What is your city?

[katmai]

Yeah I am like frunk.

[Monoriu]

If it were entirely up to me, I'd probably pick Tokyo or London.

[Josquius]

If it were entirely up to me, I'd probably pick Tokyo or London.

Pretty opposites there.


But I think more realistically and applying the rules less strictly it'd be Amsterdam for me. It was great, and its the first place far from home where I spent a substantial amount of time myself.

[celedhring]

I've rarely traveled somewhere alone or without meeting someone. The first time was actually Madeira in 2008. I could see myself enjoying life there.

Yeah, I'm on the same boat. Most of the time I go to some place (outside of work) it's because I know somebody there or I'm traveling with somebody.

But, said that, my answer is Vienna, which I visited for the first time in 1999 while doing a postgrad in Prague. It's certainly a city I quite like, in the 2000s I was working in a documentary near Salzburg and took the chance of going and spend a few days there again.

[Duque de Bragança]

Had to consult the archives for this one, mostly I travel with someone or meet up with someone. So there is a surprise winner.........Coimbra in Portugal 

Best city in Portugal for an Erasmus student actually.  Still cheaper than Lisbon and Porto, not far from both and plenty of night life.

As for me, tough one. Even when I went alone to some city, say for a football game I would end up with like-minded people or even encounter once people I had not seen in years (fellow Portuguese class students in Essen).

[The Larch]

If it were entirely up to me, I'd probably pick Tokyo or London.

Pretty opposites there.

For me I think it'd be Santiago de Compostela, when I moved there at 20, maybe? I had been there earlier, partying with friends from back home, so maybe that also counts. It was not tourism, but nobody was exactly waiting for me there.

Maybe Dublin would count, as I went there for summer English courses back when I was a teen, but I definitely had a host family and organization waiting for me. I also went to a couple of uni conferences before moving to Santiago, but I don't know if they'd be compliant with the "not having anyone waiting for you" rule, as the organizations behind the conferences were waiting for me, but it's not exactly a friend waiting for a visit kind of thing.

[Syt]

For me I think it'd be Santiago de Compostela, when I moved there at 20, maybe? I had been there earlier, partying with friends from back home

Pilgrimages have changed since the Middle Ages.

[The Larch]

For me I think it'd be Santiago de Compostela, when I moved there at 20, maybe? I had been there earlier, partying with friends from back home

Pilgrimages have changed since the Middle Ages.

Not that kind of pilgrimage.  Those are still taking place, anyway.

[Caliga]

Rome.  Works for me.

[Savonarola]

I guess.... Brno?
.... Yeah.... I don't like this definition. I barely remember it. Or would Cesky Krumlov count? That was nice.

I thought it was an odd definition; but in order to have a "City" by this definition, at one point in your life you would have had to have been so interested^1. in a location that you broke through your fear of going some place new on your own.  So I can see where he's coming form.

1.)  Third conditional past perfect continuous; it's too bad Ide's not still here.  That tense belongs in one of his movie reviews.

[crazy canuck]

First major city that fits that description is London - but that was just because that is where I landed.  The next major city I went to was Paris.  I am quite happy to have that as my city.  It was a great experience.

[Tonitrus]

Hmmm...if it can be presumed that excluding criteria also include:

- not as part of a move/relocation to another residence, unless going substantially out of one's way for the only purpose of visiting that city as a tourist.
- not being within, say, commuting distance of one's existing residence.

Then it would have to be:  Hyder, Alaska. (and that using the exception in the first criteria above)

If one would throw a population limit in as well (to make it a proper city), well, then: Nowhere yet.  Like some of the others, the rest were with someone or with someone in the target city.