Top 10 Attractions in the World

Top Ten Attractions in the World

If you’re planning your summer getaway, travel website Viator.com has some suggestions based on user responses.

The Eiffel Tower, an iconic jewel of the Parisian landscape, was the world’s most popular attraction in 2011, according to Viator travelers and the 2011 Viator Travel Awards. The team at Viator.com – the leading resource for researching and booking more than 9,000 tours and activities in 800-plus destinations in more than 150 countries – has combined traveler reviews, photos and bookings as well as data from the millions of travelers who visited Viator in 2011, to identify the World’s Top 25 Attractions for 2011. Viator is highlighting the top 10 attractions to help inspire 2012′s world travelers, a selection that takes travelers across Europe and the U.S., with the expanded top 25 featuring Australia and Japan as well.

An interactive Map of the Top Ten Attractions in the World

One of the most recognizable structures in the world - The Eiffel Tower in Paris

• The Eiffel Tower, Paris

If the Statue of Liberty is emblematic of New York, Big Ben is London, and the Kremlin is Moscow, then the Eiffel Tower is the symbol of Paris. Built by French engineer Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World’s Fair, a trip to Paris isn’t complete without a visit spent peering through the girders and across the beautiful landscape of the City of Light.
Tour Eiffel Bargain – The least expensive way to see the Tour Eiffel (www.tour-eiffel.fr) is to walk up the first two floors at a cost of 4.50€ adults, or 3.50€ ages 25 and younger. That way, you also avoid the long lines waiting for the elevator — although the views are less spectacular from this platform. If you dine at the tower’s own 58 Tour Eiffel (tel. 01-45-55-20-04), an Eiffel restaurant on the first floor, management allows patrons to cut to the head of the line.
Hours : Sept-May daily 9:30am-11:45pm; June-Aug daily 9am-12:45am. Sept-June stairs open only to 6:30pm
Location: Champ de Mars, 7e,
Transportation :Métro: Trocadéro, Ecole Militaire, or Bir Hakeim. RER: Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel
Phone: 01-44-11-23-23
Website: www.tour-eiffel.fr
Prices:Admission to 2nd landing 8€, 3rd landing 13€. Stairs to 2nd floor 4.50€

Centerd on the domed bulk of St Peter’s Basilica and St. Peter's Square, the Vatican is the capital of the Catholic world

• Vatican, Rome

The world’s smallest sovereign state (a mere 0.44 sq km), the Vatican sits atop the low-lying Vatican hill just a few hundred meters west of the River Tiber. Centerd on the domed bulk of St Peter’s Basilica and Bernini’s St. Peter’s Square (Piazza San Pietro), it is the capital of the Catholic world, a spiritual superpower whose law is gospel to the world’s one billion Catholics. On a more temporal level, it’s one of Rome’s most visited areas and you’ll almost certainly have to queue to get into St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums. The popes were among the first royalty to open their vast art collections to the public, which today attracts millions of travelers making skip-the-line tours a traveler’s best bet.
The easiest way to get to the Vatican is to take metro line A to Ottaviano-San Pietro. Otherwise buses 40 and 64 run to the Vatican from Stazione Termini.
Website: www.vatican.va

Moulin Rouge, Paris’ most celebrated cabaret, was founded in 1889

• Moulin Rouge, Paris

Paris’ most celebrated cabaret was founded in 1889 and its dancers appeared in the flamboyant posters by Toulouse-Lautrec. It sits under its trademark red windmill (a 1925 replica of the 19th-century original) and attracts viewers/voyeurs by the coachload.
Location: Place Blanche
Transportation: Métro: Blanche
Phone: 01-53-09-82-82
Website: www.moulinrouge.fr
Prices: Tickets for the show alone range from 80€-90€, and packages including dinner range from 150€-180€

Built in 1705 as Buckingham House for the duke of the same name, Buckingham palace has been the royal family’s London lodgings since 1837

