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Istanbul fits the intriguing tag I think. As it straddles two continents and has been a trading exchange point and a melting pot of so many cultures and religions for centuries, it definitely has an aura unlike many other places in the world.
It's a vibrant and exciting place, familiar and yet utterly foreign. I love it.
Does this include cities one has not visited? I would guess very few have been to all of the cities in the poll. I have been to Kiev, Tehran and London. Because of globalism large cities look more and more similar.
Kiev is probably the city I found the most intriguing. The busy Independence Square Maidan Nezalezhnosti and the beautiful main street Khreschatyk are popular meeting spots in Kiev.
I see London as a cesspit (which is unfortunately the only city most foreign visitors ever get to see) whereas the rest of England is overall nicer although I would not say any of the larger cities are particularly interesting to visit. Yob culture is a nowadays a major problem everywhere in England. Bath and Oxford relatively nice. So is the English countryside. It is quite boring though compared to the more varied in Norway or the Alps in central Europe. England has done well with preserving the old. It does not do as well with things new.
Tehran (especially the northern part) could be a city in North America with its modern high-rise building and impersonal apartment blocks. Old Tehran used to have large houses with big gardens and a pond. Some of that still remains and can be found if one knows where to look.
I'm curious to know what you have experienced in Vienna (Austria) and Berlin (Germany). I'm going to visit the two cities next month.
Actually, internat, I've only visited London and Paris of the above. I live near Washington, D.C. The "intrigue" and "mystery" feel isn't actually about visiting, its the images those places evoke. Personally I watch a lot of spy films and read a lot of suspense/thriller novels.
Berlin has always been on the front lines of the Cold War with the city divided, always been the perfect scene for a movie like the Bourne Supremacy for example. Also you should definitely see "Spy Game" which is set partially in Berlin in the 80s. Vienna was a crossroads between East and West during the Cold War also. The intriguing feel of Casablanca and Tangier come from the movies too.
Beijing, Tehran, Baghdad, Beirut, etc are more recent additions with the war against Islamic fundamentalism. Tijuana, Mexico is the nexus of several multinational drug cartels and gangs as well as prostitution rings and illegal aliens the archtypal seedy border town. Peshawar, Pakistan is near the border with Afghanistan and the CIA and MI6 and Israeli Mossad all have a heavy presence there. As do the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and I would assume agents from Iran, Syria and other such nations.
I voted Beirut. I always found it intriguing based on both books and movies - long before 9/11. As a Marine, I first became interested in the city because of the history that Marines had there. It was the first place that Islamic extremists attacked the United States (Marine barracks bombing and two embassy bombings) - almost 20 years before 9/11. It led me to read books such as From Beirut to Jerusalem. It's also mentioned in a lot of spy novels. Recently it has shown up in spy movies such as Spy Games and Syriana.
I was so intrigued by the place that I spent a year in Lebanon. It is even more intriguing now that I have lived there and seen what the country is really like. So many different religions, cultures, languages, and histories all mixed together in a way that can explode at any minute.
New Orleans, for the mix of people, and the voodou/voodoo/vieuxdieux traditions. I think the climate of the area adds to the intrigue, all steamy and mysterious. To me, it was very evocative of keeping secrets, and things not always being how they appear.
Sort of like Venice...*cue mysterious music* You just get the sense that 'things happen here'.
I don't think there's anything particularly intriguing or mysterious about New Orleans. It just has a unique culture. If anything, I see it as a charming Southern city with a lot of style and grace and which has a nice diverse culture. Voodoo originated in Haiti.
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