As 2025 comes to a close, travel plans for the next year are getting underway so the Telegraph newspaper has released a list of destinations to avoid in 2026 with the publication naming and shaming the most over-rated hotspots throughout the continent.
The number one spot on the list goes to the site in the Italian city of Verona which is said to have been the site where the fictional Romeo declared his love for Juliet in William Shakespeare's classic play, but the publication points out the balcony of the 13th century building - which is adorned with love letters scrawled by tourists over the years - has no real links to the Bard or his play and the balcony was only erected in the 1930s.
The Telegraph also points out tourists are now being charged 12 Euros to visit the balcony and warns visitors to stay away.
The list goes on to name London's Leicester Square as another hotspot to avoid - branding it a "pen of commerce, petty crime and rancid pizza slices - along with the Blue Lagoon in Iceland.
The famous thermal lagoon is described as having all the ambience of an "airport lounge dipped in grimy water" adding: "The crowd density makes the place feel closer to human soup than restorative solitude."
Also featuring on the list of shame is the Blarney Stone - one of Ireland's most famous attractions which visitors have flocked to kiss since it was rumoured to bestow the "gift of the gab" upon anyone who locks lips with the rock, which is set into the battlements of Blarney Castle in Cork.
It's described as nothing more than a "damp rock" and the "most unhygienic piece of stone" because so many tourists pucker up to give it a kiss.
The list also features the Mona Lisa painting which is housed in Le Louvre gallery in Paris France, the Reeperbahn red light district in Hamburg, Germany and Manneken Pis - the water feature depicting a urinating boy - Brussels, Belgium as well as gondola rides in Venice, Italy, the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Last on the list is John O’Groats in Scotland - the most northerly point of the British mainland - which is decried as the "the most undeserving tourist attraction of them all".
