The tourist traps that time forgot
Spent Friday night in Wicklow, at the Brook Lodge hotel near Aughrim. It’s a fine spot to relax in, with a decent spa. The full body deep tissue massage was like sliding through a car wash made of kickboxers. This was a good thing.
Its restaurant, The Strawberry Tree, is excellent (yoghurt and black pepper sorbet: sublime), even if it was a little too eager with the service (I can place the napkin on my own knee. Mastered that pretty early on in life.)
Driving to Wicklow, I got a reminder of that particular aspect of Irish life: the fossilied tourist attraction. They are the “attractions” that weren’t a particularly good idea at the time, but which now look redundant without being quaint; desperate rather than enterprising. But no one has the guts to take the signs down.
A prime example in Dublin is the Rock n’ Roll Stroll, with those appalling pink discs nailed onto various walls, just in case someone, somewhere really does come to Dublin to see where The Cranberries first played.
The N11 offers two exquisite examples of the fossilised tour.
First, there’s the sign for Kilcoole which let’s everyone passing know that it was the location for Glenroe. (”Jesus love, swing a left. We’ll go up there and see where Biddy launched herself over that tractor!”)
And then there are the signs for the Michael Collins Drive. Your first thoughts when you see them is: “I didn’t think Beal na mBlath was in Wicklow…” Then you read the small print, which tells you that it’s a drive based on where the movie was shot. It’s not the worst film made, but are there really enough Americans so obsessed with it that they want to see the exact spot where Julia Roberts murdered the Irish accent?
(Actually, this tour threatens to collapse in on itself by bringing tourists through Avoca, still making a buck from being the location for Ballykissangel.)
Are there other fossiled tours around the country, still clinging on years after they had a hint of relevance?
(By the way, the sign in the picture is not the one on the N11, but comes from the Wikipedia page on Glenroe. We would never condemn graffiti at this site, but let’s hope it’s still there.)
An expensive way to stand out from the mainstream masses
10:58 am
I used to like the Glenroe open farm - they have bunnies! Every tourist attraction should have a load of bunnies at the end, because no matter how crap it is, all people will then remember is the amazingness of the bunnies.
Comment by UnaRocks