Global Icons: The Hits and Misses of My Travel Bucket List

Kwei--Wednesday

After a horrific few weeks, I wanted to post something of lighter fare.

Exploring the world’s most famous landmarks is an exciting adventure—but not all icons live up to their hype. While some places left me in awe, others didn’t quite meet my expectations. Here’s my take on the global landmarks that impressed me and those that fell a little short.

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The Disappointments: When Reality Didn’t Match the Vision

Big Ben, London

I’ll admit it: Coming from the US, I thought Big Ben was taller. The iconic clock tower (now officially called the Elizabeth Tower) is just 316 feet tall—roughly equivalent to a 27-story building. Its architecture and detail are impressive, but it wasn’t the towering marvel I’d imagined.

Doesn't it look like a skyscraper? Image: Shutterstock

The Grassy Knoll, Dallas

Standing at the infamous site where President Kennedy was assassinated, I was surprised by the smallness and ordinariness of the place. I'd envisioned a grand boulevard lined with towering buildings, and because it was such a monumental event in US history, my imagination had magnified the scene.

Wait, this is the Grassy Knoll people have been talking about? (Image: Shutterstock)

The Mona Lisa, Paris

The Louvre’s most famous resident underwhelmed me for one reason: the crowd. The painting is miniature—only 30 by 21 inches—and it’s nearly impossible to get close enough to appreciate it. I spent more time navigating tourists than admiring the lady's enigmatic smile.

My first thought: "This is ridiculous." (Image: Shutterstock)

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen

While steeped in cultural significance as a tribute to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, the Little Mermaid statue is relatively small and certainly more petite than it looks in photographs—just over 4 feet tall. It sits unassumingly by the harbor, blending into the surroundings. It’s charming, but I found it lacked the grandeur I'd expected.

Photos give an impression of size that doesn't show in real life (Image: Shutterstock)

The Show-Stoppers: Icons That Lived Up to the Legend

The Rift Valley, Kenya

Nothing prepared me for the breathtaking Rift Valley. The vast expanse, dotted with flocks of pink flamingos on its alkaline lakes, felt like stepping into a nature documentary.

Vast and awe-inspiring (Image: Shutterstock)

The Grand Canyon, USA

Pictures don’t do the Grand Canyon justice. Seeing it in person, with its layers of red rock stretching endlessly into the horizon, was a humbling experience that no photo could replicate.

The size and grandeur is overpowering (Image: Shutterstock)

The Akosombo Dam and Adome Bridge, Ghana

The Akosombo Dam is a testament to engineering brilliance—its sheer size and the power it generates for Ghana are awe-inspiring. Equally impressive is the Adome Bridge, Ghana’s only suspension bridge. Spanning the Volta River, the bridge is set against a backdrop of lush green hills that amplify its beauty. Some even consider it among the world’s most picturesque bridges, thanks to its graceful arch and scenic surroundings.

In real life, the Akosombo Dam is truly impressive (Image: Shutterstock)

The Adome Bridge features strongly in The Missing American (Image: Kwei Quartey)

The Empire State Building, New York

An Art Deco masterpiece, the Empire State Building is as grand inside as outside. Its observatories offer unmatched views of the Manhattan skyline.

I've admired this building since childhood (Image: Shutterstock)

The Statue of Liberty, New York

Climbing the stairs to the crown with my grandmother was an unforgettable experience. Standing atop Lady Liberty and looking at the harbor felt like touching history.

We usually see the exterior of the Lady With The Lamp;
this is the spiral staircase inside (Image: Shutterstock) 

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Plan Your Visits: Know What to Expect

Iconic landmarks are part of our shared cultural imagination, but knowing what to expect can help you avoid disappointment. Researching size, accessibility, and crowds can make or break your visit. While some places—like the Adome Bridge or the Grand Canyon—are even more stunning in person, others, like the Little Mermaid or Mona Lisa, might underwhelm at first glance.

What global landmarks have exceeded or fallen short of your expectations? Share your travel tales in the comments!

