Crowds are just the worst, aren’t they? But when you’re travelling through Europe’s most popular cities, they’re pretty much inevitable. It’s tough to blame people for wanting to lay their eyes on some of the most iconic cultural landmarks in the world.
But if you’d rather avoid seas of tourists, have no fear. So you know exactly where not to go, tour company The Thinking Traveller conducted a study to find Europe’s busiest attractions during the summer months. Researchers combed through a host of TripAdvisor reviews for mentions of ‘busy’ and ‘crowded’ to calculate which spots had the most complaints.
Top of the pile came, of all places, Edinburgh Castle. The most overcrowded attraction in all of Europe, Edinburgh’s ancient castle sits atop an extinct volcano and in the summer plays host to Edinburgh Fringe events and the majestic Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It attracts over two million people every year.
With a whopping five attractions appearing in the top ten of The Thinking Traveller’s list, it seems that the UK is particularly bad for dense flocks of tourists. In-keeping with the royal buzz around Edinburgh Castle, Buckingham Palace followed as the continent’s second most overcrowded attraction, while the Tower of London came in at sixth.
Here’s the full list of the most overcrowded attractions in Europe, according to The Thinking Traveller.
- Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh
- Buckingham Palace, London
- Siam Park, Tenerife
- Canal Grande, Venice
- The Roman Baths, Bath
- Tower of London, London
- Louvre Museum, Paris
- Acropolis, Athens
- The British Museum, London
- Musee d’Orsay, Paris
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