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I was thinking this would be a hard thread to respont in because if it doesn't have redeeming qualities, I don't visit. Milan was the worst city I drove past. Even driving on the autostrada past Milan the air pollution was so bad ai had to cover my nose with a wet washrag.
I've been to Caracas and it wasn't too bad. I kind of liked the favelas as we drove up to Colonia Tovar.
But you all have reminded me of Gatlinburg. Well IMO Gatlinburg has redeeming qualities because people get out and walk, there are little plazas, the shops face the street and not a sea of parking. Pigeon Forge on the other hand..... One giant strip mall full of outlets and every garish entertainment venue. Traffic runs from bad to horrendus to standstill.
Then there is its sister city Myrtle Beach. I drove through there.... once.
I know this post is old but my gosh, I have to second this when it comes to Pigeon Forge and that area.
My husband and I had already booked and paid for a hotel room for two or three nights. After one night, we just reneged on the money and got the hellouttadodge. I couldn't take another minute of Pigeon Forge! We drove on over to North Carolina and Cade's Cove and Cherokee. Whew, much better.
Amazing, we might have bumped into each other! I won a contest in 1991 with the prize being two business class Lufthansa tickets to go from Houston to anywhere I wanted to in Germany. Being unexpected, I hadn't saved any money for a European vacation of 2 weeks. However, I had just worked with an east German from Leipzig on a project in the Far East and we really hit it off as friends. He invited me to visit him in the now united Germany so I took him up on it. They had a really interesting culture in East Germany under communism where nobody but the Communist Party big wigs had much money for vacations, especially with hard currency useful outside the GDR. Instead they were the original AirBnB'ers without the internet! Loose networks of friends, coworkers, and even lose acquaintances in this environment would vouch for each other and provide their homes for the others in the network to spend overnights in a spare bedroom/sofa and vice-versa in different cities so at least they could have vacations to other GDR locales. My friend Ralf arranged not only to stay in his beloved Leipzig but also in East Berlin and Dresden. We had a WONDERFUL time! People were super-friendly and we were "rock stars" being the first or one of the first Americans to visit many of the attractions. Among the highlights:
1) There was a drag race put on at a track outside of Berlin by the Russian commandant of an (formerly) Soviet Air Base where the airmen hadn't been paid in months and a West German auto events promoter. They raced a MIG fighter jet on a quarter mile strip against a funny car! Raised a couple of hundred thousand Marks that was welcomed by the impoverished troops.
2) Was invited into the secret multi-chambered night club network below the city-center platz in Leipzig through a secret cellar door. They had themes: punk rock, heavy metal, 20-30s cabaret, etc in these dungeon-like storage rooms below the brick plaza. The rooms were built back in late middle ages to store grain and weapons to survive sieges and attacks from neighboring German city-states and the dreaded Slavs.
3) Stumbled upon a beautiful castle complex near Dresden on the Elbe R. called KoenigStein. It was built into the top of a natural sandstone tower or butte with an elevator going up the core. The elevator operator instructed everybody to do something in German. We didn't follow instructions and he wanted to know why. We told him we were American and didn't understand German. The very old guy got all excited and stopped the elevator and went down to an intermediate level. He ran out and came back with a dusty brochure in English for us to read about the castle's features and history. He said he was so thrilled because he never thought he'd see any American or British visitors before he died and he had kept that pile of English brochures printed in the 1930's hoping he was wrong and we would return - probably indicating that the Communists had been pushed out.
Yes, that mixture of old school Communism (and Iron Curtain remnants) and the exhilaration of new found freedom was very interesting! We moved to Germany right as the Berlin Wall was going down and lived there for the next three years. Though we traveled extensively while we lived there, we never made it to Paris or London - because we were always going East into the former Eastern Bloc countries!
I have very fond memories of stopping one night as we drove thru what was then called Czechoslovakia, and we were the first Americans to stop in this little pub since 1945! The owner came running out with little American and Czech flags and insisted on giving us free beer - even though it was only about .35 a glass to start with! We didn't speak good German, and no Czech, and he didn't speak good German, and no English, but between hand gestures and very broken German, we thoroughly enjoyed our evening with that gentleman!
My son in law recently did a tour there. I didn't even know that was a country till then, and then I had a hard time looking it up because I didn't realize it started with a D! It sounded like "your bootie" to me.
My husband had to go work for awhile in Equatorial Guinea. I also didn't realize that was a country till he got orders for there. Wow, he hated it.
I don't remember Brussels being a dump... It's not Oslo of course but it's okay, the city is old and dense, and under the grey rainy sky gritty for sure but it's normal .. The city isn't St Petersburg nor Granada, but worth the visit IMO . Beers, waffles and chocolate are worth the weekend there
If anyone finds themselves in Brussels, which IS a dense, gray city for the most part, I really recommend taking a short trip to Ghent. WOW, it's a beautiful city and not that far away.
