What are some /literary/ places to visit?
I'm thinking Florence.
>>8127863
London, New York, Paris, Madrid, Mexico City, Moscow, etc. Basically any large, old, prosperous city will probably have a good literary tradition. If it's your first time abroad, I would recommend London. Very easy to get around for an English-speaker, culture and language are similar enough (I'm assuming you're American) that everything is accessible and enjoyable. Extremely safe and clean. Excellent public transportation. Some of the best museums in the world. It's really the perfect baby's-first-grand-tour city. And of course features one of the proudest literary traditions in the world.
>>8127863
Isfahan.
Istanbul
>>8127874
OP here, I live in London, all about Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia for lit lifestyle. Of course the 'creatives' have all shifted now to the East, but I generally prefer the squares around the West, Holborn, Marylebone, etc.
>>8127863
>Dublin
>London
>Massachusetts, Tucson and railroad tracks in the Papineau region
Marseille, Tangier, Oslo, Bratislava, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Montevideo.
>>8127874
>>8127911
+1 what these anons said, also get a copy of pic related. it's got lists of shops and also literary history etc (although it is a bit brief, by necessity- otherwise it would be about a million pages)
london has a ton of bookshops but apart from waterstones (high street chain) and the ones in charing cross road, a lot of the best ones are in side streets or away from the main tourist areas. for example look up Sandoe's which is in a quiet(ish) side street off King's Road near Sloane Square. it's exactly what you want a bookshop to be, kind of higgledy piggledy and with all kinds of stuff you've never heard of before
>>8127937
Please expand on Tallinn's literary achievements
Bratislava didn't seem to be very /lit/ when I went there. Pretty cool place but mainly full of very drunk people
Oslo is quite a good choice though
>>8127964
Alcoholism is only a half-step away from literariness. Some of my best reading and writing came when I was piss drunk.
>>8127977
well yes i agree
however such a state can be achieved in any city
Dublin.
Bloomsday is in 11 days.
ITT rich cunts decide how to spend their trust fund
>>8128005
get a job
>>8127874
London sucks m8. Too busy to actually enjoy. Not as much historic buildings as other big cities (Paris, Berlin). Actually Berlin to give an example already has a much more chilled vibe and isn't as fucking expensive.
>>8128021
are you joking matey
berlin was flattened in ww2
i mean it's a cool place but culturewise it doesn't touch london
>Too busy to actually enjoy
well yeah if you're hanging around with the chinese taking selfies next to big ben
>isn't as fucking expensive.
in london i can go to the british museum, the v&a, the science museum, the natural history museum, tate britain, tate modern, the national gallery, the national portrait gallery and loads of others, and not pay a penny
>>8128021
>Berlin
Berlin sucks for anything other than partying. It has excellent museums but not much else from a /lit/ perspective that merits a trip devoted entirely to it. London and Paris are better for babby's first trip. Berlin is good if it will be joined with another city where you can also enjoy most of its sites in a relatively short amount of time.
Off the top of my head: Chernobyl, Japan, Africa, The United States of America, The White House, Specific Ocean, Mexico City, Tokyo, Troy, Luna, Moon, Pluto, Sun, Basketball court, The Coliseum, Roma, Aristotle's house, Nazi Germany, Paris, France, Underpants, Your house, Leaf Village.
Am I missing any?
>>8128089
The Trenches.
You gotta experience The Trenches to get a feel for 20th century literature.
Maine
go to war or prison
>>8127874
If you live in NYC for a while and work/live by young people, you will immediately find similar souls, and in a few months you will be in 4th floor walkups with a bunch of proto-hipsters talking about Proust while smoking hookahor drinking in a bar with with a bunch of secular jews and irish locals from queens telling people to "go fuhk yahself" and complaining how niggers ruin public transportation
Also I found Athens pretty literary, and southern vermont up to the green mountans has about 20 patrician bookstores per 100 square miles
>>8127984
Cheaper. Hotter women
>>8128156
>Athens
>literary
Pick one, m8. Poverty and bad graffiti is what I took away from that city. And not the creativity-inducing kind of poverty, either.
>>8128021
>Not as much historic buildings as other big cities (Berlin)
I have to assume you're kidding here.
