In Which I Consider Getting Into The Tourist Attraction Business

5/6/2022

Since the ongoing birdemic restrictions continue to limit international travel options, my family and I have decided to make the best of it and explore Hungary. This focus on domestic "tourism" has revealed my ten-year-old son's fondness of off-the-beaten path tourist attractions.

For example, about six weeks ago, he asked to visit the world's largest toy hussar. Who was I to say no?

As the photo above shows, this wonder of the modern world stands in the middle of nowhere. The attraction was the brainchild of two locals who -- during a night of excessive drinking -- thought it would be fun to erect the world's largest toy hussar in a small Hungarian town in the middle of nowhere. The photo below gives you some idea of how big "Misi Hussar" is.

On the same outing, my son also pined to pay a visit to a "castle park" that featured scale replica models of most of the castles and fortresses that had stood in Greater Hungary.

The "park" is really just a family's backyard. The family constructed all the models from materials found at the original sites and positioned the mini-castles "geographically" in the "park" -- a large part of which is essentially a map of Greater Hungary -- to illustrate where the structures stood or still stand in terms of place.

I must admit, I found this particular site as interesting as my son did.

On the drive home I spent some time thinking about how I could get into the tourist attraction business. I would need a good idea. After that, it would simply be a matter of pulling it all together.

I began to brainstorm.

The first thing that popped into my mind was "World's Largest Cuckoo Statue."

I cleared my throat and let the attraction business evaporate from my mind.

14 Comments

johnson j

5/6/2022 22:10:13

You could make a movie about giants attacking those castles.

Francis Berger

5/7/2022 20:33:51

@ johnson j - Yes. My son would certainly get a kick out of that.

Luke

5/7/2022 01:02:17

Scale replicas of geographic features in Hungary might be your ticket to fame.

WJT link

5/8/2022 12:58:04

I think this post inspired my dream last night about a village called Great Slash and the landmark for which it was named: a gigantic sculpture of a slash (the typographic mark). It was considered an engineering marvel because despite its great size and diagonal orientation, it didn’t fall over.

5/8/2022 17:48:14

@ Wm - Great Slash, huh? That's a good dream. I think I'll steal the idea and rekindle my notions of getting into the tourist attraction business.

5/8/2022 17:50:37

@ Wm - Of course, if I did build the Great Slash, I would have to be explicit about it as a monument to punctuation. Otherwise, I imagine the site would attract many confused and, ultimately, disappointed Guns n Roses fans.

poppop

5/13/2022 12:33:11

I would advise against that. It would be perceived as another binary litmus test of the beholder, like conservative vs liberal, Ginger vs Mary Ann, and so forth. 48% of the tourists would approach from the North / West and swear it was a slash. Another 48% would approach from the South / East and swear it was a backslash. (4% would think it is a pipe character with Pisa syndrome.) Also dividing the world between Windows and Apple/Linux/BSD/Unix users as well...

bruce charlton

5/8/2022 19:07:27

You may remember a gigantic, viscerally-ugly, rusty-iron monument to soul-less-ness called The Angel of the North - which has succeeded in becoming some kind of tourist attraction in the Newcastle-Gateshead area.

We saw about 50 cars parked there today as we drove past, despite the tourists (mostly local, I suspect) having nothing to do on the site except stand and be photographed beside its gross feet!

The masses are endlessly gullible about 'attractions', so long as they are state-subsidized and cost nothing to visit.

5/9/2022 07:32:39

@ Bruce - I do remember The Angel of the North. Luckily, I only saw it from a distance as we drove past it. I have to say, it is one of the most hideous statues/attractions I have ever seen in my life.

These sorts of attractions really are ridiculous. The giant toy hussar is a good example of this ridiculousness. Of course, I can understand why my ten-year-old was interested in it -- he is, after all, still a boy. Moreover, the hussar is not hideous like the Angel is. Nevertheless, it's still ridiculous. You go. You gawk. You get your photo taken with it. That is all.

The castle park, on the other hand, had some redeeming qualities about it. I actually learned a little about Central European history during the visit.

Poppop

5/13/2022 12:42:33

I sense a synergy with SpaceX in that objectionable objet d'art. Surely that is simply a Fokker D.X monoplane which achieved a perfect tail-first return to earth, nothing to do with angels at all.

Anthony Probst

5/13/2022 21:22:23

I just looked up photos of the Angel of the North. Hah! Money was actually shelled out to erect this thing? I admit it looks very striking in the photos, like something in a cover illustration for a late-1960s science fiction story by Harlan Ellison or Robert Silverberg. A bundle could have been saved, and a landscape preserved, by photographing the empty park, Photo-Shopping the figure into it, and posting the images.

houska

5/10/2022 00:57:42

Some music for your attraction:
Frederick Delius - On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xHIhcstxUM

5/10/2022 09:43:25

@ houska - Thanks for that! I may feature the piece as a post to affirm my inexplicable personal interest in cuckoos.

lea

5/10/2022 04:36:02

That first photo did a great job hiding dimensions. Fun stuff, and good picks for a tour 'a lil different'. Matching sunglasses for your son next time? ;)

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In Which I Consider Getting Into The Tourist Attraction Business

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