OK. This is about all the memorable, significant sites you have seen in your life so far....I'll start

This one beautiful I guy I met up with in France. Probably won’t be equalled.

Grand Canyon. Zion National Park. The Meatrack.

But I've never been to me.

Has anyone been to The Painted Desert ?

When I was in elementary/middle school we took a trip to DC and toured the FBI and Pentagon (this was in the 80s). Both buildings looked like crap on the interior and seemed to need a makeover. I did love Quebec a few years later.

I rode a camel in the Sahara desert. It stunk and it spit at us.

I've been around the world in a plane. Settled revolutions in Spain. The North Pole I have charted, still I can't get started with you.

Nothing was as engrossing as the field trips you take as a child. I remember how fascinating a water treatment plant was as a grade schooler

Our field trip to D.C. We went to the Capitol to see a session of Congress and it was one of the most disappointing experiences of my 15 yr old life. it was almost empty except for members and pages wandering around and some random member giving a speech "for the record" that no one listened to.

I have seen the ruins of Rome! I've been in the igloos of Nome! I have gone to Moscow--it's very gay! Well, anyway, on the first of May!

Do you mean sites, or sights?

The British Museum, the Louvre and the Prado. The Eiffel Tower. Leaning Tower of Pisa. Coliseum, Parthenon, Buckingham Palace. The Ming Tombs, Temple of Heaven, and the Great Wall. The Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes, the Pyrenees, the Rockies... The Great Plains, the Pampas, and miscellaneous glaciers... The Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden Opera House in London... Waikiki Beach, Ipanema Beach, the Costa de Oro and the Côte d'Azur. More graves and tombs than you can shake a stick at -Napoleon, Karl Marx, all the Kings of England. Like the song says, I've been everywhere -or pretty damn close to it. I'm so old, when I went to Stonehenge you could walk up and touch it. Checkpoint Charlie was a border crossing, not something in a museum. The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain were real things, not just something in history books.

I've been exceedingly lucky, and have seen more of this planet than 99% of people ever will. Travel if you ever get the chance, folks. Memories of people and places are a lot more comfort in your old age than video games and social media likes.

I am not an American but I got chills when I saw the Lincoln Memorial about 30 years ago. I can't ever forget seeing the middle aged woman walking slowly along the Vietnam memorial, and how her face crumpled when she found the name she had been looking for.

The observation floor of the World Trade Center. I know, pretty common. But I was a hick from Flyover tagging along a friend's business trip to NYC. I shouldn't have been there, but there I was. So every 9/11 I have this weird connection.

My list isn’t nearly as long as some of yours but it’s got some treasures. Petra in Jordan, at night by candlelight, was especially amazing.

Salem MA. All of them witches!

Haight - Ashbury

Eiffel Tower/ Louvre

The Pantheon in Rome—never get sick of it. San Rocco in Venice.

I visited Paradise, California after it burnt down. We almost got run over by a bulldozer.

I ate a beignet in New Orleans two days before Hurricane Katrina and visited the Jefferson Davis house in Biloxi right before it was smashed to smithereens.

I visited Saint John New Brunswick, the birthplace of Donald Sutherland, to catch a glimpse of the Bay of Fundy. A very nice woman in an indoor mall antique store told me the place was icy hell 7 months out of the year.

I hiked the mountains of Patagonia, trekked in its grandest glacier, canoed down one of its rivers, ate stew cooked on a campfire in one of its caves, and saw more stars in the sky than you’d ever witness back home.

[saw more stars in the sky than you’d ever witness back home.]

Stupid remark. Depends on where home is.

R15 That photo is the opposite of compelling. It looks like AI slop.

The Rodin Museum in Paris, which was just spectacular in every way: the building with a beautiful garden is the perfect setting for the collection.

The Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The Eiffel tower, the Brandenburg Gate, Goethe’s house in Weimar, Edinburgh Castle (I love arriving there by train, right in the shadow of the castle). The Met Opera. The Louvre. The Colosseum. The Statue of Liberty.

I saw the Frauenkirche in Dresden as a pile of rubble just a few years after the Berlin Wall fell, and then saw it being reconstructed. I saw Prague in the same time period, just before it was entirely eaten by tourists.

