In Beit Shemesh, where I live, the biggest attraction is a stalactite cave. Up the road in Jerusalem, where I work, you can find the Western Wall, Mosque of El Asqa and Church of the Holy Sepulcher. When we have foreign guests, they spend most of their time in Jerusalem!

george washington bridge lol

I would have to say that The French Quarter is the closest thing to me. depends on what time it is though because I'm right on the uptown parade route (where over half of the Mardi Gras parade run)

Drumlanrig Castle..about 5 minutes drive from us,they make all the local school kids go to it..will try and put a picture in

Castle

Nice pic, cee!

Before I left Canada, I lived 45 minutes from Niagara Falls. Now I am in Costa Rica, I live about 20k from
Irazu Volcano. I don't know how to put a picture in here, so here is a link. At the bottom of the page there is a virtual reality panorama link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraz%C3%BA_Volcano

nice pictures.

Thank you, cee and MadMags for the pictures. It is more interesting when you can actually see what is being written about! *Sigh*, we have no true castles here in the U.S. and I have always found them intriguing.

You might like this,it's a ruined castle in the village where I live,it's from the 13th century

Castle

Wow, cee, that is awesome and 'spooky' looking! Have you ever wandered through it or are people even allowed to, maybe because of safety issues?

no we all walk there..it's in a field and there's always sheep wandering around it,they ask you to be careful around it and they would like you to stay away,but the local kids have always climbed and played on it,my husband's brother fell off it as a child and broke nearly all his bones in his body,he was lucky.Husband says there's a bit that you walk into and you can't see and have to feel for the wall.I don't think I'll be doing that.There's also supposed to be a 'white lady' ghost at it too

It just has to have a ghost, doesn't it? I was thinking of kids when I asked about wandering through it. There is no way on earth you could have kept me out of there as a child or, for that matter, now if I had the chance! I'd explore the part where you can't see too.

You just know that if you go there and walk into the dark bit there will be some sort of noise from the sheep and you'll be out of there as fast as your legs will take you,I think I would have done it as a child,my husband was young when he did that and were forever jumping out on people and scaring them.What's even more creepy now is that they have lights that shine on the castle now and it just makes it all the more creepy seeing the thing at night in the middle of a field with spotlights on it.should just add that my husband said that sheep go into the dark bit and you never know what it is

First of all: happy belated 5th anniversary to this thread. That's called a lustrum in these parts.
My hometown has several nice museums and is not too far from Den Haag, Rooterdam and Amsterdam, but the big attraction is just walking through the old city and enjoying the scenery which is more or less unchanged since 1700. My picture on the left is the Oostpoort (=eastern gate. I hope the pic is still there when someone reads this in 5 years).

Oops, the Oostpoort is on my normal profile. That thing on the left is the windmill "De Roos" on the west side of town.

I visited Delft briefly in 1982. It is a charming old town, and one can spend hours simply walking and exploring.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Delft

I live in the west of England - a tourist area. Our attractions are the scenery , the West Somerset Railway (longest preserved line in the UK) which every few years they talk about bringing into Taunton & Hestercome gardens - a Gertrude Jekyl garden plus a 18th Century landscape garden that was lost like the fameous one at Heligan.
We have a lot of National trust properties round us - a tip for foreign visitors who like historic buildings - join the National trust.

Until a couple years ago, we held the record for America's largest hail stone. No really, look it up.

Then there's the infamous Dalton gang that attempted to rob two banks simultaneously back in 1892.

More recently is the fact that Google choose our town as it's default starting point on Google Earth. I'm actually sitting one mile from the center of the world.

But being a small mid-west town that just recently got cut in half by a flood, we have nothing much to offer tourists other than good 'ol Wal-mart.

But then, what else does the world really need?

Er.. Amersfoort has a historic city centre, which people tend to find interesting. And a good zoo. It was elected as the greenest city in Europe, along with some other cities. It contains a cross marking the center of The Netherlands..

ah heck, we're about 40 km (25 miles) from Amsterdam, which is a tourist attraction in its entirety :P

Here in the Coachella Valley, it's the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which takes you from the desert floor, up two and a half miles, to near the top of Mt San Jacinto. The tram cars rotate, the scenery is breathtaking and the ride is a bit scary.

No question about it. I'm in Memphis Tennessee. Elvis Presley's Graceland is the biggest attraction for hundreds of miles.

Personally, I've never been inside.

The beautiful south Shropshire hills - wonderful for walking... last time we went someone, who should be nameless, fell and cracked a rib...
http://www.insectpix.net/shropshire%202.htm

Southend-on-Sea is about five miles from me and is still popular for day trips from London. There's a big funfair/theme park and a few dubious beaches. Hadleigh Castle is a bit further upriver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadleigh_Castle

Colchester is about an hour's drive. It's England's oldest recorded town.

London is less than an hour by train.

Lincoln Cathedral and it's copy f the Magna Carta.

Oh and at Christmas time the salmonella christmas market.

Where I live the two closest would be Gettysburg and Hershey Park.

salmonella christmas market? I've never heard of any problems.