Of all the things you could complain about regarding this town, I never saw this one coming. What’s wrong with them? 
Dang, I forgot the one city that I actually hate and hope never to have to see again: Las Vegas, NV.
Which city in Las Vegas? Paris? New York? Luxor? 
Love: NYC
Hate: Barcelona
That’s really disappointing, I always wanted to go to Barcelona 
What makes you hate it?
I’ve been to all three of the real places. 
Others that I have enjoyed include Mexico City; Basel and Zurich; Vienna. Kind of liked Brussels too. West and East Berlin was exciting (that was in Cold War times, and I felt like a real spy passing through Checkpoint Charlie.) Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Truly big cities, I mostly just endure if I have to go to them.
Liked more than I expected: (In order as I think of them)
Hama, Syria
Tabriz, Iran
Tel Aviv, Israel
Khartoum, Sudan
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
St. Denis, Reunion
Douala, Cameroun
Bamako, Mali
Bukavu, DRCongo
Moroni, Comoros
Johannesburg, South Africa
Seoul, Korea
Bangkok, Thailand
Singapore
Hanoi, Vietnam
Wuzhou, China
Venice, Italy
Budapest, Hungary
Rijeka, Croatia
Bergen, Norway
Vilnius, Lithuania
Coimbra, Portugal
Cancun, Mexico
Durango, Mexico
David, Panama
Leon, Nikcaragua
Medellin, Colombia
Sucre, Bolivia
Tarija, Bolivai
Arica, Chile
Valparaiso, Chile
Asuncion, Paraguay
Mendoza, Argentina
Belem, Brazil
Cities I liked less than expected:
Montevideo, Uruguay
Lima, Peru
Quito, Ecuador
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Willemstad, CUracao
Edinburgh, Scotland
Roteredam, Netherlands
Cairo, Egypt
Cape Town, South Africa
Monrovia, Liberia
Casablanca, Morocco
Gaborone, Botswana
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Katmandu, Nepal
Macao, China
Taipei, Taiwan
Chiangmai, Thailand
Vientiane, Laos
Shillong, India
Dubai, UAE
Just curious, is “Sucre, Bolivia” pronounced like “Suc-re” or “Suck-er”. Hopefully there’s no casino there?
Helsinki: love at first sight.
I only spent a weekend there but I felt good almost immediately. There’s nothing spectacular or particularly beautiful but it just felt right for me. The architecture was a fascinating mixture of Europe and a unique “exotic” element, very different from both neighbouring Sweden and Russia. One morning, I sat on a pier in the harbour, an ice cream cone in one hand, a bottle of water in the other. The warm sun was right above my head, the Baltic Sea just a couple of meters below my feet. For a minute there, everything was coming together. Serenity.
London: loved it.
I spent 6 months there as an exchange student and loved every minute of my stay. Countless things to do, countless things to see, fascinating (and surprisingly polite compared with other cities) people on every corner. Just great.
Florence
There really is such a thing as Tuscanian light. Wonderful museums and buildings.
Other cities that I liked include: St-Petersburg, Paris, Toronto, Amsterdam, Algiers, Cologne, Marseille, Nice and Cannes.
Athens: very disappointing.
Paradoxically, I found it both noisy/animated and sleepy/boring. Even the ruins didn’t do much for me, which was unexpected. And the people were pretty rude.
Barcelona
Nice enough but again, rude people.
Uppsala
The town itself is pretty. But boring. And the people are distant.
Other disappointing cities: Moscow, Brussels (but that’s where I live so I may be biased), Stockholm.
cities that really underwhelmed me were:
Brussels, don’t know why but It just did nothing for me at all. (nothing against Belgium, Bruges is lovely)
New York, Architecture not diverse enough and everything you might want to do costs an absolute fortune plus I love to walk and because of the block system in NY you find yourself stopping every few minutes to cross roads. not fun. Food was good though, central park is lovely and the city is buzzing and lively but too many personal downsides for me to love it rather than like it.
Cairo: It may be heresy but I was underwhelmed by the pyramids (Pompeii was much more interesting for me) and the city itself is pretty much unmanageable
Sydney: meh!
The hits:
Boston was much more my style, a great city for strolling round and architecturally more of a mish-mash.
Salzburg, coffee, cake, churches, castles.
Bangkok, heat, mayhem and wonderful food.
Rome, a wonder around every corner
Top of the list is London. Free things to do, great transport, contrast in architecture and bustle/peaceful side streets and squares.
All this people saying they love London. I work here and I don’t feel the love at all. I think I need to spend some more time here outside the office! Trouble is the last thing I want to do at the weekend is catch the same train back into the city…
Isn’t that always the way though? many of us fail to appreciate what we have in front of our noses. Hard to love somewhere when you associate it with day-to-day working and yet I bet within 5 minutes of your workplace there is something astonishing, of great beauty or historical interest, that you never pay a moment’s notice to.
Architecturally it is fantastic, almost every street has multiple things that would catch the eye but I had to be on my guard the whole time. People following you, trying to mug or pick pocket you gets old very fast, especially how brazen they were about it when you confronted them. People complain about anti-social behaviour in the centre of Dublin but it doesn’t seem a patch on what I experienced in Barce. Saying that I knew a few people who lived there for a while and loved it so maybe I just saw the worst of what it had to offer.
I’d agree with that completely. Riding on what should be the convenient subway system was exhausting as we had to remind each other to keep one hand in our pocket holding our wallet and the other hand holding the camera and wishing for a third hand to hold on to the pole so we didn’t fly into someone else when the train stopped.
One of the days we were in Barcelona we saw a woman with a lot of make up on. We’re talking Mimi from the Drew Carey show level of clown skill. “OMG, I want a picture of that!” we said at the same time and followed her about two blocks trying to be a bit stealthy. Next thing we know, we ended up walking down a street filled with prostitutes who were open for business and quite vocal about it. This was around 4pm but we still felt a bit unsafe in the light of day accidentally walking down the wrong street.
I’m glad I went to Barcelona, but have no interest in returning.
My wife insists that she loves Manhattan, because the only times she goes are when she’s not working. She doesn’t seem to grok that she would probably fucking hate it if she had to get up at 7:30 every time she was there and shlep to an office.
I felt like that at first in Lisbon. I had to work for the biggest bitch on the planet, whose goal was to punish every man in her past by harassing and browbeating every man in her present. But the charm of Lisbon and the fabulous apartment I had compensated nicely. It’s really difficult to dislike Lisbon, other than the impossible traffic.
Bangkok’s been mentioned here a couple of times. I have a love/hate relationship with the city and can’t be sure which category it goes in. I like Chiang Mai in the North better, but I need to be down here in Bangkok.
Others that I haven’t mentioned before include Phnom Penh, which is good for a pleasant weekend actually. In Vietnam, I like the old part of Hanoi, like Hue, love Hoi An, but Ho Chi Minh City is no great shakes. Shanghai is not as good as I expected except for the old French Concession (and of course the riverfront Bund).