Which city break did you NOT enjoy?

[pinkfishbluefish]

Where’s overrated, and why? Looking at making a 2023 travel itinerary and curious.

I wasn’t fond on Rome.

I would love to try Amsterdam but worried about safety: wouldn’t be interested in any of the ‘popular’ activities that folk do there, or the red light district. I more like the look of the food, culture, boat trips and museums.

Oh and Turin had fabulous museums and the lingotto area is up and coming and quite cool, but the city centre I found really dull.

Loved- Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Edinburgh, London, Athens , Dijon

Not fussed about Paris or Nice

New York- I didn’t like initially. I went to the wrong areas, it was very built up, no green space and just too ‘business district’… but some areas are bloody brilliant, so I’ve changed my mind! I feel like you need to know where to go.

Loved Bologna, Stockholm,Bruges, Vienna, Paris, Berlin

Not keen on Florence (so crowded with tourists and their selfi sticks)
San Francisco

I definitely preferred Rotterdam to Amsterdam

Cities I loved: Copenhagen, Graz, La Rochelle, Ljubljana, Paphos, Reykjavik, St Helier, Salzburg, Strasbourg, York
Cities I liked: Alicante, Antwerp, Bristol, Dublin, Leeds, Malmo, Munich, Norwich, Rotterdam, Valencia, Zurich
Cities I wasn’t keen on: Amsterdam, Brussels, Cork, Genoa, Manchester, Nice
Cities I disliked: Coventry, Geneva, Paris

Venice does have a janky atmosphere, a lot of the locals want the tourists out, and I do understand. They start putting chairs and menus away in restaurants when they see you coming, and I was with a local. It’s kind of ruined by tourism. It’s beautiful but won’t go unless I have to for work.

I didn’t like Dublin, Edinburgh or Los Angeles. Also not keen on any of Germany, I think it was the food just awfully dull.

Loved New York - probably more so because we took two teens who absolutely loved it and I got enjoyment from them being happy.

Paris was ruined for us by a pickpocket, DH standing on a near empty metro, a group walked past him to get off train, the doors shut and he realised his wallet had gone, they didn’t get much we cancelled cards straight away but just felt we had eyes on us for the rest of the time. I do realise this can happen anywhere.

Meh: Rome

Yeah: Madrid

I love Naples in Italy and Genoa but again not everyone's cup of tea. I found them atmospheric.

Valencia was nice

Athens I loved so much and was expecting to hate it. Found the tube hard work with the Greek alphabet!

Düsseldorf and cologne are nice

Amsterdam is ok a bit big Paris same need to find a nice neighbourhood and stick with that.

Dublin I wondered where the rest of it was.

Budapest was ok but our hotel was miles away from the centre and it is huge. Found the area that was the old ghetto fascinating and would love to do more places like this.

Cannes is nice and villefranche is beautiful if you fancy cote d azure

Berlin really gave me bad vibes,
Think I've watched too many WW2 documentaries.

Loved Rome, not keen on Florence
Amsterdam was seedy and boring IMHO

Personally lived Geneva & Nice

loved: Tel Aviv, Marseille, Porto, Krakow, Milan
meh: New York, Paris, Zurich

Disappointing (no wish to return - ever) = New York
Want to return = Rome
Love, love, love (but biased as have also lived there) = Vienna

Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion but you can’t really appreciate Central Park in one or two visits. It’s amazing. There are so many different aspects to it.

Paris. Awful city. Run down, scruffy, polluted, litter, crowds and gangs of men loitering about. I almost got mugged under the Eiffel Tower and a I saw a woman get pick-pocketed on the metro/underground. Luckily they didn’t manage to take anything from her.

The local cafe owners are rude as fuck. They smirk and laugh at you when you attempt to speak French. I always make an effort to learn basic phrases, “please” “thank you” etc when traveling, and it’s always met with encouragement but not from the French.

Should have added my loves - Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Verona, Parma, Bologna, Galway, Monaco, Munich, Zurich.

Also did not like Nice at all.

'I love Naples in Italy and Genoa but again not everyone's cup of tea. I found them atmospheric.'

Same! They took about a half a day of getting used to, and then I loved them. Naples is like a much bigger version of Genoa

Everyone loves Lisbon but I hated it. Very dull, pretty uninspiring food apart from amazing custard tarts, hard to get around. We had lovely weather so that wasn't it

Venice - great I suppose if you like walking around soaking up the atmosphere, but not much to actually do, plus DH got seasick on our romantic dinner cruise

Milan - once you've seen the Duomo, there only appears to be shopping left

Bologna- probably not it's fault but it was ludicrously hot when we went mid September so couldn't do much sightseeing, plus we had lunch at a pretentious restaurant that didn't tell you the prices until the end

Sorrento- part industrial city with roads impossible to cross due to all the Vespas, part Benidorm style centre

I do actually like Italy, despite how this is looking .Rome is one of my favourite places, so much to see.

I agree. I bought a painting from a gallery in Venice, nothing expensive, just a few hundred Euros but I could tell the owner didnt want to be there, as he didnt talk to me once and just shoved the picture at me after wrapping it. No smiles, no small-talk. Only one cafe owner smiled and spoke to us all week. I think it would be better to put restrictions on visitors, especially the massive cruise ships, than end up so pissed off, you treat your customers badly.

I didn't like Rotterdam but it was a wet February.
Dublin - wouldn't go again.
Bruges lovely but definitely have different menus for the tourists.
Barcelona was very busy

Places I loved
Paris
Rome
Verona
Bordeaux
Florence
Amsterdam
Cairo but this was before the revolution and my db worked there so I had a driver.
Edinburgh is fab in summer
Cardiff is cool

Oh and Palma, Mallorca.

Oops, sent too soon. Meant I loved Palma.

Paris, for sure. Over-rated, expensive, dirty smelly,

I think any city has good bits and bad bits. You need to do your research and build in a bit of down time. Stay in the posh bits or the trendy bits rather than tourist central.

Barcelona is one of my favourite places. I've been 4 times. I love the Modernista architecture in the Exaimple district and parts of the old quarter but I give Las Ramblas and the beach a wide berth.

I didn't like Paris when I first went as I tried to tick everything off. Second time was great, stayed in the Latin Quarter a visited smaller galleries and museums and picnicked in parks.

Having said that I didn't much like Dublin, and found Venice a bit dead. It was as if nobody lived there, it was a museum.

I didn’t care for Florence (people seemed very stuck-up and generally an unpleasant vibe), or Venice particularly (beautiful but a bit dull and it absolutely stinks).