• Buckingham Palace, London

The Queen’s official residence and Mecca for Royal watchers is only open to the public in summer when the Queen travels, but visitors in 2012 best check the calendar as the Olympics will be keeping the Royals in town.
Highlights:
The Grand Hall, followed by the Grand Staircase and Guard Room, give a taste of the marble, gold leaf galore, and massive, twinkling chandeliers that embellish the palace. Don’t miss the theatrical Throne Room, with the original 1953 coronation throne, or the sword in the Ballroom, used by the Queen to bestow knighthoods and other honors. Royal portraits line the State Dining Room, and the Blue Drawing Room is splendor in overdrive. The bow-shape Music Room features lapis lazuli columns between arched floor-to-ceiling windows, and the alabaster-and-gold plasterwork of the White Drawing Room is a dramatic crescendo. Spend some time ambling around the splendid gardens, a gorgeous epilogue to the visit.
The Changing the Guard, also known as Guard Mounting, remains one of London’s best free shows and culminates in front of the palace. Marching to live bands, the old guard proceeds up the Mall from St. James’s Palace to Buckingham Palace. Shortly afterward, the new guard approaches from Wellington Barracks. Then within the forecourt, the captains of the old and new guards symbolically transfer the keys to the palace.
(see more attractions in London)
Address: Buckingham Palace Rd., St. James, London, SW1A 1AA
Phone: 020/7766–7300
Cost: £18
Hours: Aug.-late Sept., daily 9:45-6 (last admission 3:45); times subject to change; book ahead for disabled access; check Web site before visiting
Website: www.royalcollection.org.uk
Tube: Victoria, St. James’s Park, Green Park.
Location: Westminster and Royal London

The Colosseum remains ancient Rome's greatest architectural legacy

• Colosseum, Rome

The Colosseum is the most extraordinary of all Rome’s monuments. It’s not just the amazing completeness of the place, or its size, but the sense of its gory history that resonates: it was here that gladiators met in mortal combat and condemned prisoners fought off hungry lions. Two thousand or so years on, it’s still hauling in the crowds. Don’t let the lengthy queue put you off: just pop down to the Palatine ticket office, buy your combined ticket there, and on returning march straight in.
Address: Piazza del Colosseo, Rome, 00184
Phone: 06/39967700
Cost: €12 (combined ticket with the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and Imperial Forums, if used within 2 days)
Hours: Daily 8:30-1 hr before sunset
Website: www.pierreci.it
Metro Colosseo; Bus 117, 87, 186, 85, 850.
Location: Imperial Forums

Featured in a hundred Hollywood films, the Empire State Building is the most famous member of the New York skyline

• Empire State Building, New York

The Big Apple gem remains one of the world’s most iconic attractions, offering visitors 360 views of the Tri-state region and the bustling streets below. Featured prominently in almost a hundred Hollywood films over the years, the Empire State Building – actually a very glorified office building – is the most famous member of the New York skyline. It’s a limestone classic built in just 410 days (using seven million hours of labor) during the Great Depression, at the astounding cost of $41 million. Located on the site of the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the 102-story, 1472ft-high (to the top of the antenna) Empire State Building opened in 1931 after the laying of 10 million bricks, installation of 6400 windows and setting of 328,000 sq ft of marble. The famous antenna was originally meant to be a mooring mast for zeppelins, but the Hindenberg disaster slammed the brakes on that plan. Later an aircraft did (accidentally) meet up with the building: a B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor on a foggy day in 1945, killing 14 people.
The best views, and what keeps the nearly three million visitors coming every year, are the ones from the 86th- and 102nd-floor observatories. The lower one is best—you can walk out on a windy deck and look through coin-operated viewers (bring quarters!) over what, on a clear day, can be as much as an 80-mile visible radius. The citywide panorama is magnificent. One surprise is the flurry of rooftop activity, an aspect of city life that thrives unnoticed from our everyday sidewalk vantage point. The higher observation deck is glass-enclosed and cramped.
Address: 350 5th Ave., at E. 34th St., Murray Hill, New York, NY, 10118
Phone: 212/736-3100; 877/692-8439
Cost: $20
Hours: Daily 8 am-2 am; last elevator up leaves at 1:15 am
Website: www.esbnyc.com
Subway: B, D, F, N, Q, R, M to 34th St./Herald Sq.; 6 to 33rd St.
Location: Midtown

