Best places I've lived in; Brighton, Madrid and Edinburgh.

The Countryside: Yorkshire Dales, specifically Swaledale and Arkengarthdale.

I don't know the Lake District very well but when I do go I am blown away by it. However I always feel slightly bad about extolling its virtues, like I'm being disloyal to the Dales.

From my holiday in Brazil this summer: Rio is fab and the statue of Christ and the view you get of Rio is truly breathtaking - a real place to go before you die thing ticked off there.

I was also extremely taken with Salvador da Bahia. A beautiful colonial town (the old part, anyway).

I'll second Edinburgh and Brighton. Easily the best two places I've lived in. I've not yet found anywhere in the UK that could compare, and I'd be surprised if I do.

Abroad there are a few challengers: Barcelona, Stockholm, Berlin, Munich and Bologna spring to mind, all of which I loved. Places I haven't been to but which I suspect I'd love to spend significant time in include San Francisco and Melbourne. There are many really big cities I'd love to visit also (New York, Tokyo) but I tend to find that such large places don't suit living in.

As for the wild: the Scottish Highlands, Yosemite, Torres Del Paine, the Great Wall (once you get away from the overly-commercial bit), the Andes, the Zambezi, the south downs, the western coast of Ireland and numerous parts of southern India are all lovely, but none can cap south-western Bolivia; a truly unique landscape.

Prague, Barcelona, San Marino and central Malaga for me.

Some of you boys must be pretty loaded if you can afford to go on holiday to all these weird and wonderful places.

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for the wild: the Scottish Highlands, Yosemite, Torres Del Paine, the Great Wall (once you get away from the overly-commercial bit)

Good call. I saw the Great Wall at Simatai, which is far enough away from Beijing that we were the only people there in the morning, and it hasn't been "restored" like so much of the rest of it. The views were spectacular. I took my favourite photo of all time (of my own) there.

I don't think people who live in London should be able to put it on their list personally. However, seeing as my family home is in Surrey I can. So...

1. Rome. The only place I've ever been other than London that I thought 'I could live there'. So now I do. It really is fantastic, although I haven't seen enough of the nightlife to see if it's perfect or not.

Be prepared for an alarming amount of fascist graffitti, mind you.

2. London. The most complete city I've seen in Europe, and I will definitely return one day. Whether I will be able to afford to buy somewhere or not is another matter.

3. Athens. It's dirty, crowded polluted to fuck but I loved it as a kid, mainly because of the astonishingly good food.

4. Valencia. I was there for the 2007 Fallas festival and I've never seen anything like it in my life. If you get the chance to go and experience it, do. You won't regret it.

5. Siena. Which manages to pack in a fantastic quantity of quality bars, restaurants, ancient churches, universities, views and middle class people in a space about the size of a shoebox. The football ground is well worth a visit as well, and it was open to the public to just stroll in when I was there. It's great.

Big shout outs to; Brighton, that place in the alps I went skiing a year and a half ago, northern Norway, especially that frozen lake where I crashed a professional rally drivers' car into a snow bank.

Something for Bored and TonTon.

The_Liquidator wrote:

QUOTE:
I don't think people who live in London should be able to put it on their list personally.

Why not?

QUOTE:
Something for Bored and TonTon.

I have a photo of my father holding me when I was 6 months old in front of Swallow Falls and I still haven't been back. Thanks for the that, evil, I can plan my "Waterfalls of Wales" road trip from it