Desecrating Leonardo

 Annamaria on Monday

Suppose I told you that the owner of drawing by Picasso decided to erase a section and pencil in his own idea of what it should look like.  Or that a curator of a collection  of Van Gogh masterpieces decided to hack off parts of a couple of them, perhaps because they would better fit in the wall space available. Dreadful, right?  With these images in mind, you will understand why I am incredulous after learning that over the centuries people have had the AUDACITY to mess around with works by one of the greatest, certainly one of the most famous artists who ever lived: Leonardo da Vinci.

Unbelievable, right?  Stick around.

Let's begin with an early work: his Annunciation, which now hangs in the Uffizi.

The wings on the angel Gabriel in that painting have always struck me as weird looking.  But, I thought, this is one of Leonardo's earliest works.  Still.those clunky appendages don't look as if they would be at all helpful to a creature who could fly.  And we all know Leonardo's obsession with flight.  He was also a keen observer of the natural world, particularly fixated on how to use birds' wings as a design for a machine humans might use to to fly. And the wings in that painting bear little or no resemblance to what Leonardo saw in nature.

  

I found the truth in further research.learning this, from Kenneth Clark's critical biography Leonardo Da Vinci:  "...we notice that the angel's wing has been lengthened to canonical proportions by a very crude over painting, and hangs like a brown smear above the enchanting landscape to the left. The original short wings were directly painted from the wings of a bird, and fit the angels shoulders with convincing naturalism."  Sir Kenneth goes on to report that the originals were more like the ones we can still see in the Annunciation of Lorenzo di Credi, also in the Uffizi. 

At some point, some bozo wielding a lethal paintbrush decided to change what was there.  He thought he knew better than Leonardo?  It boggles my mind.

That idiot was not alone. Here is an even worse travesty.  It involves Leonardo's Ginevra di Benci, now in the National Gallery in Washington.  

It is still a masterpiece, no doubt about that.  But one of the things Leonardo would certainly have noticed about the woman he painted was her remarkable hands, which were so beautiful that two poets wrote poems about them.

    Fact is Leonardo did not leave them out.  There are lots of clues that tell us the real story.  On the reverse side of the painting, there is the upper half of a wreath  that circles a juniper sprig (Ginevra is the Italian word for juniper) and the words "Beauty adorns virtue."  The bottom half of the wreath is not there..  

  

Back to Kenneth Clark: "we can guess by its unusual shape that the picture has been cut at the bottom,… We can calculate that the amount cut off must have been at least 9 cm, which would give it the classical proportion of 3 to 4.… That the fingers of her right hand would have been touching the lower laces of her bodice.  In the picture these laces are in fact, repainted. Unfortunately, we can tell from the back that the bottom of the picture has been damaged and a new piece has been added, so that an x-ray would not reveal the vanished fingers."

As if that were not astonishing enough, there is good evidence that those hands were truly remarkably beautiful.  Scholars believe that Leonardo's drawing, now at Windsor Castle, was his study for that part of the painting that some nincompoop decided to chop off.  I weep.

The last of my reporting today concerns the possibility that the criminal busybodies may have tampered with the most famous painting in the world. 

We have all seen this image many, many times,  It has become so familiar that, perhaps it lost some of its magic for you.  Please put that aside and take another look.

The Mona Lisa deserves its fame.  Its riveting quality comes from the expressiveness of that face.  Those assessing eyes look right at us.  Are they about to twinkle with delight or turn accusing and full of hate?  Is that smile about to turn into a grin?  Or a sneer?  Is she about to laugh with the delight at what she sees?  Or shout "off with their heads."  

The last time I was in the Louvre, there was a long line of visitors waiting their turn, not really to see her it seemed, but to take a selfie with her.  That day, her impenetrable  demeanor seemed to me more complex and appropriate than ever.  She was amused by their antics.  And smugly pleased with her fame.  But on the cusp of ordering the gendarmes to drag away the lot of them and lock them up.  I felt in league with her that day.

