Best city to visit as a tourist

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Best city to visit as a tourist

London
10
32%
Paris
4
13%
Nice
1
3%
Rome
1
3%
Barcelona
5
16%
New York City
8
26%
Berlin
1
3%
Hong Kong
0
No votes
Tokyo
0
No votes
Rio de Janeiro
1
3%
 
Total votes: 31

The Modernist

Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby The Modernist » 08 Nov 2010, 18:05

Nolamike wrote:
Hepcat wrote:
nolamike wrote:...If you think this town looks like any American city, I'd like to see either (1) the parts of every other American city dominated by one-hundred-and-fifty year-old Caribbean-style homes and corner-stores, with brightly painted creole cottages, shotguns, and old Southern mansions....


I've visited New Orleans three times and i've seen and loved the brightly painted creole cottages. I've ranged as "far" as Audubon Park, City Park, Marigny, the Garden District, Algiers, Canal St., St. Charles St. and Magazine St. in my search for gators in their natural setting, all to no avail.

:(


Sounds like you started getting kinda close to some interesting spots - "A" for effort. :)

As for gators in the natural setting, you need to actually go to their natural setting - just east of town, to Bayou Sauvage, just south of town, to the Jean Lafitte Preserve, just west of town, out to the Maurepas Swamp, or just north of town, to one of the gator farms. You aren't gonna find 'em in the City, outside of the zoo (and the very rare drifter in bayou st. john).


Good thing too. You wouldn't really want to confront an alligator on your way to the shops in the morning would you?
BTW what are cookie cutter houses?

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby GoogaMooga » 08 Nov 2010, 18:18

Best city to live in for me would be London, I lived there for six years total. Best curry in Europe. Best bookshops. Comic shops. NFT. Gigs all year round. Exhibitions.
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby kath » 08 Nov 2010, 18:24

Nolamike wrote:As for gators in the natural setting, you need to actually go to their natural setting - just east of town, to Bayou Sauvage, just south of town, to the Jean Lafitte Preserve, just west of town, out to the Maurepas Swamp, or just north of town, to one of the gator farms. You aren't gonna find 'em in the City, outside of the zoo (and the very rare drifter in bayou st. john).


ya forgot about city hall.

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Nolamike » 08 Nov 2010, 18:28

Admiral G wrote:
Nolamike wrote:As for gators in the natural setting, you need to actually go to their natural setting - just east of town, to Bayou Sauvage, just south of town, to the Jean Lafitte Preserve, just west of town, out to the Maurepas Swamp, or just north of town, to one of the gator farms. You aren't gonna find 'em in the City, outside of the zoo (and the very rare drifter in bayou st. john).


Good thing too. You wouldn't really want to confront an alligator on your way to the shops in the morning would you?


:lol: Yeah, that would be a bit unpleasant.


Admiral G wrote:BTW what are cookie cutter houses?


"Cookie cutter" is a term used to describe large numbers of an item, where each individual unit looks like all of the other units - as with a cookie cutter being used on a large batch of dough.

With regard to housing, the term generally refers to a style of residential architecture that has its roots in the Levittown planned communities of the 1940s/early 1950s. Originally, the houses weren't that bad - essentially, they were small bungalow-type homes with a yard and a driveway for working-class families - your typical American suburban house. Over time, they grew larger and larger, and lost more and more craftsmanship/quality/character, and become less and less distinguishable over time, to the point now where there are huge residential neighborhoods around the country full of houses a decade old, all painted a shade of beige, all far too large for the number of people living in them, all looking almost exactly the same, most having the garage as the prominent feature on the front of the house, and many starting to fall apart (many were built in the interest of maximizing short term profits).

Picture something along the lines of several thousand of these things, over and over and over again:

Image
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Nolamike » 08 Nov 2010, 18:30

kath wrote:
Nolamike wrote:As for gators in the natural setting, you need to actually go to their natural setting - just east of town, to Bayou Sauvage, just south of town, to the Jean Lafitte Preserve, just west of town, out to the Maurepas Swamp, or just north of town, to one of the gator farms. You aren't gonna find 'em in the City, outside of the zoo (and the very rare drifter in bayou st. john).


ya forgot about city hall.


