about 20 minutes of bombing practice, a quieter place couldn't be imagined. I also went swimming with the seals beyond the bombing range - possibly a little dangerous - but having a seal brushing past my arm justified everything.

 

[AndyRM]

Edinburgh... the epitome of underwhelming tourist tat.

You should have ventured off the royal mile.

 

[Dirk]

Monkey World in Dorset was distinctly underwhelming.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

I still find the Kelpies impressive

However the most jaw dropping piece of sculpture I've ever seen is Corradini's Portrait of Majesty in Naples -

 

[Bollo]

Another vote for underwhelming Stonehenge. I can ride there, but I don't.

 

[Dirk]

However the most jaw dropping piece of sculpture I've ever seen is Corradini's Portrait of Majesty in Naples -

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I can....ahem!.... see why.......