CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
From another thread about Amsterdam (Hijacked into Lyon by me, soz!) came the question, what is your favourite city and why.
Excluding Edinburgh, for reasons of conversation, natch.
I can't pin mine down. Wellington & Paris are two high runners for very different reasons.
Hmnmnn. Other than here, a tie between Berlin and Köln with Ghent, York, Durham, Amsterdam and Dunedin tying for second, based on their could-live-here indices as assessed unconciously against indefinable criteria.
Berlin I loved, was my first ever lone travelling city, spent ten days there fresh out of uni on a slightly mad holiday. My job takes me to cologne every two years for the big Anuga food fair and I can imagine living there too, it's just an easy place to be.
I lived in a little yellow house in Dunedin for nine months when I first shifted over there, but then we moved for work up to Wgtn. Dunedin definitely a nice place to live, but I did prefer the bigger city.
If you scroll the camera round you can see the gorgeous view we had from that top bay window! Although the hill we were on was a test for the car handbrake.
Tough one... Plces I've really enjoyed being have been as diverse as Beirut, Pristina (going back there in March for work!), Akaroa in New Zealand, Paris.
But I'm going to go for an bovious one. One of the best holidays we had, a long weekend with everything from weather to stunning food and peaceful walks.
Venice.
Siena. Quieter than Florence and more beautiful. I liked the paintings of good and bad government in the town hall. There's a street of shops that specialise in panforte.
If we're talking about cities for cycling then it would have to be Heidelberg.
Venice is magnificent. My time at university was greatly enhanced by having a year studying the history of Venice between 1400 ad 1700. I've only visited twice, but it is unquestionably a fantastic, unique place - so much history (my appreciation was really enhanced by having studied the place). I'm not sure what it's be like to live there, unless you're an author seeking inspiration, or a millionaire (always a good thing when looking at living in cities), but there's nothing in the original question about having to live there...
Other than that, here are my faves:
Paris - history, architecture, culture, food, french, remarkably easy to get around for a major city (especially on a Velib after a few post-prandial armagnacs...)
San Francisco - the geography, the vibe, the food, some magnificent scenery nearby, sensible climate
Hong Kong - the "coolest" city I've ever been to, the energy (this is properly a city that never sleeps), excellent public transport (cycling possibly a nightmare, however), a short boat trip from beautiful quiet islands, the food, the smell (all those restaurants)
And I don't think I've ever been to a German city that I haven't liked - Cologne, Munich, Heidelberg (or is that a town?), Nuremberg...
Honourable mention to Albi as well - small french provincial city, but a nice bit of Cathar history. Been there lots on holiday and it just keeps getting nicer. Included for sentimental reasons.
Oh, are we supposed to pick just one?
Harare - the jacarandas win every time, although smaller cities like Mutare and Bulawayo are more easy-going.
Asmara has the best restaurants (and lots of bikes).
There are a lot of people on here who weren't born in Edinburgh - it's a place many people come to for all sorts of reasons and stay (there was a thread a while ago.
So some will be more or less settled (probably including me) and for others it's another station along the way.
"or a millionaire (always a good thing when looking at living in cities)"
That's the thing...
Beyond 'money no object' there are places that I might like which would be more or less unaffordable. Manhattan would be nice - looking out over Central Park.
Berlin is much more affordable - but would I learn the language or just hang out with English speakers? Mostly flat and fairly cycle friendly (it does have trams...) Didn't actually see a lot of bikes last time I was there though.
Boston is nice, quite 'European' in a lot of ways - not surprising really. Mostly OK for bikes, though it's not one council - Harvard ("older than the USA" they are keen to tell you) is in Cambridge which had more bike lanes than Boston when I was there (10 years ago).
London has it's charms but I'm now just a visitor. When I moved/lived there I decided not to take my bike as a) traffic was scary b) distances were 'too great'. Now I like cycling there and (sometimes) wonder If things would have been different if I'd started there with a bike...
Melbourne. Culture, food, friendly locals, festivals, bike lanes.
Rome. But not on a bike.
Dodge.
You could buy nails, hammers, power tools...
Yah but the LBS is a farrier's.
Vienna - jaw-dropping architecture in a capital city that is way too big in proportion to the the country it now governs, which is kind of funny.
Paris - for reasons already stated by others.
Kyoto - has more of the old Japan than Tokyo, and can be crossed on foot in about three hours. Lots of cycles in evidence too.
Ferrara - often missed off the Italian tourist trail, but it has a compact old town centre dominated by a moated castello. Ferrara (I was told) also has the highest per capita cycle ownership/use in Italy.
San Francisco is far and away the most pleasant US city, although I have a soft spot for NYC which is really London on steroids.
I'm feeling uncultured now as my usual holiday haunts are in the country side.
I liked Toronto a lot. Felt like it gave you the "American city" experience but it was very laid back and never felt aggresive or threatening, even in less salubrious neighbourhoods. People just wanted to get on with their lives. It also had quite a timewarp feel to it - old trams and trolleybusses and passenger ferries out to Toronto Island (where you could hire a quadricycle compelte with sunshade to get about!) a retro underground system and lots of lovely modernist 50s and 60s architecture. You could also get beer (admittedly mainly dreadful Coors, Molson or Labatt) in pints in proper pubs and if you looked hard enough could find some awesome brewpubs to get a proper drink in.
Plenty modern urban chic going on too, lots of very creative artistic "grafitti".
I'm feeling uncultured now as my usual holiday haunts are in the country side.
I would have said much the same - I don't like cities, and the city I like least is Toronto!
Yeah I don't like cities either, my husband and I clash on this since his idea of a holiday is to go to some polluted congested city while mine is to go somewhere nice. I think we have managed to agree that weekend or long weekend city breaks are fine. Jerusalem was pretty cool though. At least it was 11 years ago, maybe not so much now.
Ah but by saying I like 'certain' cities I'm not saying I dislike the countryside...
Holidays this year are a long weekend in Amsterdam, a week in Skye, a week in the Western Isles, another week in Skye, and possibly a long weekend in Beirut. The balance definitely lies in favour of isolation.
But.
There are cities I like. And generally it's precisely because they're not "some polluted congested city."
Is that why German cities seem to be scoring highly, they never seem hugely congested or polluted and seem to generally all have intelligent transit plans.
Or is it just the beer and sausages?
Beer and sausages. Every time.
(note, I've never been to Germany...)
Or is it just the beer and sausages?
you're on to something there...
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts