Excuse me sir, are there any lakes in the Lake District?
LONDON: Is Wales closed during the winter? Are the churches in England open at Christmas? From the confused to the frankly bizarre, British tourist centers have dealt with them all.
Visit Britain, the national tourism agency, has half-a- million people per year pass through its information centers seeking advice on how to make the most of their trip.
But staff have often found themselves wide-eyed with disbelief at some of the off-the-wall questions thrown their way by befuddled tourists.
Some tourists got in a right royal mix-up over Queen Elizabeth II's residences.
Windsor Castle is the best part of 1,000 years old but one visitor demanded to know why on earth it was built under the noisy flight path to London Heathrow airport.
Meanwhile another asked: "When is the changing of the guard at the White House?"
One tourist wanted to know what month the May Day demonstration was, while another asked "What is the entry fee for Brighton?", the popular seaside city on the southern English coast.
Forget Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, mid-1980s topless models were the first thing on the mind of one visitor to Britain, who asked: "Do you have any information on Samantha Fox?"
Piccadilly Circus, the London intersection famous for its electric billboards, had one visitor taking it all too literally, asking "Can you tell me who performs at the circus in Piccadilly?"
A young boy visiting Dundee could be forgiven for asking to meet Crocodile Dundee, the 1980s Australian film character.
But there was no excuse for the following, all asked by full-grown adults: "Can you tell me where the mountain is in Scotland?"; "Are there any curves in the roads here, or are they all straight?", and "What time does the midnight train leave?".
"Visitors' queries range from the very routine to the absolutely ridiculous and everything in between," said Visit Scotland director Willie Macleod. "But no matter how odd the question, we're always glad to help out."
However, the tourism chiefs do not always get the last laugh. Visit Britain blamed pranksters and apologised last month for a link on its website which directed visitors looking for further information on Cardiff to a pornography page.
AFP
(China Daily 01/18/2007 page19)
