Your top 5

[LHR02]

Ignoring the guidebooks, forgetting the tourist 'must see's'....

What spots affected you personally and intimately, that you'd forever regret never having had the chance to visit for yourself? Thinking back on your travels....what stands out as those 'memory makers"??

Mine is, for now:

Omaha beach and American cemetary
Auschwitz
Culloden battlefield
St. Peter's and Vatican Square
Rijksmuseum/Amsterdam

Anyone else?

[WillTravel]

If the following aren't the top five, they're certainly in my top eight, but I'd have to think more to be absolutely sure. Ging, I'm sure you remember the first three from my Italy trip.

Audience with Pope John Paul II, just a couple weeks or so before his final decline.
The Scavi tour of St. Peter's Basilica, showing the original 2000-year-old Roman roads and cemetery, along with what is likely Peter's final resting place.
The Borghese Gallery.
(Note that this makes three for Rome!)
This one is a little harder to define, but walking through the Marais in Paris I saw plaques in French denoting places where young children had been taken out of school and led to the concentration camps and no doubt their deaths. The Holocaust Memorial near Notre Dame is not far away, but the plaques had more of an emotional effect on me.
I'd be hardpressed to pick a spot in Berlin, but for much the same reason, the weight of history and horror was so present for me. For example, at the Brandenburg Gate, what is called the New Synagogue, the remaining spots of the Wall.

I'm sure the Rijksmuseum would be right up there for me if so much of it weren't shut up now for renovations. I haven't been to any battlefields or cemeteries, other than the one I mentioned, but I'm sure I will in the future.

[Kim]

Mine are a bit different..

Seeing the fjords in Norway
The first taste of gelato
Walking across the bridge in Prague as the sun was setting
St. Peter's
Incredible bruchetta in this old little romantic place in Florence


I think my number one would be when the bus turned the corner in Brugges and all of a sudden in front of my eyes was the main square. It took everything I had expected from Europe and froze it in a moment.

[BigRay]

1. Practically anything and everything in Paris

2. Walking around in Prague - still breathtaking after over three years of living here

3. Old Town, Riga, Latvia - beautiful architecture, very "hip", and a place where things are happening quickly and there is energy in the air.

4. Basque country (Span and France) - Great food, beautiful scenery, good nightlife, and great food.

5. Lofoten Islands, Norway - midnight sun in an incredible setting


So I think this is my top 5, but it's difficult, as there are so many places, and frankly not too many that I didn't like. ;D

[CuriousToronto]

Hello all:

So I was just popping-in and look what I found. So time to pony-up my list:

1) The Swiss Alps - And I don't mean just Gimmelwald although everyone knows I love that place. Honestly, I kept on looking at the scenery and thinking that God surely must have taken extra time when he made Switzerland. To this day I can't imagine anything more stunning!

2) Paris - It was a life-long dream of mine to make it to Paris. And I will never forget the first time I saw the Eiffel tower. I literally jumped up and down! For me it was representative of so much - brilliant day! Wouldn't trade it for the world!!!

3) Flanders Fields - I took a tour that Kim recommended. It was the type of thing you only do once in your life but boy was I glad I did it. Incredibly moving and the kind of the thing that stays with you for the rest of your days.

4) Stockholm - I loved the place but more than that I think it was significant for me because my family almost moved there. I would have grown up there...............That and my Dad lived there for a year when he was in his early 20s. So in some ways I felt like I was retracing his steps. It was brilliantly cool to see places I grew up seeing in post cards. That and it was also fantastic to realize that we would have been okay had we ended up going there.

5) Moosone/Moose Factory, Ontario - I know this isn't Europe but it's my list so it counts! This is the closest I've gotten to Canada's far north. These places are located in (and off of) James Bay, Ontario. Moose Factory is the place where I wandered away from my parents as a 10 year old child. Ended up inside a teepee with an elderly Cree woman. She was making bannock and gave me some. We didn't speak the same language and yet it still remains as one of the best moments I've ever had!


Cheers,

CT