Blarney Stone named world's most unhygienic attraction

Kissing the Blareny Stone in Ireland could give you more than just the gift of the gab after it was named as the world's most unhygienic tourist attraction.

Researchers said the Stone, kissed by up to 400,000 people a year, rates as the most germ-filled of sites - although it admitted it had no scientific evidence to back its case. Local legend has it that visitors who bend over backwards to kiss the stone built into Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland, are rewarded with the 'gift of the gab'.

But internet travel website TripAdvisor.com believes those who kiss the stone are likely to end up with something else other than fluent speech as it is so germ ridden.



A wall outside a theatre in Seattle, Washington, was placed runner-up in the competition. Since 1990, tens of thousands of people have stuck their unwanted chewing gum to the wall turning it into a tourist attraction. The act began with people waiting in line to visit the theatre. The wall has been scrapped clean twice since 1990 but is still covered with gum.

Oscar Wilde's tomb in Paris is the third dirtiest attraction having been covered with lipstick prints.

St Marks Square in Venice, Italy, is fourth due to the thousands of hungry pigeons who descend on the place leaving behind their waste. The handprints and footprints of stars outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood makes the top five.