This is the thread where you recommend a European City to me

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I havn't gone travelling much, and I want to go visit a European city for a long weekend. Probably by myself, so I want a bit of high culture, lots of good architecture, relitivly cheap, and somewhere where I won't get shouted at for not knowing too much of the lingo.

I live in Oxford, and London's, although cool, isn't what I had in mind.

Recommend away, please.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Rome. The Eternal City.
Paris. The City of Light.
Copenhagen. The City Of The Little Mermaid Statue.

― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

But isn't Paris ENORMOUSLY expensive? At least, that's what I heard.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Budapest.

― kirsten (kirsten), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Ljubljana is very nice from what I remember. Not sure about the cheapness aspect though.

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Vienna. A gorgeous imperial city, and nearly as expensive as most gorgeous imperial cities. Budapest is just as lovely and even cheaper, but English-only speakers are more likely to find it a challenge.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

BUDAPEST fits all of your needs and more, just please don't tell too many other people about it.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Oops, didn't see Colin's last sentence. Colin OTM.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't find communicating in budapest a problem at all.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I've only been to rome but loved it enough to go twice.

http://rome.starstarstar.net/days/11/A32.jpg

Here I am in front of the temple of the vestal virgins finding a predictable joke from mr teeny to be not funny at all.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

i 2d colin's recommendation of vienna. so stately and regal that it doesn't HAVE to tell you how stately and regal it is, just like any true aristocrat.

rome -- there's a reason why a disturbingly high % of my euro-vacation photos were from italy generally and rome particularly.

london -- the natives may dismiss it, but i loved it like few other places in the world. i thought of it as a cleaner, more cosmopolitan philadelphia, but that may just be my peculiar frame of reference.

glasgow = the european city that reminded me the most of NYC (well, other than berlin). take that for whatever it's worth.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Here I am in front of the temple of the vestal virgins finding a predictable joke from mr teeny to be not funny at all.

Haha! But I laugh, see, because I am simple.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

re ljubljana: during my euro-vacation 9 years ago, there did seem to be an awful lot of the backpacking crowd who were trekking out there. i didn't go, but only because i had an itinerary to which i adhered to strictly and it would've been too far outta the way. i've heard that it's really nice, though.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

howsa about we list european cities to AVOID? i have a few of those, too.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome.
Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris

Split and Dubrovnik, Croatia superb.

― Skottie, Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Good idea Eisbar!

European Cities - S/D (for me, cos I'm great)

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, I hate Milan. And Stockholm is a kind of love/hate place, for me anyway.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

european cities that i did not like, for one reason or other: munich, bern, chester, marseilles, tours, milano (x-post w/ @d@ml), frankfurt-am-main.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Cologne is kind of blah. As is Frankfurt. And I'm not a great fan of London, either. Which is, I realize, perverse.

― Skottie, Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Yay, doesn't Milan suck?

I kind of like Marseilles, but I like industrial towns.

London rules, of course.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Milan could be in eastern Poland circa 1967 for all the charm it has.

― Skottie, Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

munich = german for los angeles. i know that the city was blown to hell during wwII, but did they HAVE to rebuild the place to look like orange county or an NJ suburb?

bern = rude inhabitants, twee buildings, shit inexplicably expensive and/or pretentious.

chester = ye olde englishe amusement park. see also too much twee shit.

marseilles = french for "port newark" or "newport news." 'nuff said. and it smelled bad.

tours = rude and perverted inhabitants. french for "mount vernon."

milano and frankfurt-am-main = the 2 most soulless places i've ever been in my life. cities built by and for barbie and ken. might as well be shopping malls.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I really hated Valencia, seemed to be full of macho pricks driving like morons. Paris seems pretty shitty outside of the centre too. I second Bern and Marseilles for the reasons Eisbär listed above, although most French and Swiss towns I've been in seem OK really.

― udu wudu (udu wudu), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, i liked france as a whole. i loved paris. other great places there were saint-malo, mont saint michel (just to watch the tide come in!), carcasonne, poitiers, all of those chateaux-towns, and toulouse.

switzerland i could take or leave. overall impression was connecticut in the alps. and most swiss people i've ever known were insufferable twats, so maybe that's jaundiced my opinion about that country. plus schwyzerdytsch = jibberish.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:44 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.flughafen-mgl.de/grafiken/navigation/logo_dus-int.gif

Europe's best kept tourism secret. Now with plenty of free parking!