Nah, alligators are generally pretty docile, until you fuck with 'em. City Hall's populated with critters more along the lines of a bunch of rabid arthritic dogs with brain damage.
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Hepcat » 08 Nov 2010, 18:46

Nolamike wrote:
kath wrote:ya forgot about city hall.


Nah, alligators are generally pretty docile, until you fuck with 'em. City Hall's populated with critters more along the lines of a bunch of rabid arthritic dogs with brain damage.


:lol:

I remember my first trip to New Orleans back in 1983. I was a young fellow full of piss and vinegar (so unlike the staid laid back gentleman I am these days) at a time when there was no such thing as "You can't go there" for me. So I started walking along Bourbon Street, well past all the ho-hum bars and the tourist traps. The street quieted down there after a while - and I kept on walking. And then lo and behold a club all by itself that was just hopping and blasting music out onto the street. "Wow!" I thought. "Now this place is happening!" So I descended downstairs into the darkness where the music was booming. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, the realization that I had come across one of those places where I should not go dawned upon me. It was a gay club.

:o
Last edited by Hepcat on 08 Nov 2010, 20:32, edited 4 times in total.
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Nolamike
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Nolamike » 08 Nov 2010, 18:52

Hepcat wrote:
Nolamike wrote:
kath wrote:ya forgot about city hall.


Nah, alligators are generally pretty docile, until you fuck with 'em. City Hall's populated with critters more along the lines of a bunch of rabid arthritic dogs with brain damage.


:lol:

I remember my first trip to New Orleans back in 1983. I was a young fellow full of piss and vinegar at a time (so unlike the staid laid back gentleman I am these days) and there was no such thing as "You can't go there" for me. So I started walking along Bourbon Street, well past all the ho-hum bars and the tourist traps. The street quieted down there after a while - and i kept on walking. And then lo and behold a club all by itself that was just hopping and blasting music out onto the street. "Wow!" i thought. "Now this place is happening!" So I descended downstairs into the darkness where the music was just a-blasting. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, the realization that I had come across one of those places where I should not go dawned upon me. it was a gay club.

:o


:lol:

Likely "Oz," which is still around today, and is the granddaddy of gay clubs in New Orleans. A lot more have opened up nearby in the last couple decades. It's also across the street from the Clover Grill, the best late-night-and-you're-drunk/fucked-up dining spot in the world. Good burgers/fries/shakes, but with, like, 1/3 of the clientele after 1:00 a.m. being drag queens, and an all-disco/trashy europop/judy garland jukebox, all housed inside what looks to be a "nighhawks at the diner" style stereotypical 1940s/1950s american diner/coffee shop.
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby quix » 08 Nov 2010, 18:58

florence...

beautiful architecture, lovely food, great shops and markets, wonderful museums and art galleries... small enough to walk everywhere...

maybe not "the" best... but very high up on my list as at least one of the best...

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Penk! » 08 Nov 2010, 19:54

I have a friend from Florence; she told me the other day that the average length of a tourist's visit to the city is three hours. :lol:
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby yomptepi » 08 Nov 2010, 20:11

Quix wrote:florence...

beautiful architecture, lovely food, great shops and markets, wonderful museums and art galleries... small enough to walk everywhere...

maybe not "the" best... but very high up on my list as at least one of the best...



Certainly the most expensive place i have been. But Florence is just brilliant. I would love to spend a couple of months there, but I doubt I will ever be able to afford it... :( .

I voted for Barcelona. I just loved it, and I am looking forward to going back next spring.!!!!
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 08 Nov 2010, 20:18

penk wrote:Hard to believe I'm the first to choose London. It's an extraordinary place. I've read that its annual tourist count eclipses any other city in the world; it's one of those cities that has an almost tangible life of its own.
Surprised, maybe, to see Barcelona leading. I loved it my first time, as a teenager, liked it my second, at about 21, and hated it when I was there in the summer. Even though we were taken around by someone who lived there and knew the best places, the whole city still felt like one big tourist trap, Tío Tomás-ing for the French and the Yanks. Stunning buildings, but no soul left. Maybe it's different in winter when it's not as busy?


I like Barcelona, but you make some valid points. It is touristy in a way that Paris - defiantly itself despite everything - isn't.

I voted for Paris. I love it, every part of it, every time I go.


Edinburgh is pretty great, and I'll give a big shout out to Lisbon too.


