What travel location did you get the most emotional moment when you first visited it ?

I guess the first time I felt that way would be when I saw Christo's Umbrellas installation in 1991 in California.

Here's a video and some links about it. God, I LOVED Christo and his work. Just a mad genius. The video is very old analog, so you don't get a great sense of how beautiful they were, but they really were. Christo and Jeanne-Claude



The problem was, when I saw these I was with my ex-husband and things were already bad between us. I didn't know it at the time, in a marriage I guess you never know if you're in a "rough patch" or in the long death march to the end, but I was already in walking-on-eggshells territory with him, therefore, I could never speak freely, could never show any emotion at all except contentment and gratitude without being critiqued, shut-uped, or mocked, so it was VERY hard to see anything to gorgeous with my ex-husband because I could not talk about it with him.

If I had, God forbid, shed a tear over how lovely they were, he would have mocked me.

Didn't help that we brought a couple of other people with us who were quite shallow, not really lovers of the arts, more like there to see this THING only because it was a THING everyone was doing.

But I'm tellin' ya, I had so much I would have liked to have said about the Umbrellas. I would have liked to have stopped the car, got out and tried to take some pictures. I don't remember if we did or not. I would have liked our company to stop her banal chit-chat, but she didn't. Or couldn't. I would have liked to have spent more time there, but no, he was in charge so we didn't spend hours there.

That was one of those times when I realized, "I am with these people, married to one of them, but dammit I am ALONE because I cannot be my true self with any of them lest I receive middle-school mockery in return." Married but alone. Not good. Not good at all.

I think I did actually drive out there by myself after that, just to enjoy them again, but by that time some of them had to be shut down because I think the high winds had made one fall? Something like that. So, many of them were closed.

But the first time you see something like this along a stretch of highway which has always been brown and boring, so boring, it was like a giant gift. I also remember thinking, "A bunch of people gave money, many millions of dollars, to help Christo make this thing which millions of total strangers will see FOR FREE and it will brighten their days for a moment and lift their spirits." How can we not call that love, right?

I read in the news that many people wanted the umbrellas to stay there! Wanted the state or county to buy them! Leave them there! But the wind is very strong through the Tejon Pass so it was not practical.

But they were like giant, enormous sunflowers - only there for a season. Real sunflowers come back, of course.

I cannot stand men who mock others, especially those they claim to "love". To this day, I see them as 7th graders. But very dangerous because they are 7th graders who can buy guns and drink.
 

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Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Walking in the same rooms that the Founding Fathers were in when they debated things like independence from England, ideas about equality and justice, and what the Constitution would contain to preserve liberty and justice was an amazing feeling.
 
Erice, Sicily, Italy.
 

Brookswood said:
Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Walking in the same rooms that the Founding Fathers were in when they debated things like independence from England, ideas about equality and justice, and what the Constitution would contain to preserve liberty and justice was an amazing feeling.
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I'm with you on this. I first visited Philly in 1975. When I was standing in Declaration chamber, my heart almost stopped. Incredible experience.
 
The Parthenon in Athens and it's great age.
On the way home seeing the flying fish in the Mediterranean was memorable.
We led a group from our RV club to Imperial Point on the North rim of the Grand Canyon. While having a picnic supper we watched the moon rise over the canyon.
When I was 7 years old we went to Ottawa. The Mounties Looked like they were 10 feet tall in their red tunics.
 
The 9/11 Memorial in NYC. Very emotionally moving. And the spirit in the building was so respectful. Everyone was either spoke in hushed tones. People weren't snapping pictures, and everyone was extra careful not to block anyone's view. I've never experienced anything like it. 🇺🇲
 
I live close to Gettysburg and I still get a lump in my throat when I visit certain areas. For example: Cemetery Ridge, Little Round Top, Spangler's Spring and Robert E. Less's headquarters. Maybe a few more.
 
Three places stick in my mind. The first was the Eifel Tower in Paris. I'm not fond of heights, but the first time I went to the upper deck, in the 1960's, I was amazed at the views.
Second was the top of the WTC in NYC. They had just finished making the King Kong movie, and the "lift" was still on the South? tower. When I saw the destruction of the towers on TV, I was sick to my stomach.
Third was the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. I'm not very emotional, but I found the names of 3 of my old HS friends carved into the stone, and my eyes were dripping for quite awhile.
 
