Lovely Ljubjlana

Joanna's sister is living in The Hague (I always liked the sound of that. Is there another Hague so they got all shirty and decided to call themselves THE Hague?). Jo asked me for my 5-top destinations in Europe to give her sister some ideas. I figured, everyone likes different things on holidays, not everyone likes eating reindeer, so I broadened it out a bit. I present to you My 5-Minute Guide to Europe. Let me know what you think!

The Obvious, but have to be done
- Florence
- Barcelona
- Rome
- Paris
- London

Underrated
- Sardinia – great place to get away from the Eurotrash of it all. Good beaches and cheap food n wine.
- Mallorca – Stay away from the mega-tourist resorts, but the rest of the island is really interesting and beautiful. Great food.
- Glasgow/Edinburgh – scrubby fun arty city and its beautiful sister. Make like a local and get drunk and get in a fight in a pub! Great jumping off place to the Scottish Highlands which are also awesome
- Vienna – good food, good art, beautiful city. Shame about the Austrians.
- Brussels – good food, good art, beautiful city. Shame about the Belgians.
- Stockholm & Copenhagen – Too trendy for words and all the beautiful people can be intimidating, but fun nights out and great shopping.
- Helsinki – love love love Finland – like Sweden only more Russian and fewer Europe’s Next Top Models. They have tango clubs and you can eat reindeer. LOVE.
- Zurich – Switzerland is gorgeous, the skiing is great, you can sing The Hills Are Alive, and the glaciers are melting so go now.
- Counties Clare and Kerry in Ireland (west coast) – the people are simply the best in the world. Truly atmospheric – you can roll into a pub on a rainy day, listen to music, drink beer. Some would call that wasting a day, but I call it superawesome. Ennis is a good place to start.

Off the Beaten Track but awesome
- Talinn, Estonia – weird and looks like a movie set – like Helsinki only more foreign. Don’t go expecting edible food.
- Vilnius, Lithuania – small compact town that is very well-preserved. They have a really fun night life.
- Istanbul – one of the food capitols of the universe. And the sightseeing – the mosques and the Bosphorus – cannot be beaten.
- Reykjavik, Iceland – to be honest, I’ve only flown in and out of here about 10 times, but it looks wild. I haven’t spent a serious night in town, but I hear it is awesome and the Blue Lagoon is supposed to be unmissable.
- Dubrovnik, Croatia – Ad campaign’s tag line is “like the Mediterranean used to be”, whatever that means. A little weird, but in a fun way. Dubrovnik is now a UNESCO Heritage city so most of the bullet holes are fixed. Island hopping off the coast is fun.
- Wales – if you like your holidays adventuresome – walking, horse riding, hiking and pub fighting – you may like this. Some cool towns tucked away in unlikely places. Do your research ahead of time so you don’t end up in some bombed out Welsh mining towns.

Overrated
- Athens – Athens is essentially a 3rd world city. It can be tolerable if you know someone who can take you around, and the islands in the south are amazing.
- Prague – populated by expensive (I'm told) prostitutes and film crews. Things that should be cheap aren’t, and things that aren’t cheap are yucky.
- Oslo – So expensive it hurts to breathe, but the rest of Norway is unbelievable, esp the west coast/fjords like Bergen so don’t count Norway out completely
- French wine country – breathtaking, but you feel like a giant tourist the whole time (except when drinking vast amounts of rose and being bombarded by bats, but that's a different story)
- Dublin – I love Dublin and I feel like I could go back there all the time and never get sick of it, but most people I know disagree with me.
- Budapest – inedible food and brutalist architecture. It is interesting and creative, but can be a little impenetrable if you’re only going for a weekend.
- Monte Carlo/French Riviera – I guess you have to go at some point just for the ridiculous wealth on display, but really really not my scene.
- Milan/Genoa – They work hard there. You can tell.
- Stuttgart/Frankfurt – occasionally people try to convince me that Stuttgart is the home of great German food and Frankfurt is, well, convenient. Yeah, not so much.

I’ve never been, but I hear is nice
- Madrid
- Ljubljana (seriously. supposed to be nice. whatever.)
- Munich
- Berlin