Is it remotely imaginable that anyone would take a saw to such a brilliant, unmatchable, monumental treasure?

Here is a copy, made by a lesser painter.  It shows us something missing from the one we know so well.

For many decades, the greatest experts in the world were sure that that someone had sawed off the columns you see above:

• In 1943, the formidable Kenneth Clark said that the copy above was true, in the sense that the original showed the lady sitting on loggia.
• In 1959, Richard Friedenthal - a renowned German art historian declared that 10 centimeters had been cut off the sides of the painting in the Louvre.
• This opinion was confirmed by an Italian art historian in 1973, a Frenchman in 1992, and another Italian in 2000    

But then 39 experts examined the painting in October of 2004, when it was being reframed.  Once it was taken out of its frame, they found that the original wooden panel on which Leonardo painted had been cut slightly, but only on the edges where there had never been any paint. The experts said "… this trimming clearly involved the bare wood and not the paint layer…"

So what we have seen all these years is actually what Leonardo wanted us to see, 

Unable to leave the lady alone, art historians are now positing that Leonardo painted two Mona Lisas, one with columns and one without.  They site what looks somewhat like the remnants of columns, barely visible where the imagined "Earlier Mona Lisa" did have columns.  The painter, Raphael is said to have copied a cartoon (not a funny drawing, but Leonardo's sketch of the painting he intended to paint).  But no one has ever seen such a drawing by Leonardo.  Only Raphael's take off of it.

Did Leonardo paint that larger version and then a few years later the one we know?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I imagine, given the look on her face, that Leonardo - known to have been a practical joker and inventor of mind games - might have put those vague touches there just to play with our minds.

A kind of echo of the look in those eyes.  And that smile.

ENIGMATIC!!! 

True Crime: The Kidnapping of Lisa La Gioconda

Annamaria on Monday

On 21 August 1911, Lisa Gherardini was kidnapped from her Paris home.  She was not missed until twenty-four hours later.  Then, despite frantic efforts by the Paris Prefecture of Police and La Sûreté and a world-wide hunt for her abductor, with her picture blazoned over front pages of newspapers everywhere, nothing was heard of her whereabouts until December of 1913.  Here is the photo that the police used to try to locate her:

 

Lisa, nicknamed Mona, was already famous before she disappeared.  Once the dragnet went out to try to find her, hers became the most famous face on the planet.

Lisa was, as her name indicates, Italian—yet she was ensconced in the Louvre when she disappeared.  Leonardo da Vinci, unable to part with her and give her to her husband Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, took her with him to France around 1517.  After Leonardo’s death, she lived in splendor with King Louis XIV.  Louis XV didn’t much like her looks, so he relegated her to the office of one of his minions.  She went to live in the new art museum in the Louvre in 1797.

Once her disappearance was noticed on 22 August 1911, a hue and cry went up from the citizenry of Paris.  How could the administration of the Louvre have been so careless as to lose her?  And how could the Paris police and the French National Criminal Investigations Department be so clueless when it came to getting her back?   Some wags posited that the disappearance was a set-up—to boost attendance at the museum.  Had that been the case, it would have worked.  As it happened, people lined up to get in to see the empty wall where the painting had hung.

Jokes circulated: The Eiffel Tower will be next to be taken.  Cancan girls danced dressed as topless Mona Lisas.

Directors and investigators lost their jobs.

Despite every stone being turned, every vehicle being searched, every museum employee being investigated, the trail went cold.

Little did the flics know that the lady was ensconced for the next two years just a few blocks from her former home, in the humble apartment of Vincenzo (ne’ Pietro) Peruggia, who had worked at the Louvre as a carpenter.

He kept the painting hidden for two years, at which point he contacted a Florentine antiquarian art dealer—Alfredo Geri—and the Director of the Uffizi—Giovanni Poggi.  He told them that he (mistakenly) believed that the masterpiece had—as so many others had—been looted by Napoleon.   He claimed to have taken it because it was Italian and belonged in Italy.  He wanted the government to give him a reward for his patriotic caper.  Those Florentine gentlemen, handling the delicate situation with great aplomb and cleverness, got Peruggia to turn the painting over to them.  Once he went back to his hotel room, he was arrested.

