Famous sites: see or skip?
Stonehenge and the Parthenon got a thumbs up in a Lonely Planet “see it or skip it survey” but Ireland’s Blarney Stone was slapped in the face.
Skip it, said more than two-thirds of those in the 13,000-plus poll.
But 93 percent said see the Parthenon in Athens and more than two-thirds advised taking in Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England.
"Stonehenge, with its mysterious origins and a rather moving line of standing rocks, does carry a special power, but it isn’t exactly situated across the street from Westminster Abbey. You sort of have to want to go out here (no bus service reaches the site, taxis from Salisbury are £35), so most visitors come on tour buses,” wrote one reviewer.
Rome’s Colosseum and Paris’s Eiffel Tower also fared well in the ratings.
Kissing the rock that is built into the battlements of 15th-century Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland, is said to make participants more skilled at the art of flattery.
Another famous landmark, Venetian gondola rides, also have high negative ratings.
By David Wilkening
David
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