Each year for the past three decade, professionals in the travel and tourism industry and members of the general public have voted to determine the winners of the World Travel Awards. There are country- and continent-specific awards for seemingly every category under the sun. Bulgaria’s leading car rental company for 2023 is Top Rent A Car Bulgaria, for example, and Vietnam Airlines boasts the best cabin crew in all of Asia.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland, took home this year’s blue ribbon for Europe’s leading beer tour visitor experience. But that wasn’t its only award. As Time Out reports, it also nabbed the 2023 title for Europe’s leading tourist attraction, period.
That means voters decided a trip around the Guinness Storehouse is just plain better than seeing Italy’s Colosseum, Greece’s Acropolis, or France’s Eiffel Tower—all three of which were nominated.
The Guinness Storehouse wasn’t the only Dublin attraction up for the prize: EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum also made the nominations list (and it did win in 2019, 2020, and 2021). Nor was 2023 the first time the Storehouse took home the title—it won in 2015, too.
The notion of drinking Ireland’s most iconic beer in its place of origin is appealing on its own. But the Guinness Storehouse is less a garden-variety brewery than a theme park. You can print a selfie in your beer froth, latte-style, and become an expert at pouring a pint of Guinness the right way (it’s a six-step process). You can also tour the premises, underground tunnels included. Guinness’s more than 250-year-long history is teeming with fascinating facts.
Better luck next time, Buckingham Palace.
This article was originally published on www.mentalfloss.com as Guinness Storehouse Crowned Europe’s Best Tourist Attraction of 2023.
