World Wonders which Civ Players have visited?

[Teagen]

Statue of Liberty
Broadway
Pentagon
United Nations...I guess?

God I need to travel more

 

[civ54lyfe]

ha i swear i was about to post this but your post makes me feel worse about it... but i feel like normal modern buildings like half of the NYC "wonders" shouldn't even count. i mean Broadway is basically a gigantic Hard Rock Cafe. by that standard they should just make Disney World a "world wonder"

 

[Haumea]

Notre Dame
Eiffel Tower
CN Tower (I live in Toronto)
Sistine Chapel
Big Ben (I'm pretty sure)
Broadway
Taj Mahal
Brandenburg Gate
Oxford University (since we're counting national wonders too)
Louvre
and the Hermitage in Amsterdam (which is an attempt to replicate the Russian one).

Looks like it's time to visit the east some more!

 

[sendos]

Eiffel Tower
CN Tower - The line to get into CN Tower was just ridiculous.
Sydney Opera House

I sure need to travel more too...

 

[Guandao]

CN Tower
Broadway
Statue of Liberty
Pentagon (was nearby it)
Eiffel Tower
Great Firewall (I encountered it via the Chinese internet)
Louvre
Notre Dame

Mt. Fuji (was near it)
Old Faithful

 

[PhilBowles]

Certainly:

Alhambra
Big Ben
Eiffel Tower
Leaning Tower of Pisa

I may have been to Stonehenge, but standing stones are so common in the UK that I cant remember

Stonehenge is fairly distinctive - you can definitely tell it's not Avebury...

I like that Stonehenge was nerfed from Civ4 to 5.

It wasn't, particularly - vanilla Stonehenge did much the same as Civ IV Stonehenge. It was also pretty strong as a religious Wonder in Gods & Kings. It's only with changes in Brave New World that it became fairly mediocre.

I may have also been to The Louvre and Notre Dame, but they weren't memorable. Id most like to visit the Pyramids for the coolness, the weather, and the danger factor.

The most impressive thing about the Pyramids is the fact that when you get close to them, seeing the brickwork brings home the fact that these seemingly permanent fixtures of the desert are in fact buildings. As monuments, I've found them less impressive and memorable than many and even at the site itself I was more interested in the Sphinx. Worst thing about them is being so close to Cairo and the overabundance of very pushy hawkers - which if anything is probably going to be worse in a situation where there will be as few visitors as there are now.

- Colossus of Rhodes
- Globe Theatre
- Great Library
- Great Lighthouse
- Hanging Gardens
- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- Porcelain Tower
- The Oracle

For all but three of those a time machine would come in handy (and diving gear is helpful for one of the others).

Very impressed you visited the Hanging Gardens - mind telling the world's archaeologists exactly where they are?

 

[PhilBowles]

ha i swear i was about to post this but your post makes me feel worse about it... but i feel like normal modern buildings like half of the NYC "wonders" shouldn't even count. i mean Broadway is basically a gigantic Hard Rock Cafe. by that standard they should just make Disney World a "world wonder"

There are definitely too many which are just popular tourist sites rather than anything special architecturally or culturally. My personal bugbear is Cristo Redentor, but there are now many others joining it, such as CN Tower (if you want a skyscraper, why has the Empire State Building never been a Wonder?), as well as some that aren't even tourist sites and are just bizarre choices (the Pentagon, and of course Prora). Not all of them are modern - having visited the Forbidden City I wouldn't say that belongs either.

Broadway by contrast probably does. The appearance of the district has changed, but it's older than Hollywood (a Civ IV Wonder) and probably not much less iconic of American culture. The buildings may not be particularly special, but nor's Uffizi, the Louvre (except the glass pyramid, which is very recent) or even really the Globe, they're notable for what's inside them.