And they have plenty of beer, waffles and chocolates too!
I remember standing there and feeling very oppressed. The greyness, the bland architecture, just the lack of colour and life. It killed any desire for me to venture any further.
It reminds me of a story a former east Berliner told me. The metro, was cut off so there was an underground wall separating east and west Berlin. He said he often wondered what was on the other side of that metro stop. When reunification happened, he got his answer. He laughed when he said " Shopping! ".
I don't remember Brussels being a dump... It's not Oslo of course but it's okay, the city is old and dense, and under the grey rainy sky gritty for sure but it's normal .. The city isn't St Petersburg nor Granada, but worth the visit IMO . Beers, waffles and chocolate are worth the weekend there
Brussels is as neglected and dirtier than Bogota without the vibrancy, great music/arts scene, mountain hikes of the latter. I second Ghent or Antwerp as better options in Belgium. Liège was another disappointment, Bruges I didn't make it to because lo and behold there was a strike AGAIN! It feels like every time I go there is some logistical issue one way or another. You can tell I'm not a fan.
The city I was most surprised with was Poznan, ok nothing spectacular but a nice little city in often overlooked Poland.
Oakland... lol. When I travel, I really just go to Tokyo these days. My wanderlust kinda died after I started comparing everything to Tokyo and NYC. My 'newest' location was London, and the entire experience was very meh for me, so I'm realizing what I actually want and am focusing on that.
Oakland was really depressing to me. I had too high of hopes. Thankfully it was only a layover.
If anyone finds themselves in Brussels, which IS a dense, gray city for the most part, I really recommend taking a short trip to Ghent. WOW, it's a beautiful city and not that far away.
And they have plenty of beer, waffles and chocolates too!
Middle-aged housewives taking a break with their shopping bags to have a bottle of Stella in a noisy giant beer hall. What's not to like about Brussels? In an era, 1960s, when most countries still banned women from pubs.
Bar Harbor Maine. Went in the summer about 25 years ago and it was a terrible tourist trap. Prices were triple or more on everything due to the season. No fast food allowed within about 30 miles from Bar Harbor town so we paid $20 each for microwave fish fillet and fries on a styrofoam plate and a soda at a food stand with picnic benches at the edge of the parking lot. Paid $20 each for a small piece of quiche and a roll and lemonade at the Park Service dining room at the top of Cadillac Mountain. Even the federal govt. was in on the scam. One large place a bit out of town advertised a lobster thermador dinner for about $25 each, and the lobster looked like a lobster fetus or maybe one large shrimp covered with sauce. The people were rude and unfriendly, whether they were natives or just there working for the season. The worst was when we went out on the boat to see whales (there weren't any) and the boat took us to see the seals on a rock island. The boat stopped about 100 yards away and then offered to rent us binoculars at $5 each for a couple of minutes to actually see the seals. Bar Harbor was right out of a Stephen King novel to me. I know others have gone and loved the place but it was the worst vacation we ever had. The brightest point of the whole trip was when we were going home and about 35 miles out of Bar Harbor we spotted a Burger King and finally got a decent meal. Been all over New Hampshire, and New York State and Pennsylvania, vacationed in North Conway and Manchester and Lake Placid and New Hope and Pennsylvania Dutch country many times. Visited LA , San Diego, SF, Reno, Flagstaff, Guadlajara, Mexico and Montreal, Canada. Never experienced anything like Bar Harbor.
Yes, that mixture of old school Communism (and Iron Curtain remnants) and the exhilaration of new found freedom was very interesting! We moved to Germany right as the Berlin Wall was going down and lived there for the next three years. Though we traveled extensively while we lived there, we never made it to Paris or London - because we were always going East into the former Eastern Bloc countries!
I have very fond memories of stopping one night as we drove thru what was then called Czechoslovakia, and we were the first Americans to stop in this little pub since 1945! The owner came running out with little American and Czech flags and insisted on giving us free beer - even though it was only about .35 a glass to start with! We didn't speak good German, and no Czech, and he didn't speak good German, and no English, but between hand gestures and very broken German, we thoroughly enjoyed our evening with that gentleman!
That is truly the correct word - exhilarating - for that time 1990-91 in East Germany and many of the other countries in eastern Europe sheading the dark yoke of Soviet occupation. We also went into Czechoslovakia. What a classy bargain. A beautiful, historic, first world country (just left 2nd communist world) with prices like Mexico - at least at that time. We stopped at a beautiful hotel in Jihlava about half way between Prague and Vienna and paid about 15 USD for a 4 star room, dinner with the best local dark beer I've ever had in my life to this day for about 10 for two people, and they had a local glass blowing industry so we bought 5 or 6 beautiful colored figurines for about $5 each that rivaled Swarovsky Crystal. Two bad I was only in my early 30s, would have been a great place to retire on a small pension. I hear it's a bit more expensive now!
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. Beers, waffles and chocolate are worth the weekend there 
