Looking to move - France or Germany or ...? (safest, train, pay)

[Eden Morlevent]

Dunkerque is nice, I like Colmar and Honfleur too.

What do you think is ugly in Dunkerque ? Just curious.

[jjfk35]

Colmar and Honfleur are nice yes.

Dunkerque has a modern, industrious buildings and the sky is often grey. Unless it's the carnival, I don't think many tourists enjoy this town.

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by jjfk35

Let's go NOLA101

Nice cities : Göttingen, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Düsseldorf, Bonn, Münster, Lübeck, Nüremberg, Heidelberg, Dresden, Freiburg, Augsburg, Erfurt, Iena, Frankfurt, Munchen + countless charming villages

Not very beautiful but ok : Hannover, Kassel, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Köln, Aachen, Karslruhe, Hambourg, Berlin

Ugly ones : Braunschweig, Dortmund, Duisburg (most of the Ruhr actually), Ludwigshafen/Mannheim, Chemnitz

I guess beauty is subjective. I don't see what's so beautiful about the "nice cities" list; they were pretty much all bombed and rebuilt after the war, just like "ok" and "ugly" list. The only nice cities on your list are small cities that weren't bombed. Places like Heidelberg and Freiburg.

And you think Frankfurt is beautiful? Really? Dresden and Erfurt are horrible once you get outside the city center, and look like Warsaw. Stupid commies.

Maybe a Munich had a nicer rebuilding than a Mannheim, but I don't think Munich can be compared to a typical French city. Even Munich is overwhelmingly 1950's/1960's structures, especially when you get outside the city center reconstructions. In contrast, somewhere like Lyon or Bordeaux or Marseille or Toulouse is MUCH more pretty. I think the ugliest major French city (Lille?) is probably more beautiful than the prettiest major German city (Munich? Nüremberg?).

[Eden Morlevent]

Lille is nice too... or are my tastes so bad ?

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by DJ-

Lille is nice too... or are my tastes so bad ?

To me Lille feels depressed compared to other French cities. Also there seemed to be lots of ugly modern structures.

But maybe I didn't get a good feel for the city; I was there only once.

[jjfk35]

I found Frankfurt stunning ! Probably because it is quite unique in Europe, I guess american tourists who are more used to see skyscrapers would not spend vacation there.

I meant only city center, I don't know how is the rest of the cities but I think it's the same here.

Lille has 200 000 inhabitants, it's very few for the 8th biggest city in France, but there are A LOT of little ugly cities around (+/- 60, Im not joking!)... So you have a bigger Lille with 1M inhabitants. The inner Lille is fine, but the rest is not. Same thing with Lyon, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse...

Köln has 1M inhabitants too...but just on its own, without suburb. No surprise if the city is not pretty everywhere.

Edit : well...among all the 60 communes surounding Lille, some of them are not bad.

[Eden Morlevent]

I like gloomy cities in fact. Sunny Nice, Marseille, Toulon, Toulouse and all are too much for me. The sun is blinding my poor eyes.

My favorite city is still Grenoble I think.

[jjfk35]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

In contrast, somewhere like Lyon or Bordeaux or Marseille or Toulouse is MUCH more pretty. .

Marseilles ?? I guess it's a long time you havn't been there !

I just googled Marseille, outside the city cente it looks like Napoli's bad districts :

[Eden Morlevent]

Marseille suck big time.
Look like a sunnier, poorer, darker, dirtier Paris.

[jjfk35]

If I had to chose a big town with an overall good agglo, I would pick Bordeaux or Nantes