 

[Haumea]

There are definitely too many which are just popular tourist sites rather than anything special architecturally or culturally. My personal bugbear is Cristo Redentor, but there are now many others joining it, such as CN Tower (if you want a skyscraper, why has the Empire State Building never been a Wonder?), as well as some that aren't even tourist sites and are just bizarre choices (the Pentagon, and of course Prora). Not all of them are modern - having visited the Forbidden City I wouldn't say that belongs either.

Broadway by contrast probably does. The appearance of the district has changed, but it's older than Hollywood (a Civ IV Wonder) and probably not much less iconic of American culture. The buildings may not be particularly special, but nor's Uffizi, the Louvre (except the glass pyramid, which is very recent) or even really the Globe, they're notable for what's inside them.

To be honest, I have a suspicion that some of the WWs are just there to have a wonder for different countries - CN Tower being Canada, Sydney Opera House for Australia, Cristo Redentor for Brazil (although that's quite the art piece compared to the CN Tower or the Sydney Opera House). Obviously to a person who lives in those countries those monuments will have special significance - I know as a Canadian that it is cool looking at the history of the CN Tower and all the footage documenting the excitement around when it was built, but I agree that many WWs do not necessarily have much real importance as a true "world wonder." The CN Tower - especially now - is not going to impress any extraterrestrial visitors with its "World's Highest Wine Cellar" title (with Dubai and Taipei now having towers that are taller anyhoo).

 

[PhilBowles]

To be honest, I have a suspicion that some of the WWs are just there to have a wonder for different countries - CN Tower being Canada, Sydney Opera House for Australia, Cristo Redentor for Brazil (although that's quite the art piece compared to the CN Tower or the Sydney Opera House). Obviously to a person who lives in those countries those monuments will have special significance - I know as a Canadian that it is cool looking at the history of the CN Tower and all the footage documenting the excitement around when it was built, but I agree that many WWs do not necessarily have much real importance as a true "world wonder." The CN Tower - especially now - is not going to impress any extraterrestrial visitors with its "World's Highest Wine Cellar" title (with Dubai and Taipei now having towers that are taller anyhoo).

One reason I particularly dislike Cristo Redentor and its ilk, and I suspect CN Tower falls into the same category (I don't know its history), is that they don't stand for anything or tell any interesting story - even when they've become iconic, fundamentally these are structures that were from their conception built as tourist attractions and their appeal is as shallow as that. Cristo Redentor wasn't even built by Brazilians; it's French (then again, Sydney Opera House is Danish). With something like the Statue of Liberty or even the Sydney Opera House (which was designed to reflect Australia's colonisation, hence the sailing ship design, and its bay location) there's at least something of a story behind them, while the theatre and museum Wonders reflect the culture they contain (by those standards, of course, the greatest Wonder of the World would probably be the British Museum). Even Prora has a story behind it and its inclusion makes some (albeit not very much) sense in the context of the expansion theme. Plus, I think a site is fair game if UNESCO recognises it, and Sydney Opera House is a World Heritage Site, unlike Cristo Redentor or the CN Tower (although this is considered an engineering 'Wonder' according to its Wikipedia page).

If they wanted a 'world's tallest tower', the twin Petronas Towers are distinctive and iconic and did briefly hold the title, and since Malaysia doesn't have a Wonder it would tick the country box as well.

 

[crawls2281]

Cool thread.

Big Ben
Eiffel Tower
Louvre
Notre Dame
Pyramids
Sistine Chapel
Stonehenge
Opera House

 

[Deggial]

The most impressive thing about the Pyramids is the fact that when you get close to them, seeing the brickwork brings home the fact that these seemingly permanent fixtures of the desert are in fact buildings. As monuments, I've found them less impressive and memorable than many and even at the site itself I was more interested in the Sphinx. Worst thing about them is being so close to Cairo and the overabundance of very pushy hawkers - which if anything is probably going to be worse in a situation where there will be as few visitors as there are now.

I totally agree!

That's why I was so happy to visit some of the other pyramids, too. If you ever happen to be in Egypt again, try to see the Step Pyramid in Sakkara or - even better - the Bent Pyramid.

