Photos show the difference between travel expectations and travel reality

[Recursion]

http://matadornetwork.com/life/hilarious-photos-show-difference-travel-expectations-travel-reality/

The Ming Wall:






Santorini Island:






The Howrah Bridge:






Champ de Mars:

[MADem]

1. I've seen the Spanish Steps in Rome even more crowded than the 'after' pic...and what's more

of a GAAAAAH!!!!!! is something you can't even see in the picture. Immediately to the right of that photo, just to the right of those iconic stairs is a ..... (wait for it).......


(drum roll)




McDonalds!


I shit you not!

[Recursion]

2. There's one right across from St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna too

It's odd: McDonalds abroad irritate me when I'm touristing, but I absolutely love that they're around when I'm living overseas. Sometimes you really just need chicken nuggets.

[MADem]

3. I like the corn soup in the ones in Japan--delicious! nt

[jakeXT]

31. It's a famous one, the first in Italy. It was pretty empty when I went there in the 90s

Published: May 5, 1986


ROME, May 2— The first McDonald's fast-food restaurant in Italy firmly planted its golden arches above a doorway in the heart of the Piazza di Spagna on March 20. Since that day, life for Valentino, the Italian fashion designer, has not smelled the same.

According to Valentino, who this week began legal action aimed at closing the restaurant, which backs on to his Rome headquarters, the McDonald's created a ''significant and constant noise and an unbearable smell of fried food fouling the air.'' He has asked Italian magistrates to order it closed immediately on the ground that it is a nuisance.

Valentino's is just one name in a long list of Romans who are not very happy about the new restaurant. The Land of Pasta

Recently, several thousand people rallied in the picturesque piazza in protest. The gathering, organized by the ''Save Rome'' committee, featured Italian singers, actors and politicians speaking out against the coming of the all-beef hamburger to the land of pasta.

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/05/style/romans-protest-mcdonald-s.html

[MADem]

33. I haven't been to Roma in several years, but every time I'd go by there, it was packed to the

rafters. IIRC, that one has one of those mezzanines in it.

You do smell it before you see it--it's subdued, the exterior.

[Tab]

4. I don't know whether to thank you or curse you

but they bring home the reality of many places.

Another place to look at is the reality of Nepal, the trek through the Khumbu region, and Mt. Everest base camp. Everest itself is littered with discarded equipment and oxygen tanks (although there's been an effort to clean it up) and the trek up to Everest - even in the low regions - is strewn with garbage - candy wrappers, gum wrappers, most anything, because people don't get the concept of "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints".

Now are the pictures above everyday events, or were they of some day of significance in that area, where everyone appeared? Because you could take a pic of Times Square in the morning, and another on New Year's Eve, and they'll be quite different.

[kentauros]

15. Your point about crowd-density was what I was thinking, too.

They all look more like there's some special event going on, than everyday tourist crowds.

[Arugula Latte]

16. As I understand it some of the "things" left behind are several bodies.

It must be surreal to hike past the frozen remains of climbers from decades long past.

[Tab]

18. Yes, but that's a bit trickier.

People get killed in avalanches, fall down crevasses, etc. Also if someone dies near the summit, it's hard for the rest, who might not have enough oxygen, or descending in shitty conditions in the middle of the night, or have frostbite, are less able to bring down their comrades.

But there's no reason at all to have candy wrappers strewn along the trekking trails.

[Arugula Latte]

38. Right. I understand it's very difficult to transport a body down Everest.

It's hard enough just to get yourself down. But it would be reeeeally strange to see those bodies. You couldn't help but think it might be a preview of your own fate, as the odds of dying up there are very very good.

And, yes, it's disgusting that people think they can treat that mountain like a garbage dump.

[Recursion]

52. As far as that goes the Khumbu eventually does it for you

Unless you're past the Col, you're on a moving glacier fall that eventually will bring anything back down to base camp.

[Arugula Latte]

53. Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

It's like the slowest moving sidewalk ever.

Very bizarre!

[Codeine]

49. Some of the bodies are used as landmarks of a sort.

"Green Boots" is probably the most infamous.

