Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Funny, but my most disappointing place I ever visited was also in Italy: Venice. Man, I was looking forward to seeing Venice for years, since I love all things Italian (my mom is Italian and I was raised around the language and the food) and I thought all those waterways and canals would be romantic and gorgeous. But...Jesus! What a letdown. The stench! The rats! The heat and humidity! (I went in the summer.) The dilapidated buildings. A three star hotel there couldn't hold a candle to a good Motel 6 in Lubbock, TX.
Luckily, after three days in Venice we went to Florence, which was so beautiful I never wanted to leave--and still dream about retiring there.
That's too bad! I was there in early February, and stayed in a very nice small hotel across the canal, near Santa Maria del Sante (do I remember that name right?). It was *cold*! But very pretty, not crowded being off-season, and no stench. Never saw any rats, either.
Key Largo was disappointing to me. I guess I was expecting to see lush, expensive hotel resort type places. We booked our stay online, and lets just say, the pictures on the web were misleading. All the places look like shacks overrun with the typical decor..(seashells, wicker, light blue paint).
The main drag was depressing looking, dirty, but had alot of shopping centers which kind of surprised me. Islamorada had nice resturants and that super huge sportmans store. Can't think of the name. We did one of those underglass sea boat tours, but the sea swells were huge. It seemed everyone on board was sea sick.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,544 posts, read 56,060,466 times
Reputation: 11862
Quote:
Originally Posted by SophieLL
omg, really old thread, i ve been reading it and loved it! Very interesting
Have to say that the biggest dissapointment for me was LOS ANGELES. I went to LA when i was 18, and i had such high expectations. Imagine, me living so far away (i live in Argentina) watching movies, hearing about "Hollywood" all the time, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. Anyway, my mom has a very close american friend that lives there and i went stay in her house (she lives in a beautiful expensive neighbourhood of huge houses in Long beach) and, eventhough LA has an undeniable beautiful natural scenery (i mean= beaches+mountains, you cant beat that) i found it totally underwhelming for being a BIG CITY, A METROPOLIS, one of the most famous cities on earth...., I mean...
Where are the people?? (seriously, no people walking around ANYWHERE. How does people get together in that place???. One day i went to walk by the beach in a beautiful, sunny, 72 farneheit -it was february- and NOONE WAS THERE. I DIDNT CROSS ANY PERSON IN MY 1 HOUR WALK)
Where is the vibe? (See above, seriously, its like a dead town with beautiful weather, houses and moutnains)
And Hollywood was such a letdown! That place look abandoned (well, all LA look abandoned) and sad.
The whole city was just like an abandoned city, with no soul, no vibe, no action, overall with no qualities that every big metropolis should have. It was all higways and cars.
The ghost deserted car city.
You have to understand that LA is not your typical 'big city.' It's been called hundreds of cities/suburbs in search of an identity, and for me it's attraction is in the fact it doesn't have a huge core that just sucks the life out of the rest of the metropolis in it's gravitational pull (well a bit of an exaggeration). LA downtown itself is still nothing to rave about, it was less so years ago, but I think LA has some pretty cool neighbourhoods, awesome scenery/views, more famous landmarks than any other city apart from NYC. But I can easily see why many dislike it for it's freeways (which are found in pretty much any large American city), seemingly endless suburban sprawl etc. You must have visited awhile ago because I found Hollywood to be bustling and crowded. The boulevard was no doubt the busiest stretch of street in all of LA. It along with a few isolated places, like the Santa Monica boardwalk, Venice Beach when they're busy are the only places in LA that felt like they had LA type density.
Orange County.. I'm serious, even though I live here.
I'm too old for Disneyland and don't really care for beaches except an occasional visit.
Before I moved here, I visited as a tourist. I just didn't see any point to leave suburbia where you lived to visit another bland suburbia as a tourist.. (although this is still a great place to live.)
LA is probably the worst city in the world for tourist-friendliness...the traffic is nothing short of insanity. Today it took me 1 HOUR to get to work using the 405, and I live only 10 miles away from work... yes, I am pissed because that is beyond insane.
I do agree that LA is generally a very boring city compared to other big world cities like London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Rio, Amsterdam, Berlin etc.
Yeah, Trimac. I think my dissapointment it doesnt have to do with what LA "is" (wich i can say is a pretty city, despite the highways) but with i was expecting. I was expecting a whole different thing. And realizing that i didnt see people there, and i could see more people everywhere in the little city i came from in Argentina (Mar del Plata, 500,000 hab) made LA feel "dead" to me.
Maybe i shouldnt have expected that.
Its also true i tend to love big metropolis full of people everywhere. Multicultural, with lots of things to do and people all over walking the city. Thats why I LOVE Buenos Aires and moved there from my little city, and thats why i probably would love New York if i go there (and I soo wanna go!)
Southern California. I was all set to MOVE there from New England but it was just plain ugly. Not much greenery, not much in the way of trees or grass and I even saw plastic grass.
There were brown hills. The beaches were nothing compared to the ones here in New England--the sand was brown, not white like beach sand should be.
There was nothing much to do--and you didn't see many people around. People seemed to belong to interest groups or clubs, that's all.
I went to a party in the Hollywood Hills and that area was nice, much nicer than the rest of Southern CA. But the people were shallow and sort of dumb. They all wanted to be movie stars and they were putting on their acts. What they cared about most was whether you were going to be of any use to them in their career (after they got a career other than pumping gas.) I endured one very boring summer there in Burbank and practically kissed the ground when I finally got back home.
Brussels, Belgium. Sure there is the beautiful architecture of the Grand Place and the statue of the urinating little boy, but I found the rest of the city rather gray and dreary. Especially after cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Copenhagen, Rome and Barcelona ... Brussels is about as appealing as the sprouts named after it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
.
