Asklemmy

The capital cities. If you want authentic Europe, find the weird local festivals where people chase cheese down a hill or celebrate local culture or something. That's real Europe. Fuck the big cities and their galleries and museums.

https://www.egremontcrabfair.com/

https://airguitarworldchampionships.com/en/home/

https://www.latomatinatours.com/

https://riddu.no/en

https://www.theshed.co.uk/independent

https://cipc.pipeclubs.com/events/british-pipe-smoking-championship-2/

https://www.visitvoss.no/en/smalahovetunet

https://www.sbf.se/sportgrenar/folkrace

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinkensport

https://eukonkanto.fi/en/front-page/

https://www.uphellyaa.org/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3200955/Festival-girls-dress-shire-horses-boys-push-tiny-ploughs.html

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/cheltenham-news/man-shatters-toes-winning-world-8977482

These are a few things off the top of my head mostly northern and western Europe because it's what I'm familiar with. Also if you want to see something bizarre, go to Finland on free bucket day. But seriously Europe is full of unusual things to do. Or you could go to yet another gallery and pretend to be interested in paintings.

Eastern Ukraine isn't an ideal tourist spot at the moment.

As a European from elsewhere in Europe, I'm never going back to Milan. Maybe it's fine if you're into fashion, but if you're not there's not much to look at except a cathedral which resembles every other cathedral, and it's impossible to get a photo of it without also having a friendship bracelet scammer in the frame, actively harassing you.

All tourist locations in Italy and France have people trying to scam you (and some non-scammers just trying to sell you cheap toys), but Milan is the only place I've been to where they're straight up harassing you non-stop. Go to Pisa instead, it's super relaxing there and you can marvel at their past mistakes in structural engineering. A far better deal.

Canary Islands. Great place, but the mass tourism is actually killing them, provoking skyrocketing rent and shortages of power and water.

Had a couch surfer stay with us a while in Kuwait. He'd been everywhere. He said that, of all places, Moldova had no redeeming qualities. Granted, things might have changed in 10 years. Does anyone care to weigh in?

Here's what I would avoid when traveling to Poland:

• Zakopane, it's overpriced and very crowded. If you want to visit the area the town is in your better off staying in smaller villages, unless you have to use public transit.
• Szczecin --not an 'avoid at all cost' but more of a 'there are better cities to visit'-- this-or-that part of the city is always being remodeled/reconstructed and there's no 'old city' with day and night life focused between two shoping centers and some roundabouts in the city center. If you want to go sight-seeing Kraków, Wrocław or Gdańsk are much better choices.
• Mazury lake district, beautiful lakes and decent nightlife, shit infrastructure - roads are narrow (two bigger cars can't pass eachother without going offroad) and often lacking sings and other markings
• Podlaskie Voivodship, even worse infrastructure than Mazury, it's rural, mainly towns and villages with nothing a tourist might want to see. You might think it's a good place to go star-gazing but Bieszczady are a lot better for that (Tho you should probably go to a Dark Sky Site for that, there's one close to Bieszczady, in Slovakia)
• THE SEASIDE, it's crowded, expensive, the sea is cold and it's fumcking wimdy, go to like Italy, Croatia, Portugal or Spain instead

Also in general avoid capital cities, they are often the worst of major cites in a given country.

Dublin is a kip, you have far better options throughout Ireland, if you want a city go to Cork or Belfast. Galway is a bit boring to me but could be your scene. After that there are loads of little spots with loads going for them. The entire west coast is great.

Dont rent a big car, I mean big by irish sandards.

Berlin

Andorra. Full of motor bozos, duty free shops, terrible cities in the valleys. A tax haven joke country. Nice mountains i guess.

Common tourist places during tourist season are usually the worst. I took a 10 day trip to Paris one summer and it was a mix of the most popular tourist places (Louvre, Eiffel tower, etc) and some underground shit my sister found.

Every tourist place was jam packed with annoying tourists, costly and had tons of scammers surrounding it. Every less known place was really awesome, aside from one sketchy neighborhood we had to walk through where we were followed for a while.

I'd also say that Northern Europe has generally been much more pleasant to travel through, for me.

Switzerland. If you've got buckets of money it's fine but donair can easily run you 18 francs and a real meal will cost you 100+. I've visited twice and both times the extreme costs involved have hamstrung my ability to actually enjoy things. The trains and geography are amazing - but the streets full of jewelers and high fashion specifically targeting millionaires or up are an awful example of late stage capitalism.

I wouldn’t say at all cost, but Montenegro isn’t fun. Russians have built massive hotel resorts on the beaches there, the locals are unhappy that they’re there so they don’t like tourists. They’ll try to fight you on the beach because you’re not local. Get hassled by the cops because you’re not local, but you’ll be able to buy your way out of your problem if you’re lucky. People don’t want to talk to you, everyone is pretty cold and borderline rude. Go to a bar for a drink and you get a glass nominally washed/rinsed in tubs of soapy water behind the bar that the previous 100 glasses went through and hasn’t been changed out. The landscape is beautiful in a hostile sort of way, but there’s just not much reason to visit. It’s not even particularly inexpensive. The hotels will try to charge you for everything, including a scuff on the wall that you didn’t do, a chip on a planter on the balcony, etc. ridiculous money grabs.

As others said Switzerland. It's beautiful and all but really expensive. It really took away a big part of fun when I went there. But not only that, I thought the swiss people seemed sometimes kinda "rude"or maybe a better word for it "cold" and a little annoyed if it came to tourists. I get it, it's a small county and a lot of people are visiting each year, but it still wasn't fun for me to be there and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to go there.

And North France near the German border like Strasbourg. The city and the region is beautiful as well, but the people are often like the cliché everybody knows and that sucks if you're a tourist. But the south of France like Marseille and the Provence is always worth a visit. The people are chill, enjoying life in the typical mediterranean way and are often friendlier (and often speak English at least in the bigger cities/tourist areas).

Paris, it's the WORST city in all of France.

France is becoming a far right country on two weeks. Do yourself a favor and stay as far as you can.

Olten

Gelsenkirchen and Duisburg are kinda famous atm.

Not a place in particular, but if you're driving, avoid any border crossings during peak holiday seasons. Specifically when you're crossing from the EU into non-EU countries or crossing from Schengen into non-Schengen area. During peak times you might be waiting at the border for hours.