What is your favourite touristy place to go? I like Paris. I've been there twice. The first time

[applegrove]

it was on a bus tour and I was only there for a few days but saw the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay. I was the only person on the bus who spoke french so I spent a lot of my time translating. The second time I had the use of an apartment near L'ile de la cite. We walked every and shopped for our food at the tiny little stores on every block. It was fun getting such fresh food. I promised myself I would shop every day for fresh food when I got back to North America. I do but the food is not fresh in our grocery stores. It was fun pretending to be a Parisian. We saw Musee Rodin and Pere LaChaise cemetary. We walked by Notre Dame one day and saw people going inside. So we followed. Turned out there was an opera singer singing ava maria inside. Wonderful experience. I know I will go back some day and see more of it.

[taterguy]

1. Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station

[RebelOne]

2. Been to Paris. Wasn't impressed with it. The French laugh at our American accents.

Really great touristy places to visit are Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Helen, Georgia and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. And also Key West, Florida.

[applegrove]

4. The French certainly have a different culture. What matters when customers are in line

is the first person in line and if they have something interesting to say to the store owner. Everybody else can wait. LOL!

[GoCubsGo]

3. Any of the National Parks and Monuments

The Grand Canyon is the first to come to mind.

[gateley]

5. Venice - or any of Italy, but Venice is pretty touristy.

I'd love to go to Paris, too, and hope I'll be able to, someday!

[DFW]

6. I was in Paris yesterday. Have to go back down there tomorrow

But I'm there once a week for work anyway. I'm so used to it, I have a hard time thinking of
the city as a tourist destination any more.

As for favorite touristy places, Praha (Prague) and København (Copenhagen) and Barcelona are
among my favorites for cities, the Berner Oberland for mountains, and either the Big Island (Hawai'i)
or the Seychelles for tropical islands. The Andean communities north of Quito for purely cultural
immersion are ideal. Otherwise, I sometimes enjoy just driving downtown and walking along the
Rhein Promenade in the summer, letting my coffee get cold while watching the river barges trudge
by on their way between Holland and Switzerland.

[applegrove]

7. How touristy are the Seychelles?

[DFW]

9. Only slightly by our standards

As with many distant island nations, the Seychellois are mostly relatively poor, but with a mild climate and
the ability to catch all they need to eat from the sea, they are not starving. They seemed to be a relatively
happy people to me. We always got a smile from whomever we talked to (speaking French helps, and their
local Patois is a delight to listen to--French infused with lilting African cadences). Their government's infatuation
with the Soviet Union seems have to have died with the Soviets' desire to pump money into the place in
return for the government letting Soviets and their puppets use the place for military exercises. Just as well.
My wife has never been so freaked out in her life as when a bunch of very non-French-speaking guys in
combat fatigues carrying Kalashnikovs jumped out at us at some gorgeous beach on Mahé asking a
menacing "where you go?" Apparently that particular beach was for "socialist allies only," and at that, only
ones carrying weapons.

We have heard that in the meantime, the smaller islands, especially La Digue, have had super-expensive
resorts built on them. I wouldn't know. I didn't even stay at Fisherman's Cove when I was on Mahé. My
wife and I stayed at a tiny, modest place on the northwest corner of Mahé. I don't even know if it's still
there (or still modest). Mahé did have some irritatingly pushy souvenir merchants, mostly form India.
But the Seychellois themselves were a delightful people to visit, and I mightily regret that I haven't been
able to find the time to go back. Blessed with (so far) no oil discoveries in the neighborhood, no huge
oil companies seem have to been interested in fouling up the beaches or buying up everything to the point
where the natives have been forced into slave-like subservience.

[ellisonz]

8. Pompeii.