I'm thinking about flying into London, and flying back home out of Krakow, and picking two other cities to see in the meantime.

I'd prefer to stay in the green on this map:

Ur welcome

lol

Why would you pick Vienna over Prague, Munich, or Budapest?

Athens and Pompeii

No interest in Germany. The other 3 seem charming from the photos I’ve seen and Vienna seems to be the most First World out of the 3. I’ve never been to Europe before so I’m scared of going to the traditional Eastern part first.

i just watched grand Budapest hotel movie so ill pick that

I've been to Italy, Poland, and Denmark, and tbh there isn't much difference between Denmark and Poland in terms of first world factor. I was in Poland earlier this year and their public transportation system is the cleanest I've seen anywhere, and it's considered Eastern Europe. I've never been to Prague or Budapest, so I don't know how they compare. I've read good things about both though, along with Vienna. Sad to see the black eye of post-communism persisting though.

Italy is sort of its own thing, not really like the other two, really nice, but different.

I've been to Pompeii, but Greece looks really cool. Have you been there? Italy worries me a little bit with their covid restrictions. They dropped mask mandates only to bring them back yesterday on public transpiration. I don't really want to go anywhere I'd have to wear a mask.
I'll have to check this out lol

Thanks for sharing your experience. I know Eastern Europe is probably scarier in my head than it actually is, but I can’t shake off the jitters, particularly with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, and all those far Eastern ones.

Russia

Berlin and Paris are the best I've seen

Prague for sure. Maybe a toss between Vienna and Rome. Vienna is beautiful and Rome is Rome.

UK.

Lifestyle there seems cozy, kinda like a white version of Japan.

Go to Athens and Rome for the history and culture. Those are the two most important cities for Western civilization by far.

What site are you using that image you posted? It looks useful.

Maybe some day, but not this trip.I've seen a lot of people suggest Prague just surfing the web. I'm strongly considering it.

Yeah I've never been to the UK, and it looks like the cheapest one way flights to Europe are to London, so I'm sort of set on starting there. I forgot to add Edinburgh/Glasgow to the poll, but I'm limited to 10 options. Also Dublin, not the UK, but that general area.

Edit: Japan was actually my top choice for anywhere in the world, but they haven't eased enough on their restrictions yet.

I've been to Rome, but I'm going with someone who hasn't so we might go. Athens looks cool, but I've also read the city is kinda a mess. Idk how accurate that is.

This is the website:
https://apply.joinsherpa.com/map?aff...language=en-US

If you enjoy partying Lagos in Portugal was the GOAT....not sure how it is now.

Austria



Munich

Amsterdam.

No Europe crew
Test levels soaring

No Barcelona, no care.

Aren't you an American? If you think the USA is first world Western European cities will look zeroth world to you.

Lol at Athens in the summer. Hello scorched earth.

I’m in Europe. You haven’t said what you are looking for?

Vienna is great for one day and is expensive. Better in the winter imo.

I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago and masks are still compulsory on public transport.

Come to vienna or belgrade ill be your guide

Just two? Are you insane?

If I had to pick only one, I am tempted (although not absolutely sure) to say Prague, because it is big enough and grand enough to be truly satisfying in and of itself, and it also strikes me as being relatively unique/distinctive, AND it "stands for something" and has played a major (outsized, even) balancing role in European history, culture, and politics. Not going to write a treatise on that right now.

If I had to pick another one, I would say "some small city in Romania". I am not so "sold" on Bucharest, at least not in comparison to Budapest or Belgrade - other "primate" cities within a nation that would have great historical significance, plus my understanding is that Bucharest is not as well preserved and is more problematic (which can, depending upon how you think about it, offer opportunity/reason TO visit it). (This might be different story if we were talking about a better-preserved Bucharest, pre-war, because it was referred to for a while as "The Paris of the East", which I can kind of believe, to an extent.) Plus, I am generally speaking not as "big" on truly "alpha/primate" cities to visit, which is why if I were to pick only two in all of what was CzechoSlovakia between WWI and the fall of the Iron Curtain, in addition to Prague, I would not say Bratislava or even Brno - I would probably say Kosice, because it would round out the "Slovakia" in CzechoSlovakia, because it is better-preserved than Bratislava, (which may have more "going on in it" as is it substantially bigger than Kosice and is the capital), and also because Eastern Slovakia is very "cross-roads" like, historically, between being Slovakian or Polish or Ukrainian or Hungarian. Very honorable mentions within CzechoSlovakian regions would have to go to the Moravian capitals of Brno and Olomouc.