[Arugula Latte]

54. It almost seems like installation art and not a real body.

So strange.

[Recursion]

55. Green Boots is gone now though; people in 2006 thought a dying guy was Green Boots

But he apparently went down the mountain between the 2005 and 2006 seasons (or got buried by snowfall) and a striken guy in nearly the same spot unfortunately for him happened to be wearing green boots.

[Tab]

5. Or to steal from SalmonEnchantedEvenings Sunday's LOLCats post...

[Tab]

21. Just hoping the pool stuff is dirt and water

otherwise I'm off this section of the thread

[underahedgerow]

6. That's why I like travelling off season. Venice, the day after Carnival was absolute

heaven. Empty streets, the cobblestones filled with glitter...

Great Wall of China in November (during the SARS epidemic!) It was empty and cold, I had a busted knee and it was absolutely fantastic!

Never visit anywhere during summer holidays. Much easier to stay home!

Plan your work around your vacations, is my best advice.

BTW Champs isn't that bad in summer; that picture must have been on Bastille Day whene everyone waits for the fireworks.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Totally agree with you.

I took a 10 day road/camping trip thru the 8 Western states, 2 weeks after back to school in Sept.
Enjoyed Yellowstone with hardly no one else visible, open roads, off season motel prices the few times we stopped for showers and a good bed, etc.
Not a huge fan of more than 3 people around me at any time, so it worked out great.

[Aerows]

25. I'm with you on the "getting away"

means getting the hell away from other people. I'd far rather travel on off hours than to be packed up with a bunch of folks.

Please do not ever ask me about my "vacation" in Key West on Memorial day weekend.

It wasn't a vacation - it was an ordeal, and I was *TRYING* to have fun.

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. That's why I do not understand paying good money for a cruise.

Just me and 3,000 other people crammed on a boat with no means of escape...............

Another reason very very small towns are so great to live in....open roads, uncrowded shopping, short waits in the Dr. office.

[Aerows]

36. I wouldn't go on a cruise if you gave me one for free!

Pay to be trapped on a boat with a hoard of strangers? Not just no, HELL NO.

And those stupid gambling cruises? Stuck on a boat for 3 hours. I get bored after about 15 minutes of gambling - it's just not my thing.

[underahedgerow]

37. OMG you're so right. Heck you couldn't pay me to go on a Nano Virus cruise!! However....

the European river cruises are really tempting, to see the castles in Germany? That sounds like it could be fun and interesting... The long boat cruises are quite interesting also, through France....

[Aerows]

39. We have cars

rowboats, bicycles and horses.

Any of those will be sufficient so that I don't have to be packed up with a bunch of strangers like I'm getting ready for a soup kettle.

I have legs - there is a thing called hiking!

[greatauntoftriplets]

10. Same here.

[Recursion]

14. Must agree there

Winter is my personal traveling season, and these photos are why.

[GreatGazoo]

32. went to Rome in March

And it was empty. Spooky empty. I have pictures of the Spanish Steps, Trevi, Piazza Navona completely empty. Walked into St Peter's with no line. Saw the Pope without trying.

[TuxedoKat]

41. I think the best time to travel

is either shortly before the tourist season starts or shortly after. Usually no crowds, weather is still great and many places of business (seasonal ones) are still open. Before the season opens there is this air of anticipation in the air and after the season kind of an air of relaxation and winding down.

[hunter]

8. I'm guessing that's a pig foraging through the garbage at Howrah Bridge...

... a fairly common feature in most of the world.

That, and chickens foraging through the garbage.

Tab mentioned Mount Everest above. They should probably put a cable car to the top and build a pressurized restaurant/observation deck there for anyone who can afford the ticket to enjoy. That might be far more respectful of the mountain than what goes on there now, which is more like a game of lemmings than any kind of wilderness experience.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_%28video_game%29

[Tab]

19. There's an interesting (IMO) related story

First, mechanically, you can't easily run a cable car up Everest (or to call it Chomolungma/Sagarmartha, the more proper name on the Tibetan/Nepali sides). Second you can't just dump people off at 30,000+ feet. You did mention it'd be pressurized but there's lots of problems in avoiding that or if things go wrong (or if the weather sucks and you can't bring the cable car down for days, and god forgive rescues or mechanical issues).

