[zarzuelazen]

The secret is the same anywhere: get out of the main big cities and go to the second-tier cities; get off the beaten track and don't do what everyone else is doing; you'll find great places everywhere.

France, get out of Paris and hit up Marseille and Lyon. The UK gets a bad rap, but again, outside of London there are some great places. Oxford and Edinburgh are two of my favourite places in the world. Oxford's an amazing university town, filled with pubs and hot university chicks everywhere; Edinburgh, Scotland is about the most friendly, laid-back place you can find, the city is one of the most beautiful In Europe, and Caledonian backpackers is the world's best hostel in my view (and I've been to many many hostels).

[OSL]

This thread is really making me want to go back to France.

[MrRoundtree]

I'm not french but I'm french canadian and I lived in France for a year in Grenoble. Here's my take.

If you want to visit third-tier cities you've got to visit the Alps villages. Those places will seem ''Bouleversante'' and breathtaking, I've still haven't experience anything like this besides in Zermatt. I've done an exchange in Grenoble and here's what I can say.

- People are definately gauchistes there, lots of hipster everywhere and one of the biggest alpine/skiing culture I've seen. I decided to go there for this reason and I've not been disappointed. The ski is cheap and awesome.

- I was in a french Engineering school there (''Grandes École'') and strangely there were more girls in my classes than in my own country.

- The city itself is pretty small but the streets are crowded with students, it is a college town after all and out of the 60 000 students of Grenoble INP and the university of Grenoble 10 000 are foreign. The residences are fuckfests especially in between Erasmus students. The french party hard there and they have way less school work than what I had back home.

- You will be amazed by the scenery of the Massif de la chartreuse and Massif de Belledonne and the rest of the Alps.

- Annecy, Chamonix, la Savoie and all those areas are worth touring to, definately.

The girls in Grenoble were really friendly and rather easy but most of them couldn't speak english. However the foreign student community is really knowledgable and they are easy people to connect with. Tons of swedes, brazilians, spanish, germans, asians, canadians, americans, italians, irish, belgians and dutch studiy in Grenoble.

The girls were more feminine than our french canadians girls but not as pretty as our prettiest. But in Montreal lots of the french girls who move there are in the range of the 5-6 while the prettiest stays in France. I'd say with their feminity and polite nature the prettiest ones easily beat the Quebecoises, who I think are too independant.


Other than those, you should visit Honfleur, Brest, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Biarritz, Nice, Aix-en-Provences, Montpellier, Strasbourg and Lyon. All great cities which I loved visiting and most of them are college towns.