Europe's Tackiest Things???
 

Though I genuinely like nearly everything about every European city there are a handful of things that boggle my mind in their tackiness - here's my list of Europe's Most Tacky Sights - what's yours (if any)?
1- London- Trocadero Center
In what has to be the tackiest thing in all of europe is London's Trocadero right near Piccaddily Circus - this presumable old theatre, has been turned into a multi-floor exurberance of tackiness - a giant amusement thing appealing to youth groups that, like the ubiquitous German ones, that descend on London - the attractions change every year it seems but all Schlock!
2- Rome's Colosseum Area
Though the Colosseum is of course an amazing sight Italian authorities have allowed the area in front of it to become a very tacky place where people hawk toy flying pigeons, trinkets and, most Kitschy of all, fake gladiators stand on pedestals and charge to have their pictures taken with wide-eyed tourists. I've actually watched them for periods of time and they even become quite aggressive if someone dare take their picture without paying, etc.
3- Paris' Les Halles ('Lay-All') complex - dommage the French would say as to the results when in the 1960s the famous old wrought-iron market halls were pulled down, with bien sur a few vestiges left standing, and this concrete monstrosity put up - the underground shopping mall is similar tawdry as is the crowd of pickpockets and undesirables the area attracts. Parisian authorities are planning on a re-development. Too bad they couldn't re-erect the old market halls and have it become a Covent Garden like area!
4- Paris' Latin Quarter
Well at least the Latin Quarter opposite Notre-Dame Cathedral - the restaurant ghetto featuring eateries from nearly every ethnic origin - but tacky places that only tourists would go to - i've walked streets like Xavier-Privas for years and it seems the restaurants change orientation every few years as to what's in vogue - Mexican one day, Cous-Cous places the next and recently Greek fare - same owners but new facades.
5-Inca Bands - when the Inca Bands descended on Europe a decade or so ago you couldn't go anywhere without several Inca bands playing on the streets. In what must have been a major export for Inca countries, though the bands have seemingly died out you still occasionally hear their music in the streets - OK in La Paz but i don't need it in Paris, Rome, etc.
7- Africans selling tacky souvenirs supposedly crafted in their home countries. This is a specialty of Paris and Rome - all over the sidewalks colorfully dressed African types lay out their cheap wares - in fact they are locals hired by big operators and where the goods come from is a mystery. Perhaps Bangladesh?
8-The Dam in Amsterdam
Amsterdam is one of the world's most gorgeous cities - this Venice of the North however allows the main entry to the city, a street called the Dam that runs from the main train station to Dam Square, to become a blight of Kitschy tacky stores selling little of redeeming value. You'll find few Dutch shopping here in the parade of souvenir shops and loud pubs - including a Hooters - well it used to be a Hooters but is reincarnated with a different name but the same ample bossomed girls in tight fitting outfits.
9-London's Swiss Clock Show - again in the generally unappetizing Leicester Square area, this clock show on each hour i guess is sponsored by the Swiss Tourist Office located here - but i find it a Kitschy event not worth waiting for.
10-Europe's Tackiest Train Station - Brussels Gare du Midi (Zuid in Flemish) - though the bottom on the station has been spiffily renovated, the upper levels where the tracks are seem like something out of the old East Germany - peeling paint, lifeless cement walls, rusting overhead roofs above each track - though it formerly would have been 2nd to London's Kings X station in ugliness - since that stations complete renovation in conjucntion with Eurostar trains arriving next door at St Pancras its tacky old metal facade has been removed and the whole area is being elaborately developed. So now Midi has the title of Europe's ugliest train shed.
Well that's my Top Ten - i'll add the Also-Rans later - what places do you find tacky in Europe?

Cool! Now I have a plan for my next trip - PalQ's top 10 European sites!

I must admit that I enjoy spending a few minutes looking through the tacky stuff. When we concluded our visit to St. Peter's, I went on a search for the Tackiest Pope Souvineer. In Pisa, my daughter bought her crazy English teacher a leaning tower with arms and a top hat!

PalQ, why are you boggled by tackiness? If you are from the US, do you think that Europeans are so much more refined than us that they aren't allowed to wallow in tackiness?

> Les Halles ('Lay-All')

Sorry, this is not the topic of this thread but I'm used to pronounce (and hear pronounced), "Leh-Ahl". Maybe not a good transcription but the point is it's not ALL.

palq,

re: # 5
I LOVE the Inca bands anywhere in the world I hear them.

re: # 7
I collect camels. I got 2 little leathers ones on Saint Angelo bridge in Rome that I just love.

re: # 8
You are right on the mark on this one.