Yes! I loved the Rodin Museum. I saw the Pantheon in Rome too, and walked around the Roman Forum. Never saw the Prado, but in addition to the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, and Napoleon's Tomb. Also went to St. George's chapel and say lots of tombs for kings and queens, Westminster too. Yes, La Scala in Milan. Saw the Statue of Liberty but never made it to Ellis Island.

Went Whale watching off Provincetown .

UK - St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, The Tower, British Museum

France - Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Versailles

Italy - Pompeii, Vesuvius, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Vatican, Il Domo, Tower of Pisa (back when it was really leaning, before repairs halted it), Verona Arena, Piazza San Marco

Africa - Sossusvlei, Victoria Falls, Table Mountain

Mexico - Teotihuacán, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, Zócalo

USA - the Capitol, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Empire State Building, The World Trade Center (the original one), Central Park, MOMA, Golden Gate Bridge

Canada - Niagara Falls, CN Tower, the Bay of Fundy (world's highest tides), Lake Louise

🎵 I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed them what I got 🎵

Thank you all for your pathetic bragging of tourist sites visited.

If you think your post means anything to anyone it's clear you are either alcoholic or typing from a ledge somewhere.

Are you Satan?

La Cappella degli Scrovegni before anybody cared.

Il Museo at the Villa Borghese which beats all including the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center when I was 10.

Gee, R27, what did you think people would be posting to this thread?? Eggnog recipes??

I think as we get older a lot of us reflect on the amazing things we have seen and experienced, and as I read through the posts, I think of more things I would like to do while I have a chance.

BTW: Thanks for reminding me, We saw the Tower of London and the place where the Jewelry is on display. Also saw Vesuvius and walked the streets of Pompeii. No wonder that city was destroyed. There were whore houses on every corner and obscene graffiti too. Penises everywhere. Pompeii must have been Sin City.

Yes to Niagara Falls and to Notre Dame Cathedral...before the fire.

I have seen Imelda Marcos' shoe collection at Malacañang Palace.

I was struck by how small St. George's Chapel at Windsor was.

The one famous site I saw that disappointed me was Stonehenge. I thought it would be bigger and imposing. It was rocks.

Palenque Mexico.The ruins of the Chaco nation, New Mexico. The John Muir trail, California .The trenches at Arnum Belgium. A WWI battlefield where tens of thousands died. Mana Kea, Hawaii. Way up in the sky with the observatories. The Uffizi gallerey, Florence Italy. Sotano de las goladrinas, Mexico. The most amazing display of nature I have ever witnessed.

UK - St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, The Tower, British Museum, Kew Gardens and Windsor Castle

France - Eiffel Tower, only had 3 hours in Paris between trains

Germany - Brandenburg Gate on a day trip to Berlin. Also cruised in the Tiergarten (it was Pride week) and got real lucky

Africa - Table Mountain - I've climbed it from the front, and from the back up Skeleton Gorge (spectacular and very steep with 100's of metres of chains and ladders), run the top from one end to the other, and hiked all around it. Also climbed Lions Head, Devils Peak, and several other mountains around Cape Town, including the Paarl Rock which is a spectacular climb too

USA - Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, and Central Park -hiked all over the latter, its a treasure

Japan - The Imperial Palace, Himeji Castle, Mt Fuji (didnt get to climb it though, thats a bucket list item), the Gold and Silver Temple Pavilions in Kyoto, plus the gardens, the Mount Inari Temple Gates, and shrines - many hundreds of temple gates in a beautiful park setting, its a steep climb but worth it. Also many other temples castles and gardens all around Japan

Asia - Siam Reap in Cambodia, the Sky Gardens in Singapore, several historic sites in Malaysia

Australia - Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and lots of other places in Australia, its close to us

Bucket list - Versailles, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and Socotra Island off the Yemen Coast

I've probably forgotten a bunch

My own selfies

I'm not going to list every monument, landmark, museum, castle, cathedral, etc. If I think of the top highlights, it would probably be Angkor Wat, Pompeii & Herculaneum, Rome in general, Torres del Paine in Patagonia, Teotihuacan. But I also love to explore lesser known and untouristed places.