But back to Romania. Romania doesn't have any city that is very clearly the #2 city in Romania. I could give the edge to Iasi, and I am giving the edge to Iasi, but it is just an edge - not an overwhelming victory. First off, I would not quite give it to any city in Transylvania because Transylvania is not quite as Romanian as Moldavia or Wallachia - it hasn't been part of Romania or as culturally Romanian as long as the other 2 main historical regions of Romania - Wallachia and Moldavia. This is kind of a heartbreaking decision in terms of my wanting to visit such a beautiful town as the former capitals Cluj/Kolosvar or Sibiu (or the neglected Alba Iulia) or the non-capitals of Brasov (I'd really want to go there to see "Biserica Neagra", for starters, to take a side-trip to Castle Bran, and to ski) or Oradea, or the much smaller but super-stunning Sighisoara. As far as Wallachia is concerned, because Bucharest has been its capital for as long as it has, no other town/city there has ended up developing, to current day, well enough to really be such a cultural/tourist magnet. Although there are several towns/cities in Wallachia that are bigger and have more to do than Targoviste, I think that Targoviste would probably be my #2 IN WALLACHIA because it was the capital for more than a second or two, and therefore has history, and it is big enough to at least be good for a long weekend, at the very least.

So, I turn my attention to Moldavia. Moldavia doesn't have quite the # of large towns or small cities as either Wallachia or Transylvania. So, there are fewer that stand out, making my narrowing-down process easier. I was thinking that, really, there were only 2 candidates - Suceava and Iasi - but now that I think about it, Galati should also make a short list, as it is a long-standing port city. But it is not the capital that either Suceava or Iasi were. Iasi comes before Suceava, but Suceava was the capital of Moldavia for more than a century-and-a-half, and its size (too big to be a town, too small to be a city, and has big such big enough for long enough) and understated historical significance make it really, really tempting. A former acquaintance of mine, who was Jewish, got the sort of special assignment to go there to study the history, and when he intimated this to me, I was pretty jealous, actually. But on to Iasi. Iasi is the only city in Romania, other than Bucharest, that has ever been capital of a united, modern Romania, and it has actually been such on more than one occasion! In addition to that, it was the capital of Moldavia for nearly 300 years, has a Royal Botanical Garden, has the largest Romanian Orthodox Church in the world, has the oldest Romanian university in it, and has a number of other cultural repositories that would interest any Romania-phile for long enough to warrant a rather extended stay. It might not have *quite* the fairy-tale picturesque charm as Cluj/Kolosvar or Sibiu, but its overall importance and cultural attractions should override that concern. In summary, okay, perhaps I should amend what I said earlier. It is maybe not the absolute overwhelming #2 in Romania after, say, maybe Cluj/Kolosvar, and to some extent that may be because Transylvania is less historically Romanian than Moldavia - it was more multicultural, with Romanians, Saxons, Hungarians, and Szekely (which I generally conceive of as Hungarian, although they have their own distinct history and are numerous enough to potentially be thought of as their own nation). And to quickly subordinate Moldavia in this way, Wallachia has been even more thoroughly Romanian than Moldavia has been, in terms of ethno-linguistic composition, for longer. But Bucharest is its capital, and as I said before, this makes any other town in Wallachia irrelevant in terms of picking a #2 in Romania for reasons I've already mentioned. So, we are clearly back to Iasi.

So, for Romania at least, Iasi it is.

So, in summary, I would say Prague and Iasi, although there are so many others that making such a decision would be nearly heartbreaking. Because of my burgeoning interest in Yugoslavia, I would have to say most definitely Belgrade as it has been the "primate" city for non-Romanian South Slavs for so long and, whatever its faults, surely has to be largely forgiven and felt empathy for because it has been over-run so many times (being in a "fatally strategic" position), certainly has a lot to offer, and in recent years has become quite the party city (although I'm a little old to really get all that much enjoyment out of any "party city"). And for the purposes of how I construct Europe, I mean strictly continental Europe, not including any part of the former USSR, because that really turns it into Eurasia.

So, for me, it is Prague, Iasi, and sneaking in Belgrade as #3. And yes, this is even ahead of Rome, Vienna, Paris, Marseilles, Berlin, Munich, Krakow, Barcelona, Cordoba, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Athens, and so many other very worthy places.

scotland and italy seem interesting, culturally.

I'd say those, somewhere in the baltics/helsinki, somewhere nice eastern like Prague, or maybe Berlin.

If you made me decide, I'd probably pick an italian city and prague.

Istanbul and Lisbon are both on my bucket list of cities to go to. I'd also want to visit Spain and hit up Madrid and Barcelona as well.

Stoke and Napoli.

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That sig and profile picture. Biden that you?