My favourite cities which I could totally imagine myself living in (in no particular order):
*London (Hey, I'm English, what can you expect?
)
*Bucharest (When you get past the god-awful smell particularly in the summer and the stray dogs, this is a really vibrant city)
*Belgrade (Again, a really vibrant city with pretty much everything I'd need)
*Kyiv (Not so vibrant, but still has everything I need. Also, I get the impression that this city is bigger, I felt I had more I'd be able to do on any given day)
Honorable mentions to:
*Tbilisi (I really, really, really love this city and everything about it. The only downside is that, being in the Caucasus, getting to/from there can be a pain in the backside - if I needed to scoot back to Britain for any reason it'd probably cost an arm and a leg!)
*Berlin (Big and busy and happening, and really cheap for a Western European city, too! Plenty to see and do; but I didn't feel quite the connection I did with the other cities)
*Budapest (Not much to say which hasn't already been said. Some lovely cafés though!)
Favourite cities to visit:
(Most of these fall just short of being somewhere I'd like to live due to size and transport infrastructure)
*Banja Luka (One Hell of a night out there I had, let me tell you that! Also, the Bosnian Serbs were some of the most naturally friendly people I've ever met - and this is from within a region pretty notorious for the friendly nature of its people! However, transport links are somewhat limited!)
*Zagreb (Plenty of good bars, some great surrounding countryside, and an absolutely stunning old town!)
*Chisinau (I find this city is amazingly aesthetically pleasing despite the fact that for all intents and purposes it really probably shouldn't be. The architecture seems typically crudely Soviet, and most buildings are the same drab white hue. However, the streets are wide and near universally lined with greenery, which perhaps adds the perfect level of contrast. Biggest downsides are that you will inevitably run out of stuff to do and until you know where you're going, finding a decent bar can be a slight pain
Overall, a really nice place and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone)
*Yerevan (A lot like Tbilisi to be honest except even more remote. Caucasians are all generally a pretty cool bunch!)
*Odesa (To be honest, I probably could live here for an extended time. Transport is a bit awkward, and I'm not so sure what it's like outside of the tourist season. Absolute blast when I went there though!)
Other places I've liked, some with commentary, some without:
*Stepanakert and Shushi in NKR (As much as I liked them, I didn't get to spend long enough in either to form too much of an opinion. The people there were mindblowingly excited to meet me though)
*Batumi
*Constanta (Seemed like a great place, but only stayed there the one night)
*Bratislava
*Bristol
*Exeter
*Barcelona
EDIT: *Tiraspol, how could I forget?! Really nice place, was there on Transnistrian independence day. Technically only stayed there the one night though I hadn't even planned on doing that, and was subsequently fined upon leaving because I hadn't registered with the police. That'll learn me, I guess
And to round it off, cities in Europe I've been that I was rather unimpressed with:
*Poti. Dear Christ, that place was a
<*expletive deleted*> hole!
*Paris. Because I'm English
*Cologne. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice, clean, pretty city. The people were nice. No problems so to speak of. It just seemed boring as heck there.
*Portsmouth
*Southampton
*Bournemouth (not technically a city but I don't care)
*Birmingham
Paris is dirty and dodgy I'm not sure what's meant to be so romantic about it.
Wholeheartedly agreed. Almost everything everyone said about it turned out to be the opposite:
Everyone said it was a beautiful city. However, I found it ugly and cluttered and dirty and drab. The couple of places they had that were nice (the Louvre) stuck out like a saw thumb but on the whole there was nothing spectacular about the city; I'd say its beauty was on par with London - a city not particularly noted for its beauty.
On the plus side, everyone said the people were arrogant arsehole who would turn their noses up at you especially if you spoke to them in English (the only language I can speak), and would go so far as to pretend not to know it when they obviously do just to drive this point home. I actually found the Parisians quite accommodating, always willing to at least try and engage in English, and of those who I tried talking to who couldn't speak English/couldn't speak it very well, every single one of them tried getting someone else to help translate for me.
Expensive as all Hell though. Everyone was right about that.
Budapest (got back from there today) actually strikes me as quite similar, including with the dirtiness and dodginess, but without being a giant venus touristtrap, with better prices, and a bit of an Eastern European charm.
I liked Budapest the times I've been there. Coming from the Balkans though the poverty really does hit you - people in broad daylight on a busy-ish street fishing in bins for clothes just doesn't seem right. Other than that, it has the feel of quite a clean city, 'specially outside of the old ruins (which I admit I didn't spend too much time outside
).
Gotta disagree that it isn't full of tourists too. Literally every second person there seemed to be a tourist. I noticed this both when I went towards the end of September and again a couple of weeks back.
One of my other favourites has to be
Ljubljana. It is small and doesn't have the energy of a giant metropolis but it is very pleasant. I stayed just off Prešeren Square and walked around this area most of the little time we spent there. This part of the city has no roads and stood just under a wooded hill (where the castle stands) so for the first time in a city, i could inhale deeply without coughing. The cityscape was very beautiful, many tall townhouses of bright colours all in good condition. Plenty of little bars and resteraunts around to waste time in. It is the perfect place to bring a woman.
Try Zagreb and Bratislava too if you like small picturesque cities
I have a simpler answer: 50000 people.
That would make my town (Weymouth) a city. It is clearly not a city. In fact, I'd not even say it was a large town.
The Hbf here doesn't have a proper supermarket (the latest shop closure there is Burger King, I think, at about 11pm).
Don't they even have any kebab houses that stay open to near-enough when the supermarkets open?
Surely they do?
Surely?
I'd like to visit Yerevan, Bat'umi, T'bilisi, and Istanbul, especially Istanbul. Not sure how European the first three are, though.
The first 3 I can personally vouch for. Loved 'em to bits!
Why on God's green Earth would you like to go to Caucasus when you haven't seen most of the bigger European cities properly btw? They look nice on the pictures, but I wouldn't think of them the first place you go when you visit Europe.
Stunning scenery. Wonderful people. AM-A-ZING food, especially in Georgia.
Reasonably cheap, though with a staggering variation (in Tbilisi, I found variations in bars of 2 Lari to 7 Lari for .5 liters of beer - that's between just under €1 and about €3.50!). Also, the music and general atmosphere is nice, and the mix between European and Middle Eastern seems just right. 10/10, would go there again, and hopefully will be going there again towards the end of the year
Obviously I'd steer clear of Nagorno-Karabakh
You're really missing out there! Anywhere in the North Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan as you said) I'd probably agree. South Ossetia most definitely so, too. Abkhazia, not so much. But NKR was amazing when I went. Transnistria was also pretty OK, back in continental Europe.