>>8128361
Forgot to attach pic
>>8128005
travelling is really cheap these days
>>8128005
Jelous? Also
>implying living abroad in even makes dent my trust
>>8127964
Didn't pick it for it's literary achievements, it's just ultra comfy. For one it's cheap, and mixes old world charm with brutalism from the soviet era.
>>8127874
>will probably have a good literary tradition
what did he mean by this?
>>8127863
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Places that are featured in a lot of books or places that give you inspiration?
I don't know the answer to former, but the latter is definitely and objectively Istanbul. There is simply no city like it, European-Middle Eastern combination on a stunningly beautiful location. I'm not even only talking about historic Istanbul, I'm also talking about modern Istanbul, it is still the weirdest place I've ever been.
One example: I was looking at girls in mini skirts laughing and talking loudly while women in hijab looked at them angrily. Whole spectacle stopped when Adhan (call for prayer) started as girls in mini skirts also stopped being loud. City and its people are both living contradictions. You may even get blessings from a pimp after leaving brothel at this point.
>>8128005
>planning my honeymoon right now
>2 plane tickets to Amsterdam, round trip: $850ish
>hostels typically cost 20 euro or less a night
(we're doing air bnb so we can have a room to ourselves)
>4 country eurail pass is $200
Not including food of course, but you can do a pretty good tour of Europe for two weeks for $900 or so. Give yourself $50 each day (you should be able to be pretty comfortable on $50 each day) and you're out $1600 total. If you consider being able to save up $1600 "rich" you're an idiot.
>>8128038
And then you pay 10 quid for a pint, and 15 quid for some shitty doner.
>>8130620
I want to go back to Turkey before the whole country goes to shit.
I visited there just after the Kurd ceasefire and then boom 9/11. My parents were out walking and a shopkeeper beckoned them off the street and into his store to show them what was on the tv. "Come, come, you must see."
I heard some American sailors on leave talking about a "great massage" and I didn't really know what that meant back then but I think I know now :^)
>>8127863
the western canon can be read in your backyard
>>8130702
>10 quid for a pint
M8 have you even heard of Sam Smith's or Wetherspoons? London's expensive but not -that- expensive.
>15 quid for a doner
Food market street near my work does an amazing selection of food from around the world for around £5-£7. Plenty of cheap restaurants too- you just need to look on Time Out or something.
>>8130702
what? no you don't you idiot
you can eat and drink in london for almost the same price as anywhere else
>>8130620
Nicely written description. Now I want to visit Istanbul.
>>8127937
Isn't Marseille nothing but public housing and crime? It remains a hotspot for heroin smuggling in europe.
in italy florence is like the least /lit/ place ever
napoli, palermo, perugia, dei due mondi etc
>>8131567
people have mainly heard of Florence because of A Room With a View
If you feel any desire or compulsion to leave your bedroom in 2016 you are literally beyond saving. If you possess any imagination at all you can just go to Google Maps street view and travel through Florence that way.
>b-but muh unexpected meetings with interesting strangers!
>m-muh sensory experience!
Literally garbage-tier reasons to "travel". Travelling itself is such a pleb hobby and is used mainly as a means of assuaging feelings of inferiority and wasted time. As a KHHCV of 8 years now I have transcended the libidinal impulses of my peers and have also transcended the need to do anything but live an ascetic, monk-like life in the privacy and austere comfort of my mother's spare bedroom.
Mecca. To celebrate the most powerful book ever written.
>>8131629
it's more of a religious place than a literary place, strictly speaking.
OP I would advise whatever seaside you're closest to, the colder the better.
Honestly I've always thought that travelling was boring. You just spend entire days just watching stuff or hanging around. That week I was in London was probably the most boring in my life.
>>8131658
t. a man from Swindon
>>8131674
What the fuck is Swindon?
>>8131658
>London
>boring
you are tired of life, anon
>>8131686
Probably. It's just that I don't really give a shit about stuff that's out of my interests
Can't believe nobody has mentioned Venice.
Is Venice not /lit/ anymore (like Athens)? I haven't been but I definitely want to at some point.
