What makes a city a good place to visit / holiday?

[NewShoesForSpring]

We often have threads about what cities are considered terrible to visit and often people say things like x, y or z was sooo boring...there was nothing to do.

And very often I have been to that place and found the exact opposite. So it set me wondering - what does a city need to have in order for you to find it a fantastic place to see / visit / experience?

I'll start - I love art, literature, architecture, history so I seek out places like galleries, museums, literary cafes etc

I also love wine and food so love researching places to eat or local specialities etc

I am really not motivated by shopping and rarely shop when I am in another city as I am usually too busy doing other stuff.

So what do you look for? Because I am baffled how cities like Prague, Dublin, Paris and Rome as boring or nothing to do...

Can't help with the question because I agree with you. But just adding to say I don't get how any of those are boring either and I don't know what people are looking for.

Anywhere that has interesting architecture, museums, places to walk round, nice cafes to stop at is great for me.

Someone mentioned Seville as boring on the other thread. It's one of my favourite cities I've been to and will be back. Dublin is a strange one for me because I've been loads of times but to visit a good friend so always been under her guide but I've been to lots of great museums, restaurants and places to walk round there too.

I don't get what it is people are looking for and missing.

We are doing a theme of cities by the sea so we spend half the time doing beachy/pool/walking the prom type activities and the rest sightseeing. It means we go for a week and don’t have to rush the sightseeing bits.
So far we’ve done Valletta, Dubrovnik, zadar, Split, Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao, San Sebastián and Alicante

I love Dublin… a lot of people I know who hated it have ended up on temple bar all weekend and felt fleeced drinking 8euro pints.

Me too. It has a great vibe and the folk are hilarious and will talk to anyone!

I think you are right, if you spend your time in the Temple Bar area you will be disappointed and broke. The natives know to NEVER go there and South William and Camden Streets are where it's all at, if nightlife is your scene.

What I love about Dublin - apart from its museums and galleries (all free), architecture and historic places is the ease with which you can take a short train journey and be by the sea. The coast is just amazing and so easy to get to.

Sorry I am taking over the thread. But I always find something interesting in cities, haven't been disappointed yet.

I like interesting landmarks (love a tower with a view!), museums/galleries (either famous or quirky), nice cafes/bars, especially in a town square or piazza. Pretty places to wander, especially a park, Riverside or waterfront. And I do like a little mooch in a shop or two, especially if somewhere is known for particular foods / crafts. Extra points for quirky transport - trams, cable cars, water taxi. I do think that where you stay can really colour your views of a place e.g. if you are in a big city and have to stay miles out of the centre / a really grotty hotel to be able to afford it can be very off putting.

I think you can get bored if you don’t go your research properly. I’ve had a few city trips where I’ve been over optimistic and gone for too long. For example, a few years ago we went to Sarajevo. Lovely city and very interesting, but a lot of museums were closed when we went and four days ended up being far too long. If we’d gone at a different time of year we could have done some day trips to sights just outside the city, but it was winter and a lot was not available.

I’m careful to scale the length of stay to where I’m going and when now. If there doesn’t look like there’s enough to fill the time I want to be away then I look into what’s nearby and how I could get there (public transport, tour, rental car, etc.).

That doesn’t explain how anyone could be bored in a major world city like Rome though!

OP, I totally agree with you. Art, culture, architecture, food, wine, galleries, quirky back streets..... and also somewhere that has real people still living there and has not been manicured and sanitised to within an inch of its life. I don't want a scrubbed, sterile, Disney version of a city, I want the real thing - even if that includes a bit of rubbish and graffiti.
Also, somewhere that is not weather-dependent and can be visited/enjoyed at any time of the year.

I agree with everything said here! Yet Pisa is repeatedly slated on the threads about the worst places to visit!

We spent a couple of nights there last year on a longer trip to Italy and really enjoyed it. We saw the tower of course, but also walked around the main town and down the Arno etc. We had some really lovely meals there.

