My sister has traveled quite a bit. She said Edinburgh was one of the most beautiful cities she has ever seen.

Thanks, my bucket list is long. Just getting started.

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No city is more beautiful and charming as Paris.

I really like the idea of this thread and so the true Bravo has to be all yours!

Good job Tim

By the way if it wasn't for all the politics and horrible stalinistic security aparatus involved, I'd even love to visit Pyong Yang (for all the strange gigantomanic communist architecture) , but given the truely weired expierences some of our customers had in this country (e.g locked away in their hotel rooms at 8 pm., after one tour member took a walk and been caught by security gorrilas immediatley...), this has to wait until the regime is gone and other more interesting cities had been visited by me.

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

Beijing is great too:








Don't have my pics on disc from there, but I borrowed a few from the web.

The thing about Beijing is as urban as it gets, there are lottsa wonderful tranquil little gardens everywhere you go.

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And my beloved adopted home for 20 years, Nashville -- The Athens of the South with her Greek revival architecture, the Parthenon, and 40 foot Athena, by Alan LaQuire. Again borrowed pics as mine are not on disc.

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Had the same feeling during my visits of Japan (Osaka/Tokyo) as well and given how hugh + densely populated these cities are, it's truelly surprising how almost village like some neighbourhoods seem to be and that even in the most hectic areas, some peaceful and quite places exist.

It's probably due to the culture and even more important to "our" status as gaijins ( in the Japanese case), which makes these Asian super cities so easy and peacful to visit, especially when one compares them to Indian/African/Arab or even South European/South American cities.

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

That's a great description, 'village like'...it truly is. When you are off the main thoroughfares, it feels very small..open air markets, those guys getting haircuts out on the sidewalk, one hospital we went to with the days laundry hanging on the line.....

2000 years of Confucianism - and they are so polite and especially so to older folks like me.

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And Ottawa, Canada....like visiting 3 countries in one city....England, France, and China. One minute they speak English, the next mile down the street it's French, and yet an other little jaunt and it's Chinese!





And then you go a little ways more out of town, and the Gatineau River is fantastic!



The bottom pic is mine, and one day I plan to paint it sans boat.

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Istanbul.

Or Constantinople, which is not, as I once thought, a Western affectation but more like just a Turkish mispronounciation of the name and/or an abbreviation meaning literallly "this city here" the idea being that, to the Turks, there was no other like it.

Napoleon once said it was the only real choice if ever the world needed a Capital.

There's even a really pretty song written about it's taking in 1453. Really strange, like Enya singing the Arabian Nights.

Attached Images

 

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

Your sister seems to have a good sense of style and taste

Anyway as much as I like Edinburgh myself, it's not really an important mega city and so it's a bit easier for it to impress its visitors in my opinion.

By the way maybe I'm an odd traveler, but I liked the "proletarian" charm of Glasgow as well. The place is no real beauty, but somehow it has character (probably due to the Scotts) and at least I felt like it's being much more natural and real than the mega Moloch also known as London.

Just my personal opinion, so hope the London lovers will forgive me.

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

Oh wow! I've got to choose my trip for next spring...Istanbul, Peru, or Burgundy and Provence....Damn! Which will it be? You aren't helping one bit!

I always kind of liked this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vankaSlfSr0

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Given the value for money invested factor, Istanbul and Turkey probably beats Peru and hell for sure France.

Just make sure not to book via an odd tour operator as otherwise the trip could end up being an endless stream of selling promotions and damn those Turks are really good at it

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes

If they are half as good as the Egyptians, that's saying something! Don't know what my choice will be. One group I go with has the Peru and Turkey trips and Vanderbilt Travel has the Burgundy and Provence thing. It would be a hell of a note if I could make all three! Not holding my breath though!

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I could imagine a trip with Air France (or one of their partner airlines) from the US to Paris, with a short stopover there ( time to visit Burgundy/Provence individually) and then onwards to Istanbul/ Turkey, all for a reasonable price.

Getting Peru into this trip for sure would be a more expansive adventure, but hell it would be a damn nice/exotic trip; first seeing relicts of the Inca culture+ South American way of life, then Old Europe + fantastic cousine and at the end a mix+ relicts including 4000 years of European/Asian history.

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"Homo Homini Lupus"
Thomas Hobbes