I was told landing at San Francisco (SFO) was a real challenge on windy, foggy days. On my first trip from Dulles (IAD) to SFO in a Boeing 767, which was going on to Honolulu, I was told by the Captain at about 100 miles from the airport he wanted me to land the plane.

I was both excited and nervous. The weather that morning was really crappy with headwinds off the Pacific at 12kts. gusting to 20kts. Visibility was about 200 feet. I very carefully followed my training and set the plane down beautifully. The pilot looked at me and said “Are you sure this was your first time landing in these conditions?” I told him, “Yes, Sir.”

Each time after that I landed at SFO, I was reminded of my first landing and it kind of choked me.
 
I have a habit of bursting into tears at the sight of something that moves me.

Near Santa Fe, New Mexico, there is a little mission at Chemaya. The main chapel is a small "folk-art" church. I stepped inside and sat down and the waterworks started like Niagara Falls.

There was something so moving and holy about that I was overcome. I'm not Catholic; I'm not even particularly religious, but there I was, crying my heart out.

I had to walk out. When I got outside, I calmed down and we went to lunch. Before we left, I went back into the chapel and here came the tears again. I have no idea why that place had such an effect on me.

The same thing happened when I saw The Pieta in Rome. Cue the waterworks, heavily.
 
I was only 8 years old at the time and I remember sitting in a tram with my family and we were coming down Bondi Road and I could smell
the salt in the air and then the pine trees and then that beautiful sight of the ocean. I was cheering and said, "Look at that beautiful beach".
I'll never forget that lovely moment.
 
@jujube, I didn't get to see the chapel you described (wish I had photos were wonderful), but it reminded me of the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, NM. The story of the spiral staircase is amazing and I was quite moved to see it in person.

No visible means of support and no nails.
Legend says that to find a solution to the problem for the choir loft, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks.

staircaselorettochapel.jpg

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oldman said:
I was told landing at San Francisco (SFO) was a real challenge on windy, foggy days. On my first trip from Dulles (IAD) to SFO in a Boeing 767, which was going on to Honolulu, I was told by the Captain at about 100 miles from the airport he wanted me to land the plane.

I was both excited and nervous. The weather that morning was really crappy with headwinds off the Pacific at 12kts. gusting to 20kts. Visibility was about 200 feet. I very carefully followed my training and set the plane down beautifully. The pilot looked at me and said “Are you sure this was your first time landing in these conditions?” I told him, “Yes, Sir.”

Each time after that I landed at SFO, I was reminded of my first landing and it kind of choked me.
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A lot of years ago, my wife and I went to a baseball game at old Candlestick Park. It was very warm at the start of the game, but when the sun went down, it got cold. We went from short sleeve shirts to jackets after dark. Originally, we weren’t going to take a jacket into the stadium, but when we noticed so many people carrying a jacket, we went back to the car and got our jackets.

Later in the game, big fog clouds came rolling into the park and the umpires stopped the game for a few minutes until the wind blew the fog clouds back out of the park. We could hardly see the field from where we were sitting. The home plate umpire that night was a friend of mine and his name was Frank Pulli. Frank was from Easton, PA, not far from where Muhammad Ali trained.

This is a strange story. I was assigned to patrol the area around where Ali was training for his next fight and sparred with Larry Holmes. I saw a man hanging around the club and decided to check his ID. Being a big baseball fan, I knew the name of Frank Pulli. I told Frank I remember seeing him umpire a lot of Phillies baseball games. He said he was hoping to get inside to see Ali spar. I told him to come with me and we both went in. From that day on, Frank and I were friends.

Each time Frank worked a Phillies home game, he would call me and ask if I wanted to go to the game and if I could go, he would leave tickets for me. Frank died in 2013 from Parkinson’s Disease and lived near my friend’s home in Palm Harbor, Florida. He was a good man.
 
As others have said it was the Grand Canyon the first real sight of it from the highway before you enter the park, I was hitchhiking and had just met the driver where you turned off from I40, but I begged them to stop and go back to take in the incredible beauty and scale of it.
 

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