| Favorite Cities
We cannot get enough of these great places… and visit our individual City Guides for some of our most Favorite Cities
London, England
Annabella has had the good fortune to live here for a couple of years in the early 1990s and to go back nearly every year since. She likes to take me for long theatre 
weekends on the red-eye flight from Boston, and then we fall asleep at plays. It is a dynamic, cosmopolitan city filled with history, culture, and energy. Some people find it gloomy (dark, rainy and damp) and lonely, but it’s our favorite (and has some terrific green space, too). English cooking gets a bad rap, but London has every ethnic cuisine known to man, and it’s delicious. The English also don’t have a reputation for giving people the warm fuzzies, but they are polite and helpful. This is a city without a dull moment. If you’ve never been before, get your bearings by taking a Double Decker Bus Tour (super touristy but terrific nevertheless). For theatre lovers, this is destination #1 in the world (check out all there is on offer Official London Theatre Guide)
Krakow and Gdansk, Poland
Everyone loves Prague, but Krakow is amazing and less touristy. See our list of “most underrated cities” for more details. You are hard pressed to find people friendlier than the Polish. Even with a language barrier, we felt welcome. Now that Krakow has made Travel and Leisure’s favorite cities list, you need to visit before everyone else does.
Center of Gdansk
The city is on the Vistula River and on Poland’s Baltic coast, and it was completely obliterated during WWII. Now it has been magnificently restored. Visit Gdansk before everyone figures it out!
New York City
Yes, it can be intensely rude and annoying, but where else can you walk to the corner shop for aspirin at 4 a.m. when your wife has the most intense migraine ever (true event, Memorial Day weekend 2005). Like London, this is the tops for theatre, museums, and food. Visit Central Park to get away from the hustle of the city and to view the children playing with toy sailboats in the duck pond.
Venice, Italy
We visited this romantic city on our honeymoon. Bring your partner to the Bridge Of Sighs, chase the pigeons at Piazza San Marco, view the wonderful gondolas or just take a water taxi anywhere. If you walk around early in the morning after the rain has fallen and the streets are glistening and there isn’t another soul around, you will feel an intense sense of peacefulness (which is why the city is nicknamed “La Serenissima.”) It is essential to get off the beaten path and to travel in the off season. Bring good walking shoes and your calf muscles because Venice has lots of steps. Truly, there is no place like this anywhere else in the world.
Venice Campanile (note Berkeley Campanile below)
Chicago, Illinois
Another terrific museum city and a fabulous place to visit for architecture aficionados. Prairie, Art Deco and modern style buildings exist in harmony. We loved the architecture boat tour of the city Cruise Chicago. The suburb of Oak Park is a must see for Frank Lloyd Wright fans. Midwestern friendliness is a bonus. Food and music are also famous, and you can be the judge of the hotdog and pizza rivalry between this great city and New York City.
Paris, France
Another European city steeped in culture, arts and history. My first time was overwhelming. Yes, some Parisians can be rude, but so can Bostonians. Everyone was pleasant to us, even with my rusty high school French. We enjoyed wonderful crepes from sidewalk vendors and artists displaying their work. Hours could be spent just aimlessly wandering the streets and exploring little corners. From the underground adventures of the Catacombs and the Sewers to the wonderful medieval museum of history, Musee de Cluny and the underrated Musee Carnavalet there is always something to do. Even the touristy Bateaux Mouches that go up and down the Seine River are worthwhile, if for no other reason that the super view of the Eiffel Tower. My favorites are the Musee Pompidou and very Art Nouveau Musee D’Orsay.
Berkeley, California – This is the quintessential college town and beyond a shadow of a doubt one of the best places in the world to spend four or more years of your life. It’s not the 1960s anymore (and not even the 1980s), but there’s only one Cal, and it’s in Berkeley (http://www.berkeley.edu/). Free campus tours are offered daily. Eat and shop your way down Telegraph Avenue, and don’t miss the coffee at Café Intermezzo. Of course for all you foodies there’s also the world famous Chez Panisse restaurant. http://www.chezpanisse.com/ Disclaimer: Annabella is Cal Class of ’89. Go Bears!
Bologna, Italy – One of history’s classic college towns, and a gastronomic paradise. When the people known for the best food in the world consider a city to have the best food in the country, you can do the math on what that adds up to! It’s a good thing it’s such a pleasure to walk around so you can exercise away some of the riches. Read my essay on Bologna. (PDF coming soon)
Sighisoara, Romania — The Transylvanian birthplace of Vlad Dracula. How we regret that we didn’t yet have our digital camera, or we would have filled an entire memory card here.
Belfast, (Northern) Ireland – It’s had its troubles, but we have many happy memories of my wife’s birthday here when it was so blustery that our umbrellas were blown out, and where we met some memorably friendly locals, saw some classic theatre, and enjoyed winding down in a pub. And I sat in the Lord Mayor’s Chair at City Hall (am I Sinn Fein or an Ulster Unionist?)! Titanic fans will enjoy the Titanic Quarter, with its large museum and other related sites.
Our list of Favorites would not be complete without mentioning our least favorites. These are Cities We Do Not Love (Though the Rest of World Seems To)
Barcelona, Spain — Great architecture, but unfriendly and depressing. Can’t really explain why we feel this way, but probably has something to do with Spaniards in general being some of the world’s least friendly people. Sorry.
Buenos Aires, Argentina — There is immense guilt in putting this city on the list since we have family there and have had a marvelous time there. Being foodies, it also pains us to include this on the list because we WANT to love this city and we do love the food here. We love our family and friends but doubt we would otherwise bother to return. The “Paris of the South” baffles us, though the avenues are wide, indeed. It’s a frustrating place to maneuver around, and it can be intolerable when the weather is hot. It really is a must visit if for no other reason that you just must eat steak here and see some of the main sites, but this is certainly not a favorite.
Rome, Italy — Another city that it pains us to add to this list. We’re Italian, and this is the capital. However, the constant “beep beep” of Vespas and the crowds and the pushing (and groping) on buses and the other hassles of this place just make it hard to love. Of course you MUST visit here, and surely we’ll go back many times in our lifetimes because of the museums, the art, the culture, and (of course) the food. We just don’t “love it.”
Montreal, Quebec, Canada — Nothing wrong with it, but Quebec City is more European, Toronto is more cosmopolitan, Vancouver has more beautiful surroundings, and Ottawa has a “je ne sais quoi” charm.
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg — Ok, maybe other people don’t love it. No doubt the Eurocrats who live here working for the European Court of Justice can’t stand it (especially those from countries with an active night life). It’s in fact underrated as a tourist destination because it is architecturally unique and has a rich history, but it is a lifeless place with the world’s most unbelievably unfriendly people.