1 day ago
2
Rob Crossan
January 8, 2026 — 5:00am
With its Roman amphitheatres, Renaissance masterworks and Gothic cathedrals, Europe may have the world’s most extraordinary cultural inheritance. But it also has a baffling parallel tradition: namely attractions so dismal and overrated they deserve to be bulldozed – yet to which tourists inexplicably flock.
Such as the following:
1. Juliet’s Balcony, Verona
Never mind that Shakespeare never went anywhere near Verona in his lifetime, nor that the house where “Juliet’s Balcony” is found has absolutely nothing to do with the Bard, nor his tale of star-crossed lovers, the camera phones just keep on snapping at the city’s most enduring piece of fiction.
Enduring and increasingly profitable. It was recently reported that the attraction has become so overrun with tourists that authorities have decided, during the December-January peak period, visitors must now pay €12 ($21) for the privilege of gazing up at the stone balcony (which, incidentally, wasn’t even added to the building until the 1930s) and posing beside a bronze statue depicting the fictional character of Juliet (which was put up in the 1970s as a further incentive for tourists to visit).
2. Leicester Square, London
I once considered establishing a fourth emergency service: Leicester Square Rescue. Officers would wander the West End’s premier holding pen of commerce, petty crime and rancid pizza slices and seek out the most bemused and unhappy looking tourists. They would then usher them into a rescue vehicle and take them to Brixton, Dalston, Sadlers Wells or, frankly, anywhere better than their current location.
I remain convinced that there’s merit in the concept. Because there is no finer act of charity that a Londoner can bestow upon a visitor than to drag them away from M&M World, the Hippodrome, the Hard Rock Cafe and everything else that makes Leicester Square feel like a vision of what Las Vegas would be like if it was run by Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary.
3. The Blue Lagoon, Iceland
The Blue Lagoon sells fantasy: milky, geothermal wellness in a moonscape. But the reality is a carefully stage-managed spa experience with the ambience of an airport lounge dipped in grimy water. The crowd density makes the place feel closer to human soup than restorative solitude and, frankly, you should avoid any “attraction” that feels the need to employ a man whose sole job is to prowl the perimeter with a stick and prod any couples in flagrante.
Add in the fact that the lagoon is not a natural wonder but essentially a warm industrial by-product, and the magic evaporates faster than the surrounding steam.
4. The Blarney Stone, Ireland
For centuries, travellers have climbed the narrow, medieval steps of Blarney Castle in order to dangle backwards and kiss what is, incontrovertibly, a damp rock. The legend that bestowing a smooch upon it grants eloquence is dispelled by the fact that Ronald Reagan has kissed it and, as far as I know, Iris Murdoch and Tom Stoppard never did.
Likely concocted by 18th-century tour guides who knew a marketing hook when they saw one, you queue to pucker up to this most unhygienic piece of stone and then spend the rest of your Irish holiday wondering if you’ve caught mononucleosis.
5. The Reeperbahn, Hamburg
Hamburg’s red-light district has long basked in its reputation as Europe’s wildest night out, based on a back story of sailors and a young John Lennon all catching the clap there. The modern Reeperbahn is about as bohemian as a Travelodge dining room that has been taken over by an amateur rugby team for the evening.
Its once-legendary clubs jostle alongside identikit beer barns and rancid looking strip joints. Fifteen minutes of walking on this street and you will yearn for that “last resort when overseas” option of watching CNN in your hotel room while working your way through a tube of Pringles from the minibar.
6. Manneken Pis, Brussels
The urinating boy of Brussels is a 17th-century civic water feature that, despite being just half a metre tall, appears to have a bladder capacity that could fill an Olympic swimming pool. You will find him draped in football scarves and photographed by members of American coach parties who think this kitsch mascot is wonderfully funny and must get a photo.
Attach a hose to a garden gnome at home and you can replicate the experience yourself without the bother of flying to Brussels. Rest easy knowing you have just saved yourself an airfare and any potential exposure to Tintin.
7. The Mona Lisa, Paris
The experience of seeing Leonardo’s greatest hit at the Louvre feels more like a security drill than an aesthetic encounter. Visitors funnel through barriers, only to reach a vast room dominated by a small, glass-encased rectangle glimpsed over a sea of raised phones. Blink and it’s done in the time it takes to down one tumbler of pastis or get pick-pocketed outside the Gare du Nord.
8. A Venice gondola ride
A gondola ride in Venice should be the very apex of European romance; gliding under Baroque bridges with the lagoon glittering in the distance. Then you realise that the €90 price you are being quoted – a price set in stone by city authorities – isn’t actually to purchase the gondola itself, but to sit in it for 30 minutes while a grumpy Venetian makes diversions to wolf-whistle at passing Brazilian tour groups.
The promised “quiet backwaters” of the city’s canal network are usually drowned out by other tourists filming their own serenely curated misery. Sail if you must, but prepare yourself for a waterborne traffic jam with slightly better upholstery.
9. The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen
Perpetually surprised-looking and impressively stoic, considering how many times she has been vandalised, Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid is the epitome of tourist anti-climax. Commissioned in 1913 as a tribute to Hans Christian Andersen, she sits on a harbour rock dwarfed by industrial scenery, looking like she’s about to ask you for any spare change so she can get herself on a budget flight to Spain and away from this tawdriness.
Tour buses disgorge visitors who peer with a slightly baffled expression at how small she is; then crowd around for photos that inevitably feature several other people taking the same photo. Going to your local supermarket and taking a photo of some shrink-wrapped bacon is a more stimulating and authentically Danish experience.
10. John O’Groats, Scotland
And finally, the most undeserving tourist attraction of them all. The entire concept of John O’Groats is a lie. It is not, and never has been, the most northerly point on the British mainland. That accolade goes to Dunnet Head a few miles along the road.
Persevere with this parvenu excuse of a “must see” and you’ll be “rewarded” with a car park, an inevitably appalling gift shop and a toilet block. But at least you can now take a free picture of the fabled signpost (in previous years you had to pay) which tells you exactly how many miles you are from Land’s End, a similarly dispiriting tourist experience, though with a slightly nicer toilet block.
The Telegraph, London
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