Anyway, that wasn't the point. When I was in Nepal, about 5 miles from Everest (and a good 3000 foot climb up yet ANOTHER mountain), there was a place called the Everest View Hotel. It's the highest hotel in the world at 13,000 feet (keep in mind Everest is more than twice that height).

It was built in the late 60's, opened in the early 70's. The idea was cool - you could sleep on a mountaintop and look out your window and see Everest. Even as a visitor years later (90's) I could go up there and get a cold coke served by a waiter. Quite surreal.

What they intended was that jet setters would flock in to this unusual luxurious location. What they found out were a few things - first of all, Royal Nepal Airlines had to give permission for flights in, and since they owned the monopoly on flights, they couldn't work out an arrangement whereby non-RNA flights could get in.

Second, I don't think anyone gave a lot of thought to altitude sickness from people flying into Kathmandu and then getting dropped off at 13,000 feet without acclimitizing properly (exposing you to altitude sickness which is a real dangerous thing).

Finally, no one seemed to have thought through the issue of having a wood structure exposed to the elements 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas.

To my knowledge, though it's been a few decades, the only to get there is to hike up, which I'm pretty sure was not in the business plan. I believe the Japanese owned it for a while (or maybe started it) but don't know what its status is now. It is surreal to climb up in the middle of frickin' nowhere, and be served a cold coke by a white-gloved waiter, but I doubt it's a sustaining business model. But there is something cool like that in the area, and a blast to experience (and no pun intended with either "cool" or "blast&quot

[Aerows]

29. I went to Reno straight from New Orleans

and was sick as a *DOG* for half the time I was there.

Altitude sickness bites.

[Tab]

30. I killed a man in Reno once

just to watch him die.

But I did it through altitude sickness.

Seriously, that's about a good mile up. It's not how high you get, it's how acclimated you get. So going up one or two miles you need to acclimate a bit before going higher. Too quickly and you're asking for trouble.

[closeupready]

42. I got altitude sickness standing on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon is actually a daytrip up from Phoenix which is at a much lower altitude, whereas the south rim is 8,000 feet high.

[Paulie]

40. Lemmings!!!

Play here in a web browser! http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

[JCMach1]

9. I refused to wait in the line to go to Versailles... It was truly awful.

[sarge43]

11. The Tower of London tour is another to be avoided at all cost. n/t

[JCMach1]

47. My last 'big' trip to London happened 2 days after the Tube Attacks

Central London and The Tower was a Ghost Town.

It was weird to go through the conveyor belt to see the Crown Jewels with no one else... it was whisking us past and I was annoyed ...

Despite all of the history, it also completely eeeked me out because of the torture. I won't be going back there again.

[sarge43]

48. Crowds or no crowds, it is a haunted place

Too much history, I suppose.

[JCMach1]

50. and I love history... I thought I could handle it...

However, I just kept thinking blood and pain. It was just too much.

[underahedgerow]

45. I have a trick for that, next time you're in Paris!

I've seen the Palace, I do love it very much, but it's the gardens that I love most of all, and particularly Marie Antoinette's English Hamlet at the far, far end of the gardens (over to the right on the map). Visitors rarely get that far, so it's usually mostly empty and very quiet. There is an enormous proper farm there with all sorts of lovely animals living very happy farm lives, with vineyards, herb gardens and roses, wisteria and jasmine. The cottage gardens are enchanting and sweet and my favorite!

That end of the park is mostly a public park. As it's a public park, you can enter for free via Route de la Rien, which is a few blocks straight on from the train station, through the center of Versailles village, which is very sweet and worth seeing as well. You walk straight up the pathway to Trianon along a tree lined boulevard and if you hit it on a lucky day, the ticket machine will be broken and you won't even pay to pass through Trianon and onto the English Hamlet! You can then go back through the grand gardens and exit through the Palace if you wish, although you must pay if you still wish to visit the Palace.