>>8131688
autism ;)
Vienna is pretty comfy as well
>>8131713
Venice isn't really an actual city anymore, its kind of just a giant tourist trap
>>8127863
Lisbon
>>8131733
Vienna is shit, I was there in the autumn of 2014 and it's so fucking windy you might as well just kill yourself instead of going
>>8131763
>suicidal over wind
Fuck it, I'm still going to Vienna.
>>8131393
As someone who lives in Leeds.
London is dead. This hideous, American, repackaging of a famous "brand" city resold to the people who actually live there at extortionate rates. And yes everything is expensive as fuck. Even grass, it's like to thirty quid for an eighth in north London sheeeeeesh
>>8131781
Bring shit for your lips and cream for hands/face
It might depend on the season, but the wind will make your shell so dry you will look like the old worm in the Spongebob episode where they sell chocolate
>>8127863
Anywhere in Scotland worth visiting? I study in Aberdeen and it's dreadful. Very dull, no culture at all really. How is Edinburgh or Glasgow?
>>8131792
Found the butthurt Poortherner
>>8131802
yeah both edinburgh and glasgow are good to visit. stay away from the locals in glasgow tho.
also the highlands are very /lit/
>>8131792
I live in London and just got kicked out of my flat by my Mongolian (literally) landlord. First week I moved in she told me that two other Mongolian girls were moving in (both pig disgusting) so there were / are five of us sharing a three-room flat. Bathroom was covered in mold and there were bugs all over the tiles. They all took 30 minute showers quit often and since the bathroom is next to my room I heard them shower every night while I was trying to sleep. The girls are both students somewhere and just sit around in their dressing gowns and pyjamas all day with the heating on. The fat fucking Bolivian guy who lives there blows his nose in the shower very loudly and the Mongolian landlord does it too in the sink, often leaving boogers. I thumped the wall when he was doing it one night while I was eating and he got out of the bathroom and started hawking his throat to intimidate me. I went out and he said "I'm not your father eh, were you raised by your grandparents or something?" and I said in a very calm way that I'm not used to living with subhumans and that there are obviously different standards in Bolivia, which is probably the reason nobody from Britain wants to move there. He tried to act unfazed and basically threatened to kick me out. Fuck London. It's a shithole. I don't know what I'll do now, probably find somewhere else to live for a few months.
>>8131741
Are you the lawyer guy?
>>8132348
>eh
canadian detected
dude you had one shitty experience. everyone has them. when i was a student our fucking landlord refused to give all our deposits back because one person had torn one curtain a little bit. on the day we all moved out we took all the downstairs furniture out and set fire to it in the garden.
it doesn't mean you should hate the whole city. just find a better place to live
>>8132348
lmao kek you lived in a steamy mossy grotto with mongolians
>>8127863
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>>8131629
The answer is ether a library or your own comfy chair, you dumb idiots incapable of understanding a question... Talking about cities as /literary/, as if you could read a book from the nearest sightseeing site, man you truly are morons.
>>8132378
That's just one experience in my two years of living here. I've also lived with pig disgusting Turks who invited their family to stay and ended up moving in. They kept a rabbit in a tiny cage and never once removed it (I tipped off the RSPCA after they moved, and I will tip off the immigration office when I move now to scare these retards). I lived with a Polish guy who was pretty cool, but other than that this city needs to be purged.
>>8132378
If they don't use deposit protection scheme you can take them to small claims and get everything back + more.
#justuktenantthings
It's a pain in the arse to get it back through deposit protection too but you just threaten everyone and they agree to gib monies if they're shits.
>>8132348
Try to do that thing where you look after someone's pets while they're on holiday. It's a good time for it.
I enjoy London desu. And the expensive thing is bs ime.
>>8131792
Oh, don't get me wrong, London needs to die. The 'creative' types who are somehow hanging on by living with their parents, squatting or being homeless need to get out and leave the place to rot like the overpriced money-laundering hellhole it's become.
But that's for the poor bastards who have to live and/or work there. For a visitor, it's still pretty cool in a lot of ways and not as expensive as anon implied.
>>8132412
ras al ghul pls go
>>8132410
perhaps if you travelled a bit more you wouldn't be so angry all the time
>>8132410
>ether
are you banned from boarding planes because you are retarded?
