Destinations are often very keen to promote their sights, but their smells are an altogether trickier sell. To put it bluntly, there are some places that stink, and a fair bit of nose-pinching is required to take them on. But despite – and occasionally, because of their unmistakable smells – some of these spots are actually worth visiting. Such as…
Geothermal activity can sure look cool – Rotorua is full of bubbling pools and spurting steam vents, some of which pop up unannounced seemingly at random. But that quirk factor comes with a permanent eggy stench – which can stay on your clothes for days afterwards.
Nobly harnessing its natural wonders, and resolutely ignoring its natural pong, Rotorua has managed to set itself up as the all-action hub of the North Island. That can include bungy jumps and swings, a monorail raceway and freefall experiences at Agroventures (agroventures.co.nz), zorbing zorb.com/world/rotorua) and white water rafting (riverrats.co.nz). Or, less energetically, there are the thermal pools at the Polynesian Spa (polynesianspa.co.nz) to soak in. See rotoruanz.com.
In geothermal weirdness terms, Iceland is the New Zealand of the northern hemisphere. Geysers spout, volcanoes throw up new islands every now and then, craggy lavascapes predominate. But the country's most famous attraction has the same sulphury whiff that Rotorua has.
The Blue Lagoon, handily between the airport and Reykjavik, has a moon-like look about it. The craggy stark landscape is dotted with pools that have an eerily milky luminous blue colour. And people merrily splash about in said pools before getting changed and heading to the airport. See bluelagoon.com.
You don't have to step too far off the bridge over the Douro River from Porto for the whiff to kick in. Vila Nova de Gaia has a strong but sweet boozy smell – enough to feel faintly tipsy simply by walking through.
This is because the place is essentially one giant port wine warehouse. The grapes for the fortified wines may be grown 120km upriver in the Douro Valley, but this is where the barrels and vats are brought for storage and maturation. Most of the port wine houses, such as Taylor's or Calem, offer tours of their facilities followed by tasting sessions at the bar. See visitportoandnorth.travel.
Easily the best way of dispelling Paris' image as the city of love is to take your amour down into the sewers. Brilliantly, the city has cordoned off part of the sewer system as a museum, allowing nose-holding visitors to stroll through 500 metres of underground tunnels. This becomes a somewhat oddly skewed, yet strangely fascinating, history of the city, as it traces urban sanitation back to Roman times. Pretty sexy stuff, huh? See equipement.paris.fr/musee-des-egouts-5059.
A far more pleasant smell can be found elsewhere in France, where the south-western town of Grasse is regarded as the perfume-making capital of the world. The surrounding areas are big for flower-growing – with jasmine being the most notable money-mine in the fields. Three perfumeries – Fragonard, Molinard and Galimard – are open to the public, operating tours and make-your-own-scent experiences, while the International Perfume Museum goes into more detail and history. See museesdegrasse.com/en.
In False Bay at the back end of Cape Town, Seal Island is a hot spot for spotting – and cage diving with – great white sharks. The sharks can be reliably found there because the island is essentially a giant buffet for them.
This is because, as the name suggests, the island is home to 60,000-plus Cape Fur seals, who honk, fight and defecate around the barren rocks with a somewhat kamikaze lack of awareness about what's in the water.
This makes things very noisy, and very, very smelly. Cape fur seals, it is fair to say, are not big into potty training. See gosharkdiving.com.
Wind the window down on the causeway over to Antelope Island and you soon know about the, ahem, distinctive smell of the Great Salt Lake. A combination of salty water and small shrimps that decompose in the briny soup make for a pungency that most people are quite happy to ignore once on the island itself.
That's because they've not come to see the shrimps – they've come to see the indisputably majestic herds of bison that roam across the hillsides, often stopping in the middle of the road to block traffic. See stateparks.utah.gov/parks/antelope-island.
As with other Moroccan cities such as Marrakech, Fes subjects the senses to a merciless assault. In terms of smell, some of that comes from the spices in the souks. But Fes is most notorious for its leather-making, and the area around the tanneries Chouwara reeks not just of leather belts and bags but the rotting flesh and ammonia that are the less sexy side of the industry. The tanning pits are properly medieval-style, and no air fresheners have been invented since then that can mask the stench. See visitmorocco.com.
See also: 22 places you're pronouncing incorrectly