Then the Hotel Tripoli-Italia, now the Hotel La Gioconda

In the course of Peruggia's trial, the story of how he managed the theft emerged.  Dressed in the typical white smock of a museum skilled worker, he entered on a Sunday and hid in a storage room overnight.  The next day, when the museum was closed and only staff members were about, he took the picture into a stairwell and removed it from the protective box in which it had been displayed.    The Mona Lisa is painted, as many Renaissance works were, on a board.  He took it out of its frame, wrapped it in his smock, and for all intents and purposes, walked out of the building with it under his arm.

Once the director of the Uffizi had authenticated it, he declared that it would be returned to France.  Mona Lisa made a triumphal tour of her true homeland before she went back to her place in the Louvre.

Peruggia, because of his patriotic claims, got off with a light sentence of one year and fifteen days.  He served seven months.

These are the facts as far as I can tell.  There is a lot of other conjecture about the affair, but I take it with a grain of salt.  Especially, the long article in the May 2009 edition of Vanity Fair—a first serial printing of a chapter of a book, The Crimes of Paris by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler.  For one thing, those authors—throughout their recounting of the story—misspelled Peruggia’s name.

Some authors say that it was this theft that made the Mona Lisa the most famous painted work of art in the world.  Art historians, though, say that it is a surpassingly wonderful work.

The last time I saw it, I was appalled by how it is treated as a celebrity, rather than as a work of genius.  Camera flashes are going off, several a second, right in poor Lisa’s face.  Ugh!  On top of which, another Leonardo masterpiece, his The Virgin of the Rocks hangs nearby, and none of the philistines that are taking selfies with Mona even give it glance.  Here it is.

If you show up in the Louvre, of course you should try to see Mona in person.  But spend a few minutes with this one too.

The lady disappeared

One hundred years and two days ago to be exact the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in what became at the time the crime of the century. Years later it was discovered that between 1911 and 1913, the most famous painting in the world, the legendary work of Leonardo da Vinci, spent 28 months under a bed in a small room off the rue de l'Hôpital- St. Louis in Cité le Heron, a small cul de sac, in Paris near the Canal Saint-Martin

On the morning of August 22, 1911, the day of the Louvre's usual closing the painting was discovered missing. Only the nails that held the frame were on the wall. No alarm was raised since several of the Louvre's workers assumed the painting was being photographed in the basement, after all it was summer and not many Parisians were in Paris. But several hours later after the supervisor heard and a search was conducted the only clues were the Mona Lisa's gold frame found in the staircase leading to the courtyard of the Sphinx. Since it was in the middle of summer, the Under Secretary of State for Fine Arts was absent as well as the Director of National Museums. Only at 5:30 p.m. were the police, judges and prosecutor summoned.

Then began the interrogation of all staff, photographers, artists and workers present that day. A plumber said at 7:20 am he found that the lock on the door to the courtyard of the Sphinx had been unscrewed and a button was missing. A man in overalls sitting on the stairs had been asked to open this door. But this worker couldn't clearly remember who asked him or if he'd been carrying something. Had the thief acted alone? Another witness supplemented this testimony by saying he'd seen a man throw something into the courtyard which turned out to be the doorknob.
The Louvre closed for a week for investigations involving 60 police. The following Tuesday, August 29 the Louvre reopened. Crowds gathered to see the empty space with four nails.

Meanwhile heads rolled. The Director of National Museums, Théophile Homole, was laid off and the chief custodian of the museum dismissed. The press took hold of the event. Headlines appeared everyday. All leads were followed, rumors spread and the investigation stalled. Comedians, cartoonists and singers made the theft part of their act. Rewards were offered and the theft of the Mona Lisa which had plunged the country into 'national mourning' commanded 10 000 or 40 000 francs depending on the importance of intelligence. Friends of the Louvre offered 25 000 francs, an anonymous person offered 50 000 francs for the return in the Paris-Journal, But art specialists scoffed since it was clear that it was stolen for ransom because it was unsaleable. A politician of the day lamented that 'love was stolen.'