I think a lot of the time it’s expectations and having a plan. I tend to do a lot of prior research so I know what is good to do, then I’m not disappointed when it turns out to be something different. I also get frustrated wandering aimlessly so a flexible itinerary is a must.

I try and book a couple of restaurants in advance that I can see are well reviewed.

Other than that I like ‘interactive’ type things, so a good walking tour or boat tour, a quirky museum / attraction (I loved the Bordeaux wine museum and the underground beer caves in Nurembourg, the catacombs in Paris etc.) Similarly as others have mentioned, fun transport is nice, like a funicular.

I also like to feel safe wandering about, I don’t really enjoy grungy places.

Not bothered about art galleries (I’ve done the Kunst Museum and The Guggenheim and although impressive, I was mainly there to kill time).

Good bars / restaurants/ cafes are a must.

I often hear people slate LA and although it’s not pretty, I had a great time as had planned accordingly - we did Universal Studios, Griffiths Observatory, a ‘wine safari’ in Malibu, a day out in Santa Monica, enjoyed In n out burger and had a great long weekend there. If I’d gone expecting the Hollywood boulevard to be magical I’d have been sorely disappointed, but from research I knew what to expect.

I can generally have a pretty good time going anywhere and doing anything. I’ve visited cities and done very little other than visit the many bars on offer with some wandering in between, and considered it a good time had. As long as I can walk and find some interesting things to see, I’m easygoing.

I think that most cities are better visited with a local to show you the real city, so that you don’t end up in the tourist trap places. I think it’s also true that quite a lot of landmarks just aren’t as appealing or interesting in person as they are in photos, and therefore some visitors are underwhelmed and don’t see what the fuss is about: the Trevi Fountain and Leicester Square might be in your guidebook but they’re still fairly crap. Museums and galleries can also fall into the same category of “places you feel you have to go even if you’re not actually very interested in a lot of art styles or bits of things in class cases.”

I agree with you @Mushroo having a rough itinerary is important so time is not wasted wandering about aimlessly.

I love the research part before the trip so looking things up and deciding we'll go to x thing in this area so then I'll look up other things to do or see in that area and also research nice bars / restaurants / coffee shops etc in the area so we can make the most of being there.

From what I read it seems some people just wander off the plane and think that everything should be on the doorstep of their accommodation and not take into consideration that it's a big, working city and there will be planning required / distance to be covered etc in order to see the things you want to see.

I didn't find the Trevi Fountain crap @ComtesseDeSpair 😅
Leicester Square is not my favourite part of London but it's fine too

With kids we try and do a variety of things to keep everyone happy (my youngest is 10) and to help them get a sense of the culture. We always self cater and like getting an apartment fairly centrally and get the kids to help with the food shopping (in Malaga the local Carre Four had a machine to make freshly squeezed orange juice!). We eat out every day in different restaurants as well. We like to spend the first day walking round the historic centre of a town to get a sense of it, then we'll do some museums, any interesting ruins or buildings, a day at a beach or park, maybe a train trip somewhere or a boat trip if there's a river, I like industrial heritage if there's any.

I don't really understand people who write off a city, there's so many different options to do in a city and worst case you can always do a day trip (DD1 was spooked by the street hawkers in Florence so we went to Lucca the next day and had a lovely relaxed time and then she was ready for Florence).

For me it's a nice cityscape. So somewhere like Edinburgh which has beautiful vistas. Freiburg in Germany which has a hill you can climb up for great views. Anywhere with a nice riverside/waterfront like Budapest or Copenhagen. And just generally pretty towns like York or Vienna.

But I also like cities that are interesting and not necessarily beautiful like Cardiff, Liverpool or Berlin.

I am less keen on rushing around doing the sights and prefer just wandering about taking in a place. It also helps if there are nice and safe routes to run. A local parkrun is always good :) Generally safe is good, somewhere where you don't get hassled or have to watch your bags continually.

And with that all of the above qualify except Budapest as Hungary doesn't have parkruns yet.