I accidentally replied to a 2011 topic of this, but I found what members said there interesting, so I thought I would start a new thread on the same subject.
I'm only going to list places I've spent enough time in to have a feel for, which leaves out places I've briefly been to or through, such as Frankfurt, Toronto, etc. I live in the US.
Veneto, Italy. I was born there but moved stateside when I was piccolo bambino, but I was there two years ago. The Veneto, contains Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Citidella etc. Gorgeous scenery. Very laid back lifestyle. Wonderful food. Good but inexpensive wine to be had everywhere. Properly made risotto (in a lot of countries they overcomplicate it). Venice is too touristy during the day but charming in the evening. Verona has a working colosseum that predates the one in Rome, where they have plays and concerts. Don't look for food between 1 and 4 though cause the country basically shuts down during those hours.
Budapest, Hungary. Worked there for weeks at a time back on three separate trips. People are nice, but the language is a bear, and nothing much is pronounced like you'd think. Cs is "ch" and S is "shh" and G is "dJ", etc. etc. Budapest is like the poorer twin of Vienna, as in they are architecturally very similar, but Budapest under communist rule didn't get rebuilt like her western sister. In 2000 the buildings on the lane (utcha) where I was staying still had bullet holes from the 1956 revolution. Was relatively inexpensive. I remember breakfast cost 1/5th what it did in Vienna. The Parliament is epic, and the Danube (Duna to locals) is rarely blue. The public baths are amazing!
Vienna, Austria. Budapest with money plus that stereotypically germanic efficiency and cleanliness. Some great museums. Climb the stairs in St. Stephen's cathedral for a cool overlook of the city. Not a cheap date though.
New Zealand. I can't say enough about this country. I adore it. Scenically it's incredible, with many and varied landscapes one next to the other. The area of the whole country is about the size of Italy (or Nevada), so you can be at the ocean in subtropical rainforest that looks like Jurassic Park, then go up a canyon 12km into the mountains and find yourself facing a glacier. Cuisine is surprisingly good, largely due to the various ethnic foods brought in by immigrants. The north and south islands are fairly different. I spent 3 weeks there and it wasn't enough. Funniest experience: watching the full Moon rise, because, since you are 90 degrees south around the planet from the US or Europe, the Moon appears to be on its side as it rises.
Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan. I worked for a Japanese company so I had some tiny inkling what it would be like there. The culture of politeness takes a tiny bit of getting used to. When the train doors open people on the platform actually wait for the passengers to disembark before pushing in. The food is surprisingly varied, and what you get as "Japanese food" in the US is a fairly small subset of the range of cuisine there. What little of the countryside I could see was gorgeous. Tokyo is a city city, with a metro system so extensive you can walk underground through shops like it was a mall. Yokohama is more like a working port. The "New Jersey" of Japan I was told.
Melbourne, Australia. Pretty city. Parts quite quaint. Didn't get to spend much time there. But a tip: Don't go in summertime if you don't like flies. I was out walking with a group of guys on Christmas day and there were a half dozen flies on every single one of us all the time during the day.
Bucarest, Romania. If Budapest was a lower-rent Vienna then Bucarest is even lower rent than that. Not dissing it, as I actually enjoy being there, but under Ceaușescu the country really suffered and still has a long way to go. Ceaușescu had much of the historic city razed for several monstrous projects like the unfinished and abandoned Văcărești and the Palace of Parliament, which is world's largest and heaviest civilian building with an administrative function. But there are still pockets of it where you can feel what it must have been like before communism. Food: very meat and potatoes, and the sausage is a-maz-ing. They also make a chicken schnitzel that is just like the variation on it made in my mama's region of Italy. I just made myself hungry typing about it.
Who's next?
I'm only going to list places I've spent enough time in to have a feel for, which leaves out places I've briefly been to or through, such as Frankfurt, Toronto, etc. I live in the US.
Veneto, Italy. I was born there but moved stateside when I was piccolo bambino, but I was there two years ago. The Veneto, contains Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Citidella etc. Gorgeous scenery. Very laid back lifestyle. Wonderful food. Good but inexpensive wine to be had everywhere. Properly made risotto (in a lot of countries they overcomplicate it). Venice is too touristy during the day but charming in the evening. Verona has a working colosseum that predates the one in Rome, where they have plays and concerts. Don't look for food between 1 and 4 though cause the country basically shuts down during those hours.
Budapest, Hungary. Worked there for weeks at a time back on three separate trips. People are nice, but the language is a bear, and nothing much is pronounced like you'd think. Cs is "ch" and S is "shh" and G is "dJ", etc. etc. Budapest is like the poorer twin of Vienna, as in they are architecturally very similar, but Budapest under communist rule didn't get rebuilt like her western sister. In 2000 the buildings on the lane (utcha) where I was staying still had bullet holes from the 1956 revolution. Was relatively inexpensive. I remember breakfast cost 1/5th what it did in Vienna. The Parliament is epic, and the Danube (Duna to locals) is rarely blue. The public baths are amazing!
Vienna, Austria. Budapest with money plus that stereotypically germanic efficiency and cleanliness. Some great museums. Climb the stairs in St. Stephen's cathedral for a cool overlook of the city. Not a cheap date though.
New Zealand. I can't say enough about this country. I adore it. Scenically it's incredible, with many and varied landscapes one next to the other. The area of the whole country is about the size of Italy (or Nevada), so you can be at the ocean in subtropical rainforest that looks like Jurassic Park, then go up a canyon 12km into the mountains and find yourself facing a glacier. Cuisine is surprisingly good, largely due to the various ethnic foods brought in by immigrants. The north and south islands are fairly different. I spent 3 weeks there and it wasn't enough. Funniest experience: watching the full Moon rise, because, since you are 90 degrees south around the planet from the US or Europe, the Moon appears to be on its side as it rises.
Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan. I worked for a Japanese company so I had some tiny inkling what it would be like there. The culture of politeness takes a tiny bit of getting used to. When the train doors open people on the platform actually wait for the passengers to disembark before pushing in. The food is surprisingly varied, and what you get as "Japanese food" in the US is a fairly small subset of the range of cuisine there. What little of the countryside I could see was gorgeous. Tokyo is a city city, with a metro system so extensive you can walk underground through shops like it was a mall. Yokohama is more like a working port. The "New Jersey" of Japan I was told.
Melbourne, Australia. Pretty city. Parts quite quaint. Didn't get to spend much time there. But a tip: Don't go in summertime if you don't like flies. I was out walking with a group of guys on Christmas day and there were a half dozen flies on every single one of us all the time during the day.
Bucarest, Romania. If Budapest was a lower-rent Vienna then Bucarest is even lower rent than that. Not dissing it, as I actually enjoy being there, but under Ceaușescu the country really suffered and still has a long way to go. Ceaușescu had much of the historic city razed for several monstrous projects like the unfinished and abandoned Văcărești and the Palace of Parliament, which is world's largest and heaviest civilian building with an administrative function. But there are still pockets of it where you can feel what it must have been like before communism. Food: very meat and potatoes, and the sausage is a-maz-ing. They also make a chicken schnitzel that is just like the variation on it made in my mama's region of Italy. I just made myself hungry typing about it.
Who's next?
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Everything was super interesting. The food SUCKED !! like really and truly it was godawful. But I still had faves and things I would pay a lot to eat again. They are: 
