If you dream of real travel and immersion in the history and atmosphere of the place where you are going, you should avoid these attractions. After all, not only do crowds of tourists gather here all year round, but also the legends that envelop these places have little to do with reality. Some of them were created in order to cash in on the popularity of a film, while others were created to profitably use distortions in the story.
Piz Gloria, Switzerland
Fans of James Bond will surely remember the wonderful views from the restaurant “Piz Gloria”, which is depicted in the 1969 film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.
Actors from the movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” on the set of “Piz Gloria” — a restaurant built specifically for the film. When producer Hubert Froelich turned up at the filming location, it turned out that the restaurant was not ready yet. The production company paid for the completion of the restaurant under a special agreement with the film studio.
Sleepy Hollow, USA
The settlement of Sleepy Hollow in New York State was known as North Tarrytown in the late 1800s, but then changed its name due to its beneficial association with the famous short story by Washington Irving.
Johnny Depp in one of the scenes of the 1999 film Sleepy Hollow. The film became one of the reasons for the wide popularity of this place.
Shangri-La, China
There are many contenders for the role of the fictional country of Shangri-La from the 1933 novel “Lost Horizon” by science fiction writer James Hilton. However, the Chinese city of Zhongdian officially changed its name to Shangri-La in 2001.
Whether Zhongdian is the real Shangri-La or not, the views here are amazing. In addition to dense emerald forests and snow-capped mountain peaks, there are many Tibetan temples here.
Bridge over the River Kwai, Thailand
There is no bridge over the real river Kwai, so part of the Mae Klong River was renamed Khwayai to make everything look like in the novel. The photo shows the bridge over the river Kwai in our days.
Pierre Boule’s novel “The Bridge over the River Kwai” was successfully filmed in 1957 in a film starring Alec Guinness. The Mae Klong River was renamed after the release of the film.
Checkpoint “Charlie”, Germany
The real checkpoint “Charlie” was dismantled in 1990, when Germany united, and has since been moved to the museum. The photo shows the reconstruction, which tourists go to look at.
Checkpoint Charlie (pictured) was a border crossing point between East and West Germany during the Cold War. This is the only place where American and Soviet soldiers served side by side on different sides of the border.
221b Baker Street, United Kingdom
Most people understand that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, but this does not stop fans from going to the museum of this famous detective.
Although the building has a sign “221b”, the house is actually located at 239 Baker Street. The most interesting thing is that when the first book about Sherlock Holmes was published, there was no such address at all.
Bran Castle, Romania
Bran Castle (pictured) has long been associated with Dracula, but in fact everything was different. However, it is believed that the descriptions of Dracula’s castle in Bram Stoker’s novel were inspired by Bran Castle.
The vampire described in the novel was copied from Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), a nobleman who lived in the nearby Poenari Castle, which now lies in ruins.
Philae Island, Egypt
The hieroglyphic walls of the temples of the island of Philae seem to be real. That’s right: they are really more than two thousand years old. But the island itself is not quite what it seems.
When the Aswan Dam was built, all the temples on the real island of Philae had to be moved to the neighboring, higher island of Agilkia to protect historical monuments from flooding. As part of an impressive project, each stone was marked and the temples were rebuilt on another island. They did the same with the temples of Abu Simbel.
A copy of Antonio Beato’s photograph shows the original island of Philae, where the temple of Isis was located, as well as the Nile River from Biga.
Juliet’s Balcony, Italy
The film versions of the plot about Romeo and Juliet forced thousands of fans to travel to Verona to look at the very balcony on which the famous lovers confessed their feelings to each other.
In fact, the scene on the balcony is not included in the original play by William Shakespeare, and this balcony did not exist at the time of the author.
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