Then a serious lead appeared from a man who turned out to be a pathological liar and kleptomaniac. He boasted of stealing Phoenician statuettes from the Louvre and had sold them to artists. Some to Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet and others to Pablo Picasso. Picasso, who had bought two of these statues - without knowing the source, he said. Apollinaire was questioned and Picasso denied even knowing the poet. Apollinaire was crucified in the newspaper headlines and accused of also stealing the Mona Lisa. Picasso was let off the hook, later so was Apollinaire but it seems Picasso regretted this cowardice all his life. The trail that led up to Apollinaire and Picasso was a dead end.


In late 1913 a Florentine antique dealer named Alfredo Geri received a letter dated November 29, written in Italian by a Leonardo V. from General Delivery, in Paris. The mysterious correspondent wanted to sell the Mona Lisa adding it would be "recognizing that this treasure of art should be returned to her homeland." Intrigued, Geri contacted the director of the Uffizi Gallery, who advised him to follow up. Correspondence lead to a meeting in his gallery on December 10. The man came empty handed and asked for 500,000 francs in exchange. Geri complied and the next day Leonard V lead him to a modest hotel. In a wooden box, hidden under a false bottom for easy customs clearance, lay the famous picture. The two men carried the Mona Lisa to the Uffizi Gallery where she was authenticated on the basis of inscriptions on the back of the canvas and comparing those with cracks visible on the pictures in the Louvre. The next day, Leonardo V. who was actually a Vincenzo Perugia was arrested at his hotel as he prepared to return to France. When asked why, he readily told his story. But who was Vincenzo Perugia and how and why did he steal the legendary Mona Lisa?

He was born in Italy in the province of Como in 1881 of a mason. At twelve years old in Milan he learned the painting trade. He settled in Paris in 1908 and joined Gobi, a painting and glazing contractor on Rue Saint Honore. The firm worked at the Louvre and Perugia had participated in the crafting of the protective frame for the Mona Lisa. His fingerprints appeared on the glass removed from the Mona Lisa's frame. The police, however, hadn't followed the trail of workers employed by the Louvre or to a form with the name of Perugia and his fingerprints on file. He had been questioned even once by the police.
During the interrogation in Italy Perugia said he hated France. But loved Italy, it's art and he wanted to restore the Mona Lisa to his home country, believing it was stolen by Napoleon. In fact Leonardo da Vinci had brought the painting from Italy with him and it passed into the collection of Francis I (Leonardo's benefactor) upon Leonardo's death.
Perrugia described how he hid the Mona Lisa for 28 months where he lived in the working class passage near the Canal Saint Martin. He'd moved into the Italian community living there and rented a room on the first floor. Some of his cousins ​​lived there too. But it was two brothers, friends of his, that he confided in. He needed their help in building a protective box that he put under his bed to guard the painting from humidity. Later they were imprisoned.
But finally the big day arrived and the Mona Lisa returned to Paris on December 31, 1914. She was installed briefly at the Ecole des Beaux Art for experts to authenticate her. After she was authenticated the Ecole placed her under a red canopy in a room lined by Gobelins tapestries, and the public was invited for two days and to pay one franc. Thousands came and the money was sent to a charity in Italy. That Sunday the Mona Lisa was reinstated in the Louvre on January 4, 1914 where for the first afternoon 15,000 visitors were allowed to welcome her home.
A cartoonist proud to welcome home the Mona Lisa
As for Perugia, he spent seven months and eight days in jail. Given his patriotism and his psychiatric report the Italian courts were lenient and he served little more than a year in prison. He also received gifts and became a sort of national hero. High expectations greeted his prison release but the day before the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo and all attention and a world war ensued. Perugia was lost in history.
Cara - Tuesday