Faina,
:)

Let me clarify that i indeed do love tacky things - i always love going to Trocadero in London - yes i actually love these things and am not trying to say only Europeans have tacky things.
My favorite place in Europe practically is Blackpool - the epitome of tackiness but tacky there is what you expect.
Yes - les ahl would be better!

Lol, PalQ

Your "fake gladiators stand on pedestals and charge to have their pictures taken with wide-eyed tourists" made me laugh out loud giggle to myself.

Thanks for the smile.

My tackiest thing would be when the "flower people" chase you down in Italy. Nothing zaps me out of my fog-happy-hazed reverie quicker than when that happens.

- The T-shirt that my British hosts bought me from Blackpool that said "Kiss me I'm British".

re #7: I'm sure this isn't what you meant, but Africans aren't "things," tacky or otherwise.

I think I'd vote for the Mannequin Pis in Brussels! With all of those outfits and souvenirs, it is beyond tacky.

Tracy (who admits that she bought a tacky manneguin pis statue for her brother)

Sorry, PalQ, that came out snippier than I intended--and maybe your elements of your post came out snippier than you intended to me.

I did attend a festa in Corniglia with a band that the whole town was excited about and talking about for days ahead of time. Yep, it was an Inca band. So tacky's in the eye of the etc., etc.

Oh yes, the Manneken Pis is definitely up there amongst the tackiest sites in Europe. It's awful, and people still throng there to take pictures.

I don't think there's anything particularly tacky about Midi station though - I don't mean it's a landmark but tacky isn't the adjective I'd use. If we're going for the worst train station competition then surely Gare St Lazare and Gare de l'Est should be up there too.

The Trocadero centre is definitely quite tacky, as are parts of Edinburgh's Royal Mile (tartan gonk anyone?) and, surely, Loch Ness visitor's centre.

I think you've defined this too narrowly, If Blackpool doesn't qualify, how can, for example:
- most French purpose-built ski resorts
- all British motorway service stations
- most of central Bucharest
- Coventry and Liverpool Catholic cathedrals
- all British New Towns, except Letchworth and (possibly) Welwyn Garden City.
- the really, really down at heel British resorts, like Wells Next the Sea and New Brighton
- every Med resort extensively colonised by the British (those the Germans have taken over often retain a modicum of class)

And if this sounds a bit Britocentric, I'd suggest that when it comes to tack, Britain stands head, shoulders and over-exposed, rapidly sunburning, abdomen above the rest of Europe.

BTW, in the matter of Kings Cross. It's certainly true that the original 1852 building was practically the last piece of Industrial Revolution beauty before all that fussy Albertopolis junk came along. But it was impractical.

It wasn't just that there wasn't room for the Yo Sushis, M+S Simply Foods, Tie Racks and space for doing mobile phone promotions that are essential to any proper railway station. There wasn't room for trivia like ticket offices, left luggage or waiting rooms either.

So while they're stripping the hideous canopy away, it's not at all clear where the services are going to go (http://www.networkrail.co.uk/documen...ossLeaflet.pdf).

What Network Rail sem to be doing is putting a huge wind-swept piazza in front of the 1852 building. Which, as a second's glance at the tat in front of Euston will show, is an invitation for even greater horrors.

Nsture abhors a vacuum. Put an empty piazza anywhere in London and it'll be full in no time of Kosovans selling reconstituted rats masquerading as hot dogs.

Nsture abhors a vacuum. Put an empty piazza anywhere in London and it'll be full in no time of Kosovans selling reconstituted rats masquerading as hot dogs...

JESUS CHRIST IN HEAVEN !!

o.k.
now <i><u>that</u></i> is politically <b><u>in</u></b>correct.

ahh the gladiators outside the Colosseum. :) I wondered at first whether they were there for a play or something...and then I saw the wide eyed tourists whipping out the cameras and lining up...yes I did say <u>lining up</u>...for pictures.

It was the most amusing thing I saw for the day. I couldn't understand why on earth they wanted <i>that</i> particular memory to last forever! :)

hmm....

The sex museum in Amsterdam? If you don't take it too seriously, it might even make you smile. Maybe.

Hi
Are they still selling snow globes of the Pope outside of the Vatican? Bought one for our daughter who enoys tacky snow globes.
The Inca bands are also on the list of tackiness in Europe. I've seen them in many cities.
Tackiness is in the eye of the beholder.

In front of the Einsiedeln church, there are lots of little shops selling some really tacky things. However, not everything is tacky and I bought some real nice crucifixes and got them blessed by the priest in the church.

Right next to Windsow Castle facing its wall is a string of really tacky shops, pizza joints, etc. Couldn't believe it the first time I saw it.