The latter was very impressive for some reasons:
- NO tourists at all! We were the only people out there (with the exception of two guards).
- Therefore, no hawkers.
- The possibility to enter the monument with...
_a) no waiting times and...
_b) to stay inside as long as you want. (I stayed there after my groupe left. Wow, this was freaking awesome! Being alone down there, feeling the pressure of stone and centuries while hearing nothing than your own breath and heart-beat... one of the highlights of my life, so far! )

 

[blackcatatonic]

Starting local and moving my way out...

Stonehenge
Big Ben
Globe Theatre
Notre Dame
Louvre
Eiffel Tower
Alhambra
Uffizi
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Sistine Chapel
Hagia Sophia
Pyramids
Terracotta Army
Great Wall
Sydney Opera House
Chichen Itza

I haven't really been to the States, and although I've been to Germany quite often I've managed to miss all three of the German wonders.

 

[Syailendra]

wow you people do travels a lot! The only one i've been to is borobudur. And VOC (EIC)headquarter at batavia (jakarta), actually i've traveled far and wide in its areas.

 

[Kennan]

I can count six of them:

Brandenburg gate
Broadway
Eiffel Tower
Machu Pitcchu
Taj Mahal - I actually bought CiV when I was in Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. I was like 10-15$ one week after release, real deal no pirate copy.
United Nations

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Statue of Liberty, Broadway and the United Nations...or in other words, all of the ones in New York.

 

[Tinker]

I've been to the Big Ben, Eiffel Tower, Globe Theatre, Louvre, Notre Dame, the Oracle, Parthenon, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, as well as the Circus Maximus and East India Company.

Out of the Natural Wonders I've been to Sri Pada, Mr. Sinai, Lake Victoria and Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I'd be enormously impressed if someone here visited the Hubble Space Telescope, though

 

[Mudrac]

How much money you Westerners have to visit all those wonders? Just joking . You really are lucky to have seen all these wonders. Because I haven't seen any of them.

 

[Tinker]

The most impressive thing about the Pyramids is the fact that when you get close to them, seeing the brickwork brings home the fact that these seemingly permanent fixtures of the desert are in fact buildings. As monuments, I've found them less impressive and memorable than many and even at the site itself I was more interested in the Sphinx. Worst thing about them is being so close to Cairo and the overabundance of very pushy hawkers - which if anything is probably going to be worse in a situation where there will be as few visitors as there are now.

I was in Egypt two years ago - right after the fall of Mubarak, and before the new government was reinstated. It was incredibly quiet everywhere, and the endless empty multi-storied cruisers on the Nile just showed how much the tourism industry was hurting. It made it a very pleasant trip though - almost no peddlers anywhere, no lines, and no other noisy tourists, and it was easy meeting and talking to friendly locals. I think the most impressed I was with the Pyramids was from a distance as well, seeing them as huge smog-ridden silhouettes on the horizon from a modern Cairo highway.

 

[Tinker]

How much money you Westerners have to visit all those wonders? Just joking . You really are lucky to have seen all these wonders. Because I haven't seen any of them.

As Civ is pretty Eurocentric, us Europeans obviously have an advantage - a plane ticket to London, Paris, Rome, or Athens can be as cheap as ten bucks.

 

[Depravo]

Big Ben - not the tower itself, only the House of Treason
Broadway - walked down it
Chichen Itza
Eiffel Tower - lifts were broke, got to the 2nd level and gave up
Forbidden Palace - twice
Globe Theatre - replica
Great Firewall - couldn't use Google in China
Great Wall - Shaiguan and Shanhaiguan
Notre Dame
Oracle
Parthenon
Pentagon - from the outside
Statue of Liberty
Statue of Zeus - site of
Stonehenge
Uffizi - walked through the courtyard
United Nations - from outside
Circus Maximus
Oxford University
East India Company - if India House in London counts