Lisbon and Porto are incredible cities - both, in my opinion, beat any Spanish city in terms of beauty, character, and overall feel.



What is it about Berlin, by the way? It seems it's disregarded by everyone until they see it, seen as just a big German city, presumably, and then they see it and they're very impressed. It's probably the most liveable of the cities on the list - and very suitable for a certain type of tourist, but perhaps not ideal for everyone.

The Modernist

Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby The Modernist » 08 Nov 2010, 20:45

Nolamike wrote:

Picture something along the lines of several thousand of these things, over and over and over again:

Image


I can see that would get pretty monotonous. Nice house though, something like that would cost close to a million dollars over here.

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Fireplug » 08 Nov 2010, 20:47

I love Barcelona, obviously, but I agree it's become plagued by tourists. It's almost unrecognisable from when I first moved here. It doesn't ruin the place,, but it has spoiled some of the charm, especially in the centre.

I lived in Tuscany for a while and Florence was always great to visit. Rome was a tourist-blighted hell though. Beautiful, but awful too. I preferred Naples.

Nice is, er, nice if you have lots of money. Otherwise it's pretty ordinary.

My favourite city to visit is London. It's great to not have a language barrier (Cockney/Geordie communication problems aside...), there's loads to do, lots of history, great parks, great food and whatever you want, you can find.

I haven't been to any of the other places yet.

The Modernist

Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby The Modernist » 08 Nov 2010, 20:47

Quix wrote:florence...

beautiful architecture, lovely food, great shops and markets, wonderful museums and art galleries... small enough to walk everywhere...

maybe not "the" best... but very high up on my list as at least one of the best...


A bit too small for me.

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby meetthesonics » 08 Nov 2010, 20:49

I'd have to say Dallas. :lol:
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 08 Nov 2010, 20:50

Fired Plug wrote:Rome was a tourist-blighted hell though. Beautiful, but awful too. I preferred Naples.


Really? Naples is the worst city I've seen in Italy - Bologna, Parma, Genoa, Verona, even Milan beat it on several counts.

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby yomptepi » 08 Nov 2010, 20:50

Admiral G wrote:
Quix wrote:florence...

beautiful architecture, lovely food, great shops and markets, wonderful museums and art galleries... small enough to walk everywhere...

maybe not "the" best... but very high up on my list as at least one of the best...


A bit too small for me.



But there is so much to see, and it is all of such incredible quality. Every church is full of amazing fresco's and wonderful art pieces. I was there for four days and i didn't even begin see what I wanted to. I would need a week in the uffizi alone!!
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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby Fireplug » 08 Nov 2010, 20:58

Sir John Coan wrote:
Fired Plug wrote:Rome was a tourist-blighted hell though. Beautiful, but awful too. I preferred Naples.


Really? Naples is the worst city I've seen in Italy - Bologna, Parma, Genoa, Verona, even Milan beat it on several counts.


It was absolutely mental when I visited. The people were crazily friendly and it had a dirty but electrifying buzz about it. A lot of Italy's like a badly-curated museum catering to visitors but Naples seemed to me to march to the beat of its own drum and I liked that. I would hate to live there, but it had an ungentrified charm about it and the historical and scenery centres of Herculano/Pompeii and the Amalfi coast are right next door if you want to go and play tourist.

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby echolalia » 09 Nov 2010, 00:36

Sir John Coan wrote:
penk wrote:
Edinburgh is pretty great, and I'll give a big shout out to Lisbon too.


Lisbon and Porto are incredible cities - both, in my opinion, beat any Spanish city in terms of beauty, character, and overall feel.

Lisbon easily out-souls every city in Spain, I agree. I'd probably be happier living in it again than living just outside it, as I do now.

Naples, on first impressions, is a fucking dump. Then on second impressions it's a fucking dump too. I quite liked it though - it reminds me a lot of Portugal, as the entire Mezzogiorno does, with that same sunbeaten, pessimistic, corrupt, lovable vibe about it.

My favourite Italian city - and favourite city anywhere - is Rome.

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Re: Best city to visit as a tourist

Postby bobzilla77 » 09 Nov 2010, 01:08

Paris and New Orleans were breathtaking. NYC is great esp if you have someone to show you around. Rome was like nothing I've ever experienced, really want to go back.
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