I've slept at Buckingham Palace

Saw La Scala walkout by Callas

Took tea with Gertrude and Alice

and if you knew Nehru like she knew Nehru

Oh! Oh what a gal!

R27 never made it out of Branson, MO.

I’m not a great traveller, and I detest airports, so my own list earlier in this thread was rather short and Eurocentric, but I ‘ve thought of a few more which were absolute standouts.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which is so small, dwarfed by the giant buildings in the background, but a pivotal spot in world history.

The Temple of Dendur in the Met Museum in New York. It left me speechless really. It’s history just heaps up: it’s Egyptian, decorated in hieroglyphs, then Napoleonic troops held it for a while, and added graffiti, then the Brits chased them off, and added their own names, and then the US obtained it and installed it in a beautiful gallery in a different continent.

The site I will never forget though, is Skara Brae: a neolithic housing estate in a spot which seems at the end of the world. A set of houses with beds and fireplaces and covered walkways inhabited before the time of the Great Pyramids. Now threatened by coastal erosion but still surviving as a miraculous insight into life lived by humans an unimaginably long time ago.

South Dakota -- The Corn Palace, Wall Drug, Reptile Gardens, Mt. Rushmore

I am learning so much from these responses. Especially those off the beaten path. My own bucket list is getting longer. Thanks!

The one think that kind of surprised me when we went to Greece, was how spread out things are compared to Rome. So many historic places were all close in proximity to one another in Rome, for example. But in Athens you saw the Acropolis, etc. but other ancient historic sites were all over the place in Greece.

Ipanema Beach in Rio, St Peters in Rome (massive scale), Teotichuan (mentioned above - again the scale but also the age), Golden Gate Bridge (common but will always be one of the most iconic sites in one of the most fabulous cities in the world), Jackson Hole/Yellowstone, Grand Canyon.

[quote]No wonder that city was destroyed. There were whore houses on every corner and obscene graffiti too. Penises everywhere.

I fail to see a problem here.

Yes! At St. Peter's Basilica in Rome I could actually feel the power of the Catholic Church. It was actually kind of scary. And that bronze, baroque style canopy by the altar was very imposing. When I went to St. Paul's Cathedral and even to Westminster Abbey, I felt like I was in a church. Especially at St. Paul's, for some reason. We even went to a Sunday service at Westminster. But in Rome, I got no spiritual vibes. None. It was about power. The art and the architecture was remarkable. But not inviting. S

R46 here. Some of the places I have visited, I would happily return to, but not St. Peter's. Has anyone else had similar vibes or reactions?

I’ve been to a lot of big sites, but my top three are climbing to the top of Mt. Vesuvius, crossing the Hungarian border and staying in Budapest in the summer of 1989, and taking the guided tour of Buckingham Palace that includes having a drink on the terrace and being driven out the front gate.

R47, I visited St Peter’s with some elderly relatives, and I greatly appreciated the way priests and nuns were sent out into the crowd to bring elderly, disabled and frail people to the front of the (huge) queue to get into the building, but visiting the building was a strange experience.

The place seems very sterile and oppressive. It’s a manifestation of power with a weird lack of spirituality or even community. All that marble, stone a d gold leaf, and all I kept thinking was that centuries of cash went into creating such a cold, unwelcoming space.

It was unsettling to feel that way about a church. In most cathedrals, I am awed by the craftsmanship and history, which seem to have been put to the use of a higher ideal. And places like La Sagrada Familia or York Minster retain a sense of soirituality which even the hordes of tourists (like me!) cannot kill.

R49 you express it better than I did but yes, to everything you say!

"The place seems very sterile and oppressive. It’s a manifestation of power with a weird lack of spirituality or even community. All that marble, stone a d gold leaf, and all I kept thinking was that centuries of cash went into creating such a cold, unwelcoming space. "

"It was unsettling to feel that way about a church."

Reading another thread here and realised I need to add another significant site to my bucket list - the Hampstead Heath Fuck Tree