My daughter and I go at Christmas time, it's our tradition, and that's our secret route. We go early, stop for coffee in the village, carry on through the park to Trianon, the English Hamlet and that garden, then by lunch time we're at the bottom of the main concourse with the lakes and have a nice long lunch in our favorite restaurant there (inside, to the right, it's fantastic!). Then we stroll back up through the grand gardens and visit the gift shop, take loads of pictures and hit a particular antique shop in Versailles village and get the train back to Paris. It's a perfect excursion for a winter's day!

Viola!

[JCMach1]

46. Changed my plans and went to Chateau Fountainbleau instead

that's the one in this video...

According to the wife, who has visited Versailles twice, was just as beautiful.

[Kali]

12. this is why I prefer rural areas to big cities and human-made "monuments"

much rather look at farms, small towns, and especially wild lands than be in crowds

[tk2kewl]

13. i had the postcard experience in Santorini

I took the exact same photo too

[PasadenaTrudy]

17. I love Kauai

but I always go in Sept after Labor Day.

[Tab]

20. And I never wear white.

[Avalux]

22. Sardines we were, barely able to breath, staring up at the Sistine Chapel.

Every now and a voice over the loudspeaker yelled "quiet!" to shut us up until we shuffled out.

Then we were freed and ended up following the river to the Louvre.

Once inside we were trapped and smashed together again. There Mona hung with her odd smirk, watching us act the fool just to get a glimpse of her.

(a couple of too-close-for-comfort experiences during my Europe tour)

[Recursion]

26. I have been cattle-herded the Notre Dame during mass

and through the New Mosque in Istanbul during prayers (at least the Blue Mosque they close for prayers). It really bugged me that the churchgoers can't get a half-hour to themselves on a Sunday to hear mass.

[MADem]

34. Wow, you sailed from Rome to Paris?

I'd love to go on one of those jazzy "river" cruises you see on PBS--I understand, though, that they cost the earth. I'll have to buy a lottery ticket!

I have an old tape of the Sistine Chapel, filmed quite illegally while I was there, back in the day when it was less crowded and not quite so much like an armed fortress. The fact that it is a tape gives you a clue as to the timeframe (LOL).

[tinymontgomery]

23. We did Italy

We did Italy this past June and it wasn't bad. No lines, not crowded.
Hit Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome. Stopped in various town's
along the way such as Pisa. Great time.
Went about the 3rd week, weather was great.

[Aerows]

24. I actually rode an elephant once

in retrospect, knowing what I know now, it makes me so incredibly sad.

Such majestic creatures shouldn't be mistreated, not that any creature should be.

I thought it was cool at the time. Now I just feel bad inside knowing what the poor thing endured.

[Recursion]

27. Same here

I thought it was like horses, and learned later it's not

[Aerows]

28. The one I took a ride on

had this bristly hair on it's body. It was absolutely beautiful. It makes me sad that at the time all I thought of was how coarse the hairs were on its body, and not "Why in the hell are people forcing such a beautiful animal to march around a circle with children on its back."

[a la izquierda]

43. People should not swim with dolphins.

I travel a ton. I had the greatest pleasure of touring Calakmul, mostly by myself. It was breathtaking.

[Major Nikon]

44. I've been to most of those places even during high traffic times and it wasn't that bad

I've been to the Great Wall during the fall Chinese national holiday (practically the whole country is off work). There were a lot of people there, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the picture.

I've been to the Eiffel Tower in August when most of the Parisians are on holiday and it wasn't nowhere near as bad as the picture.

The Taj Mahal had a lot of people. It wasn't quite as bad as the picture although the haze from pollution was worse.

[notawinger]

51. I was in Paris in May

It was nowhere near this crowded

[Recursion]

56. Notre Dame has always been a cattle call every time I've gone there

Mostly I just avoid the right bank and things are OK; I like the Latin Quarter and St. Germain.

[mackerel]

57. I mostly tour through Ireland. Even at the Cliff's I've not see the

traffic like others have experienced when visiting other parts of Europe.