>>8132437
What's got travelling has to do with recognising idiots? Serously, if you bring a book on a trip you are an idiot. You may bring a notebook to note the smell of urine pouring from behind that office building left by a homeless bloke while you're in states. But, if you travel you observe things, experience things, do things. You certainly won't do that by looking for "/lit/" experience in places you visit, or choosing you're stay based on what idiots think is a 'literary' city.
If you do that, you'll be hipster, a foreign tourist hipster, and you will be made fun of by clear minded people, and you will feel stupid and embarrassed. Only thing that I can do to help you with that, is point it to you with angry words. I'd punch you till you cried, but I obviously can't do that, so I'll stay with words.
>>8132658
>i have never left my home town : the post
>>8127874
>London, New York, Paris, Madrid
kek.
These cities might have been /literary/ 50 years ago but they're all chock full of niggers now.
>>8127977
Literally a shit paraphrase of Hitchens.
>>8132681
and you're going to let that change your own behaviour?
you're going to miss out on visiting, say, the louvre, the prado or the british museum, because there are some black people and/or muslims around?
kek yerself
>>8132695
I've visited those places and taken in the culture that used to come from those places. It was nice.
However, tourism is not comparable to living the bohemian /lit/ lifestyle. Something that isn't possible in a "London" that is majority muslim or a "Paris" full of niggers.
>>8127863
could places like this still even exist?
toronto
who here /collected all the feathers/?
Trieste -- visit Saba's bookstore where Joyce hung out.
Modena for the book festival
And Vienna for the cafes if you wish to chase ghosts.
Garda -- pick your town
>>8130620
Plus there's cats absolutely everywhere. Cats are a very literary thing to have.
On the other hand, there's nothing literary about the traffic jams.
>>8133090
>Cats are a very literary thing to have.
only if they have six toes
or a tall red and white stripy hat
>>8132841
not him but don't asians get clinically depressed when they visit paris because of all the non-whites and seeing the natives dress essentially like americans
>>8133138
"paris syndrome" is a thing, yes
it might be more about the non whites now but it's been around since before they became such a big thing. it started out as more like besotted japanese women who learn about a kind of idealised paris at school- beret-wearing accordion players, punting on the seine, drinking wine and eating baguettes in the champs elysee etc- who discover the reality that parisians, especially waiters, are obnoxious gobshites who hate anyone who doesn't speak perfect french and let their dogs shit everywhere
it's only really been about the muslims in the past few years. they are more than doing their bit to keep it real though.
there is also "jerusalem syndrome" where people who visit there suddenly become convinced they are jesus
there's also "stockholm syndrome" but that's not quite so amusing
>>8133168
>it's only really been about the muslims in the past few years. they are more than doing their bit to keep it real though.
elaborate
>>8132841
i was talking about local literary scenes. i guess i'm just thinking that stuff like that is a thing of the past because of the internet.
>>8131792
b..b..but I pay £30 for an 8th and I don't even live in London
>>8133347
Yeah 40 an 8th isn't unusual.
>>8130784
having seen the places about which a great work was written really rounds out the experience
>>8127863
Naples is a more literary Italian city.
>>8130551
Are you retarded or something?
>>8133387
It's also incredibly depressing because half the places are now shitholes filled with poor illiterate arabs and blacks. London was one of the most disgusting places I've ever been and Paris wasn't much better.
>>8133702
Visit Naples and take the ferry across to Sicily too. One of my favourite European cities, and I've been to Athens, Stockholm, Brussels, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Prague, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, Zagreb, Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Dubrovnik, Basel, Bern, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Lisbon, etc...
>>8133787
jesus i fucking hate this
>foreigner comes to big city
>is amazed to find other foreigners there
also perhaps you should have been a bit more imaginative and visited some places other than london and paris hmm? it's not like england and france are hard to get around
also if you're american clean up your own fucking back yard. i've been to washington dc. outside the nice bits like the national mall it's basically nairobi or something
>>8133046
on ac2? nobody was autistic enough for that.
>>8133855
>foreigner comes to big city
>is amazed to find other foreigners there
There's a big difference between wealthy tourists and poor shitskins setting up permanent residency and destroying the country. Half the monuments in Paris were covered in shitskin graffiti.
>also perhaps you should have been a bit more imaginative and visited some places other than london and paris
I did. There were a lot of places in France and England I loved.