― Skottie, Sunday, 7 March 2004 09:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Moscow->the prettiest girls in the world, and the best nightlife in europe.

― gimikz, Sunday, 7 March 2004 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

gimikz's comment would be OTM if you just change Moscow to Rejkavik

― winterland, Sunday, 7 March 2004 10:52 (twenty-one years ago)

OTM OTM! OTM OTM!

― aNatheMa (aNatheMa), Sunday, 7 March 2004 10:53 (twenty-one years ago)

dusseldorf is good, i did like it there.

i want to go to lisbon, helsinki, stockholm, rekjavik, toulouse, zagreb, bratislava, skopje, marseille...

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 7 March 2004 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

and also zurich

― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 7 March 2004 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Cologne and Frankfurt are both physically very unimpressive, but you can pretty quickly figure out that Cologne is an exciting, vibrant world city with gobs of culture if you can get past the fact that all the pretty was bombed out of it. Frankfurt also slowly reveals its charms once you realize that's it's not even close to being a world city; it's a farming village with skyscrapers.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Sunday, 7 March 2004 12:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Berlin: it's cheap, full of life, the people are really friendly (and often English-speaking if you don't have much German), fun to wander about in, and has some realy interesting traditional and modern architecture as well as gorgeous museums and art galleries (and the Holocaust museum, which is more haunting than gorgeous). It's been my favourite city bar London since I was about ten. And now they have really good coffee, too.

― cis (cis), Sunday, 7 March 2004 12:57 (twenty-one years ago)

The correct answers are so obviously Barcelona and Seville.

And Glasgow.

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 7 March 2004 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

eight months pass...

TS: Budapest v. Prague v. Vienna

I think I'd like to visit one of these. My impression is that the CW is that Prague is prettiest, with a vocal minority favoring Budapest, but I am skeptical. Vienna interests me the most because of the movies shot there and the whole classical music thing and it's the biggest, but I'm uncertain. And what of the Freedom Party? There don't seem to be many Jews in Austria or Czechoslovakia. Also, how would someone who is unduly wary of mad cow and not a big sausage fan fare here? From what I know of haute 'Austrian' cuisine in America, it intrigues, at least from a dessert perspective.

What is there to do in these places other than walk around and look at buildings?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 14:29 (twenty years ago)

Neue "go to all 3" answers

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 14:32 (twenty years ago)

ha. i was about to type that. seriously, it wouldn't be that difficult if you've got the time & money for a transatlantic vacation in the first place.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 14:34 (twenty years ago)

anyway. i haven't been to prague in 8 years, so any specific advice would be out of date. it's breathtakingly beautiful, even more so than vienna i think. avoiding sausage isn't a problem there. as long as you eat meat, you won't go hungry. czech cuisine tends to be pork- rather than cow-centric, and carp is the national xmas dish.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 14:37 (twenty years ago)

pork is sort of a problem

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 14:56 (twenty years ago)

Vienna, Budapest and Prague are all close enough to travel inbetween. As is Bratislava if you want a Prague without Americans.

I'm in Slovenia over new year. What funs can I have there?

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 14:59 (twenty years ago)

let's all pretend i am unable to travel between - compare and contrast

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 15:00 (twenty years ago)

pork and cow are eastern european/german staples. don't let it deter you, but be prepared.

i wasn't very keen on austria when i was there, although it was charming, so i'd vote prague (haven't seen budapest, unfortunately).

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 15:25 (twenty years ago)

Vienna - Esperanto Museum (containing the world's most enthusiastic curator)
Budapest - The beautiful modern art gallery with the sculpted umbrella figures outside
Prague - A recital in St Nikolas Chathedral

Conclusion: All good.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 15:26 (twenty years ago)

Vienna means nothing to me.

(sorry - I felt obliged).

― 3underscore (___), Tuesday, 23 November 2004 15:36 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

more talk of European cities please. has anyone been to Llubjana?

― Stevem On X (blueski), Friday, 21 January 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

eleven months pass...

Split vs Dubrovnik

How easy to access from London?

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 23:31 (nineteen years ago)

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