Neuschwanstein Castle - One of Germany's most recognized sights

• Neuschwanstein, Munich

The model for Disney’s Cinderella Castle, Schloss Neuschwanstein (Neuschwanstein Castle) brings a fairytale to life with the idyllic scenery of the Bavarian Alps and a room replete with frescos of angels.
Address: Füssen Bavaria
Website: www.hohenschwangau.de
Phone: 083 62 930 830
Price: adult/concession €9/8, with Hohenschwangau €17/15
Hours: 8am-5pm Apr-Sep, 9am-3pm Oct-Mar

A marvel of modern engineering peering over a marvel of Mother Nature, the glass-bottom Skywalk suspends visitors 4,000 feet above the canyon floor

• Grand Canyon Skywalk, Hualapai Nation

For many, the Grand Canyon epitomizes the ultimate American travel destination. Cleaving a mile deep into the earth and averaging 10 miles across, it compels even the most jaded traveler to pause and draw breath. Snaking along its floor are 277 miles of the Colorado River, which has carved the canyon over the past six million years and exposed rocks up to two billion years old – half the age of the Earth.
In 2007, the Grand Canyon Skywalk debuted on a remote section of the western canyon owned by the Hualapai Nation. A marvel of modern engineering peering over a marvel of Mother Nature, the glass-bottom Skywalk suspends visitors 4,000 feet above the canyon floor.
Tips: Grand Canyon National Park. Before you go, get the complimentary Trip Planner, updated regularly, from the Grand Canyon National Park. 928/638-7888. www.nps.gov/grca. Once you arrive, pick up the free detailed map and The Guide, a newspaper with a schedule of free programs. The park is most crowded near the east and, especially, the south entrances and in Grand Canyon Village, as well as on the scenic drives, particularly the 23-mi Desert View Drive.
Website: www.nps.gov/grca

The ancient ring of monolithic stones at Stonehenge is considered the most important prehistoric monument in Britain

• Stonehenge, Wiltshire (UK)

Another marvel though constructed about 3,500 years earlier, the massive circle of standing stones is Britain’s most important ancient monument, and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Despite the constant flow of traffic from the main road beside the monument, and the huge numbers of visitors who traipse around the stones on a daily basis, Stonehenge still manages to be a mystical, ethereal place – a haunting echo from Britain’s forgotten past, and a reminder of a lost civilisation who once walked the many ceremonial avenues across Salisbury Plain. Even more intriguingly, it’s still one of Britain’s great archaeological mysteries: although there are countless theories about what the site was used for, ranging from a sacrificial centre to a celestial timepiece, in truth no-one really knows what drove prehistoric Britons to expend so much time and effort on its construction.
Address: Junction of A303 and A344/A360, near Amesbury, SP4 7DE
Phone: 0870/333-1181; 01722/343830 for private tours
Cost: £7.50
Hours: Mid-Mar.-May and Sept.-mid-Oct., daily 9:30-6; June-Aug., daily 9-7; mid-Oct.-mid-Mar., daily 9:30-4. Last admission 30 mins before closing.
Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk
Location: Stonehenge

Alcatraz Island, the former maximum-security penitentiary turned National Park, provides stunning views of San Francisco

• Alcatraz, San Francisco

This former maximum-security penitentiary (once home to Al Capone) turned National Park provides stunning views of San Francisco and the backdrop of the Bay. Thousands of visitors come every day to walk in the footsteps of Alcatraz’s notorious criminals. The stories of life and death on “the Rock” may sometimes be exaggerated, but it’s almost impossible to resist the chance to wander the cellblock that tamed the country’s toughest gangsters and saw daring escape attempts of tremendous desperation. Fewer than 2,000 inmates ever did time on the Rock, and though they weren’t the worst criminals, they were definitely the worst prisoners, include Al “Scarface” Capone, Robert “The Birdman” Stroud, and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
(see Top Ten Attractions in San Francisco)
Address: Pier 33, Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA, 94133
Phone: 415/981-7625
Cost: $26, including audio tour; $33 evening tour, including audio
Hours: Ferry departs every 30-45 mins Sept.-late May, daily 9:30-2:15, 4:20 for evening tour Thurs.-Mon. only; late May-Aug., daily 9:30-4:15, 6:30 and 7:30 for evening tour
Website: www.nps.gov/alca
Location: On the Waterfront