IN spite of the ongoing pandemic, many people are still dreaming of France. According to data provided by the giant of Mountain View, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum are the two locations that are most saved by users of its popular Google Maps application.
Having attracted close to ten million tourists in 2019, the Louvre will not be setting any new attendance records this year. However, the managers of the world's most popular museum can take heart in the fact that the number of visitors will likely bounce back once borders are re-opened and people are allowed to come and go as they please. An observation that has recently been borne out by news to the effect that the French cultural bastion is ranked second in the top 10 most-saved places on Google Maps. And visitors who come to Paris to see the Mona Lisa are also more than likely to spend some time at the Eiffel Tower, which has the distinction of being placed first in the top 10 most-saved list. For those of you who haven't tried it yet, Google Maps has a handy functionality that allows you to flag places that you would like to visit, whether they be monuments, restaurants, or museums, etc. And this is the source for the data on which the new ranking is based.
Fans of France and Paris in particular will be delighted to learn that the French capital appears no less than four times in the top 10, which also includes the Arc de Triomphe and the Pantheon, which are respectively 7th and 9th in the ranking.
Other locations in Europe also figure large in the plans of Google Maps users: notably the Colosseum in Rome (4th), La Sagrada Familia de Barcelona (5th) and Buckingham Palace (10th).
However, notwithstanding this overwhelming European presence, Japan can still pride itself on having two locations in the ranking, which are both in the city of Kyoto: the Kiyomizu-Dera temple and the shrine of Fushimi Inari Taisha, which is renowned for its seemingly endless succession of red torii gates.
Along with this ranking, Google Maps has also presented a more quirky top 10, which offers a glimpse of the place categories most saved by internet users. And as you will see, national forests, which top the list are more often saved than rivers and... ice-cream shops.
The top 10 most-saved places on Google Maps:
1. Eiffel Tower
2. Louvre Museum
3. Kiyomizu-dera
4. Colosseum
5. La Sagrada Familia
6. Fushimi Inari Taisha
7. Arc de Triomphe
8. Trevi Fountain
9. Pantheon
10. Buckingham Palace
The top 10 categories of places saved on Google Maps:
1. National forests
2. Rivers
3. Ice-cream shops
4. Farms
5. Coffee bean stores
6. Waterfalls
7. Rest stops
8. Bike stores
9. Free parking lots
10. RV parks