Well, first we better agree on what the 7 wonders are, because the Eiffel Tower traditionally wasn't one of them.

WikiPedia to the rescue. Its ragtag bands of scrappy fact-collectors offers us many a list. The original 7:

* Great Pyramid of Giza
* Hanging Gardens of Babylon
* Statue of Zeus at Olympia
* Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
* Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
* Colossus of Rhodes
* Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Medieval Wonders:

* Stonehenge
* Colosseum
* Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
* Great Wall of China
* Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
* Hagia Sophia
* Leaning Tower of Pisa

Some engineering society says the Modern Wonders should be

* The Chunnel
* CN Tower
* Empire State Building
* Golden Gate Bridge
* Itaiupu Dam
* Delta Works
* Panama Canal

....and then there are some "New 7 Wonders" contests by different people, and the 7 Natural Wonders...on and on.

But it looks so good Miko, it has to be there (my French side over-reacting a bit). And besides, you can kiss under it for as long as you want... :)

Yeah, I had the Wikipedia one too, but I wanted to post this, because it had her/him in it.

She looks so beautiful... just too good.:)

This place. Is this a wonder? For me, it is.

For me, I've been thinking about how great it would be not to worry about just 7 wonders, but to try to see as many of the UNESCO World Heritage sites as I can. (OMG do they need a better website).

So far I've seen 5. Only 873 to go!

Civilisation II taught me everything about the 7 wonders of the world I need to know.

I always wanted to make the library one - because then I didn't have to study as many fields and I could advance quicker.

Re: UNESCO - ZOMG, Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia is unspeakably beautiful.

jonathanstrange: I'm having Civ II, III and IV flashbacks. All I can think of are the benefits they give me if I build them.

...

I need to go outside more =(

Venice....the article in the NYT travel section made it clear that the best time for me to go would be January.

I've seen eight of the UNESCO sites.

Of the original seven wonders I'd love to see the pyramids at Giza. One of my dreams since I was nine years old has been to visit Egypt.

I'd like to see The Space Elevator.

Maybe the Millau Viaduct.
Or the U-boat bunkers in Brittanny.

I always wanted to see the pyramids.

So I did.

It was good.

Oh, and I've been through the chunnel.

I think the Panama Canal would be cool though...

See the Panama Canal from the privacy of your own home/office/cafe/nerve-center.

I regret missing my chance to see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Royal Library of Alexandria. The pyramids are cool but the (no longer) singing Colossi of Memnon, along with other ancient sites in Thebes and Luxor, are more interesting.

There are also the Seven Natural Wonders of the World:

- Grand Canyon
- Great Barrier Reef
- Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
- Mount Everest
- Northern Lights
- Parícutin volcano
- Victoria Falls

The mansion where the exteriors for Dark Shadows were shot.

Original:
Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Medieval:
Hagia Sofia

Modern:
Screw the Golden Gate, and let's just make it a bridge tour--Akashi Kaikyo, the Millau Viaduct, Tatara, oh, man, I'm a nerd.

Natural:
Great Barrier Reef

Hugh, I've been far more interested in the sites of Upper Egypt. But I figured I could swing by the pyramids on my way by.

I think the Panama Canal would be cool though...

My mom got to go through the Panama Canal on a windjammer. I'm envious.

I've never been to the Panama Canal, but have heard lots about it from my Mom - she spent her teenage years in the Canal Zone during the War and has been back numerous times. Granddad was a machinist for the canal company.

The last time she went, she vowed to never go back since the economy was in such shambles - but, that could have changed in the last 15 years. My brother went through the Canal in a ship and says it gets old going through lock after lock after lock - the novelty wears off. hrumph. I think I'd like the scenery and the chance to slow down and just enjoy the quiet passage.

It's not on the list, but I'd like to go to the Taj Mahal.

More fall weekends camping in the NE.

I've been to a few of the wonders on the lists that Miko provides. Mostly for me it was wow, that's cool, now what. I've had much more interesting experiences in other places. When I was in my teens Crater lake in Oregon was a wonderful experience each time I went. It always had this serene feel to it. One of the more amazing experiences I had was sitting with my oldest brother in the grassy area near the ball court and the hieroglyphic staircase in the Mayan ruins of Copan, Honduras with no one around, and watching the deer and monkeys come out of the jungle. The "official" wonders are great and all, but those are just lists that someone else came up with. I think we should forget those, and think more about the wonders on our own list. What's exciting about travel, is you never know when you'll discover a new, unpublished wonder.

This seems like another good place to post a picture of my mom on a camel in Egypt:
≡ Click to see image ≡
She's 68; the picture is from January.

I wish I had the "so what" feeling about visiting certain places, or any places really. I'm not sure my parents didn't do a disservice by exposing my sister and I to overseas travel when we were very young. I have diary entries from when I was eight that document the beginnings of a serious wanderlust- actually, I wrote that I was homesick for places I hadn't been. It hasn't eased up since, although my opportunities have decreased the older and less portable I've gotten, and I haven't left the country in almost ten years. Not that that keeps me from dreaming about where I'll go when or if I can.
Highest on the list are what I consider to be the wonders of Cappadocia, Petra, pretty much the entire city of Istanbul (and/or Constantinople), Ankarana Reserve in Madagascar, what remains of Palmyra and Pergamon, the Ajanta and Ellora Caves, the Valley of Flowers, Rhodes, Bodh Gaya, Varanasi, Drakensberg, the Ferapontov Monastery, Flores in the Azores, and this is why I don't do well at making lists. I'll maybe be reconciled to the fact that I won't be able to see the whole world when, as a little and hopefully ancient lady in fanny pack and sensible shoes, I have a stroke and just drop right off the side of Skellig Michael into the sea.

You could be my mom, notquitemaryann. In the last 10 years, she's been to Germany, Netherlands, Rome, Switzerland, Italy, Hawaii, China, and Egypt. Definitely the touristy stuff, but, man, she gets out there. Before each trip, she goes on a thrift-store shopping spree, then just leaves her clothes at her various destinations as she wears them, replacing them with souveniers and such. And she's just now retiring from her university teaching job. Go, Mom, Go!

That is awesome and I do hope to have the chance to be like that someday. It's a definite point in favor of an academic career... My parents are the same way, and although I'm always happy for them and love to see how their lives are enriched by their travels, they do have this maddening habit of going places (by attending conferences or accepting an offer to lecture, usually) about which I've rambled obsessively to them before- Russia and India, for example. Maybe I'm persuasive. It is the next-best thing to going oneself, at least. And the pictures are always wonderful.