Rate the European Cities You Have Visited.
 

Sort of stole the idea from Julian but anyway.

London - Born and raised here. Vast, expensive and unfriendly. Food is either terrible or great but you'll need plenty of money if you want the latter. Traditional 'greasy spoon' cafes are slowly being eased out by fast food restaurants and gastro-pubs. OK areas are Notting Hill, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch (for the uber-cool clubs and bars). Great for its social scene but very spread out. Excellent shops around Notting Hill and Soho. Places to avoid, Tottenham, parts of Bermondsey and Peckham, most of Tower Hamlets except Bethnal Green, all of Newham.

Paris - Tiny, surprisingly dangerous in its suburbs, relies heavily on its past to disguise the fact that fuck all seems to have happened there since the 60s. People here are even less friendly than in London.

Berlin - Excellent city. A cross between London and NY without being quite as good as either. Has a definite 'alternative' vibe to it. Music scene is dominated by Techno and Anarcho-Punk squatters. Fantastic bars but limited restaurants. A definite edgy feel to the place but overall pretty safe.

Amsterdam - Personally I don't like it. The Red Light district and the Coffee shops seem more for tourists these days. Food was awful, bars were OK but nothing special. Seemed pretty safe to walk around - although you might get hit by one of their stupid fucking trams.

Prague - When I visited it there seemed to be more Americans there than Czechs. Beautiful to walk around and still cheap (for non-Czechs anyway). Awesome bars but the food is pretty dire.

Budapest - Excellent city. Nothing like as touristy as prague. Ace food and ludicrously cheap drinks. Music scene seemed pretty good too. Generally safe. And, it has to be said, drop dead gorgeous women.

Istanbul - Good in a way, but fine food and architecture is no compensation for the very real likelihood of being ripped off at every turn whilst you're there. Can be unsafe at night, especially for women.

Warsaw - Fucking grim. Has a really shady quality to it. Never had any trouble but you get the feeling that it's there nonetheless. Very 'gangster'. Nondescript food and bars, club scene seems dominated by mafia types. To be fair, this was the early 90s so things might've changed since then, but i'm in no hurry to go back and find out.

Frankfurt - The old town is too small to compensate for the generally soulless nature of this city. OK if you like skyscrapers, but that's about it.

I will do my usual star ratings:

Liverpool: **
London: **
Manchester: **
Oxford: ****
Glasgow:
etc uk shiz..

I don't remember specific towns but I've been to Crete and Zante, Northern France, Italy, and Spain. They're mostly **** places.

London - Great to have it there when you want to visit and cheers to National Express and Megabus for making it so cheap (if not comfortable or quick) to get there. Would I want to live there? Probably not...unless someone was offering somewhere super cheap to rent.

Glasgow - Pretty ace from what I saw and some really good record shops (this is pre volcanic tongue opening even)

Edinburgh - Nice looking but inferior record shops to Glasgow and too touristy for its own good. Fucking ace jacket potato shop though...best jacket potato I ever ate

Leeds - Pretty lively city centre on a weekend night. Seemed pretty happening but some of it a bit scummy....

Birmingham - Pretty boring and I couldn't find any decent record shops.

Krakow - Really, really nice place that was a pleasure just to be in. So many attractive women and hands down the best used bookshop I have been in (massolit books). Couldn't find many decent record shops though. Ace kebabs...cheap + good food. Unless you're vegetarian.

Berlin - See above. Really ace, loads of interesting stuff happening in squat type places and elsewhere. Some really ace bars indeed..

London - very busy, nice though, lots of good public transport, some really pushy people,especially those underground employees, maybe an anti-american response from some people on the streets

Taunton - the only other "city" i have been too, reminded me of Gaithersburg, Maryland, from the old downtown area, to the larger shopping area

Yeah, English people are generally arrogant anti-american tossers. Why Taunton, of all places?

it was the last stop on the line, before the chalet i was in took a cab and headed to minehead for atp

Ah, right.

I'm going to Rome, Venice, Naples, Marseille, Florence, Athens, Istanbul, and Ephesus this summer. I'll give my review when I get back.

Good luck.

That's definitely true but it's also the case pretty much throughout all of Europe. I have family in Spain and Portugal where there's hardly a square metre of wall space not covered with some anti-American slogan or another. On the whole, Europeans have always made it their business to find an excuse to dislike America(ns).

Screw the bastards! USA! USA! USA!

Out of 5 stars

Venice-Great views and it has really nice Renaissance feel. A bit too touristy though-****

Florence-for me, the the ideal Italian city. I loved the setup, the plazas, and the all around feel *****

Nice-A good ocean side city. but once you get on the back streets, ie off the Promenade Anglais, it can get trashy ***

Monaco/Monte Carlo-too expensive and touristy, but has great views ***

Paris-a great, great, great Metropolitan city. It has the perfect mix of everything. If I was to choose a place to live, this would be it! *****

Eze-a small hilltop village near Nice. I suggest a stop here just to look around if you want to see a real Medieval village. ****

granted, there's a lot of hate on america right now, but I didn't experience any when I went to spain. then again, I guess I don't really scream OMGAMERICAFUCKYEAH.


on topic:

London ****

I've only been in Gatwick and Heathrow Airports but it made me wish I was staying longer than a layover. I was mostly won over by the dry sarcasm of one of the airport workers as he directed the idiots into two lines.

"yeah I know, two lines are a hard concept".

Barcelona *****

I spent a week there last summer and it was the time of my life. I've been to quite a few places across the americas, but nowhere that was as cool as that.

in fact, the most memorable aspect was how friendly the people there were too me. maybe it was my half-ass attempt at spanish (even though they don't speak the same "mexican dialect" that I know of).

the food, the sangria, the art nouveau architecture, the sangria and the sangria are other things that stand out in my mind as trip-makers.

I caught one day of Primavera Fesival 2006 and I can easily say that Parc del Forum is the most beautiful music venue I've ever seen. I'm still mad that I missed The Brian Jonestown Massacre play.:(

I'm going to wear hockey jerseys all the time and say the word about as "aboot" and add "eh" onto everything I say. That way they won't judge me for being from the US, they'll just be like "he's canadian."

Haha! That's the funniest thing I've read all day.

London
It's more or less home. I love it.

Paris
A wonderful place to wander around.

Venice
I want to go again. And again.

Nice
Not as classy as it makes out.

Monte Carlo
Slightly less classy than Nice, but lots of expensive cars

Naples
Shithole

Barcelona
Amazing views

Bruges
Excellent for chocolate and food. Very nice market.

Berlin
A slightly bizarre place that seems to be eager to wipe its most interesting feature (its past) off the face of the map. But I'd go back.

Heidelberg
I'm not sure if it's a city or not, but it's beautiful, especially when it's just snowed.

St Petersburg
One of the most incredible places I've ever been. The architechture.... wow!

Moscow
Pretty dull outside of the Kremlin.

Britain
London*****
Newcastle***
Birmingham**
Bath**
Leeds*
York****
Durham*
Brighton*

Netherlands
Amsterdam*****
The Hague***
Groningen***
Utrecht*
Haarlem****
Delft**
Arnhem***
Breda*
Middelburg**
Alkmaar*
Leeuwaarden**
Tilburg*
Nijmegen*
Maastricht*

Belgium
Brussels**
Antwerp***
Hasselt*
Geel*

Spain
Madrid**
Segovia****
Toledo***
Denia**
Valencia***

France
Paris*****
Nice**
Le Havre**
Caen*
Rouen*
Reims*

Germany
Frankfurt***
Dresden**
Leipzig***
Hannover**
Kassel**
Halle**

Italy
Rome****

Portugal
Lisbon*
Faro*

Bulgaria
Sofia**

Still really want to visit Berlin, Barcalona, Athens, Copenhagen, Vienna, Dublin, Warsaw, Prague, Venice.

* Good
* Bad

I didn't want to get carried away saying anything about English cities, but seeing as Tokolosh has mentioned Brighton, I'll just say that's probably the one place that I would rank above London as far as English cities go. It has great shops, great places to eat, a beautiful pier, the sea, a good music scene, everything that I could possibly want out of a city.

The residents can sometimes be a bit on the pretentious side though.

There are 3, swordfish, tempest and reddingtons. If you come back here contact me and i will show you around :)

Thanks! I heard about Swordfish but only after the last time I was in Birmingham.

The best city in the whole world is Prague. Bratislava, on the other hand, is one of the shittiest once. That's the tragic reality of former Czechoslovakia.

Other than that, I loved Amsterdam, Bruxelles, Krakow and Gdansk in Poland, Budapest, Barcelona and the splendid city of Budapest in Hungary.

And, in England, I loved Chester. I'm surprised noone has mentioned it yet. Wonderful historical city centre and generally great peaceful atmosphere.

London, fuckin love London, defo a place where i plan on spending a few years


Manchester,



(see pic) nuff said..

Amsterdam, great place, although i am a greener and biased.

Athens, dusty


i'm not very travelled really am i?
still though i'm young and careless and me toothbrush is hairless.

West London is particularly wonderful, Fishmonkey. It's a great place for open top bus tours in May.

yeah i guess portugal it's not amusing because we've the same (edit: or less) population then london so, our cities are very small but i'm sure there are a few wonderful places... at least we're a peaceful country with gentle people.

brighton is like a parochial london but filled with studes.

Leeds - Local city, pretty good. Good skateparks
Manchester - Fucking hate the place
London - Love it, the art galleries, the abundance of gigs etc etc
Brighton - Probably my favorite place in the UK especially at summer time. My dad lives down there so I go down for a few weeks every year. Sonicl described it spot on.
Nottingham - Only been to see bands but it looked like a shit hole.

yeah i'm defo open for suggestions. whats a nice area of London sonicl? do you live in London?

Oh, I totally forgot about Nottingham. The city centre is alright, there's a good record shop (Selectadisc) and comic shop next to each other...I think the 'burbs are the shit bits of Nottingham...like Radford. That's pretty rough apparently.

Also forgot about Burton upon trent which isn't a city by any means but probably the most depressing place on earth so merits a mention.

West and South London are boring as fuck.I'll always be more east or north.

You missed the subtlety of my post, didn't you? Or are you just pretending?

Here's a picture of an open top bus tour in West London:

Hey sonicl,does Jane make you stroll down King's Road carrying all her shopping like you see a lot of couples doing on Saturday afternoon over there in poshland?I used to live for a few months in Buckingham Palace Road just round the corner to Nicky Haslam's studio and near Sloane Square.As nice as it was,it bored me to tears and i moved out.

We have merchants bring their wares to our home to peruse. We don't go to the shops, they come to us.

Now if you'll just excuse me, I'm trying to wind Fishmonkey up. But he's not biting, which is very disappointing.

i was kinda pretending with a hint of innocence in the hope that maybe ... just maybe some Chelsea fan out there could maybe help a brother with some travel advice... but no... that fuckin promptly came back and bit me fair and square in the ass.. that fuckin picture is giving me heartburn..

but i wonder in yr infinate wisdom sonicl.... will that bus be taking that route this year?

It'll be the same bus, but a different trophy this year. Or maybe the same trophy, plus three others.

I live in suburbia, about 15-20 miles south of London (about three miles from Chelsea's training ground, actually). West London is actually a fairly soulless place (except Notting Hill), and south London is grimy and uninteresting. North London is cool, and east London I don't really know. Central London is a mix of tourist tat and cool places.

Birmingham - 4/10
London - 6/10
Paris - 5/10
Amsterdam - 2/10
Brussels - 2/10
Nicosia (cyprus) - 6/10

Suit yourself,sir.I'm off into town and i won't be back for a while.Take care you all.

either or sonicl, your hoping for something. we aint too bothered with the Carling Cup this year, yee can have that if you want..

tell you what? make John Terry dance for it.

nahh nahh, stick around porkie - i'll listen to you - i know sonicl is a posh git, bit strange to meet such a posh rentboy, dont you think so?

"What did you say about my mother?"

You guys crack me up. :)

look at him there, that John Terry lad, his parents are first cousins you know?