Where do you advise others NOT to visit - and why?

I kind of agree with you there, OD.
Visited Hungary once and remember the tour guide proudly showing us the bullet holes in various buildings from when the Soviets invaded.
A couple of ladies in the party had their bags snatched in the entrance to St Matthew's Cathedral in Budapest.
I got approached by a bloke who flashed some ID at me and demanded to see my money, in case I was trying to change money on the street, but wisely kept hold of my wallet.
As for the prostitute bedsits... ahem.... The locals may be ugly, but some of the 'expatriates' are very easy on the eye. Before anyone gets all moralistic at me, it was a long time ago and I was very young....

Well we all have to try the delights in life "thetruth".

Talking of Italy, how about Trieste? Took a daytrip there while staying in Slovenia and on the road into town you pass what looks like a huge petrochemical plant - 'bienvenito a Trieste' I think not....

There is apparently an asylum seekers quarter in Italy and I think its Naples where the army have actually had roadblocks and guard the roads in and out of the housing estate because it is so dangerous and its been there for years - Naples is a bad city!!! Mafia-tastic costa nostra-munguous!!!

Very true Fruity, I can't think of anywhere either

Well put, rosetta. I was born in Germany (father in the MoD) and returned a couple of times recently to visit where I'd lived the first years of my life (too young to remember, of course).

Brilliant roads - cruising along a deserted autobahn on a sunny October morning was spooky, made all the spookier when the only other two cars on the road shot past me at 150mph and disappeared into the distance again. On the other hand, crossing urban roads on foot was an exercise in courage - they might have urban speed limits, but they'll damned well hit those limits in two seconds flat!

Brilliant service (the hotel I stayed in both times was immaculate and had the most comfortable beds I've ever found) but also eco-stingy (lights you couldn't read by because the bulbs were tiny - you aren't meant to stay up at night, you must go to sleep!!). The staff (a family, I think) were intrigued that I'd lived just up the very same street as a new-born baby. I'd go back there without hesitation.

However, so arrogant! One abiding memory is of an argument with a pub-restaurant waitress about the meaning of Dunkelbier: having eaten in there once and been treated to proper nice dark beer, I returned a year later to be served what I'd liken to bog-standard bitter. "Entschuldigen bitte - diese ist nicht Dunkelbier.." "Es ist UNSER Dunkelbier!!" and so on. There does seem to be a big forthrightness about the German people, but the country scenery is breathtaking - something you see all over Europe rather than in the UK because there's SPACE on the continent.

It shuts on sundays - weird for a Brit who's used to 7-day shopping - mad-dash urban roads suddenly look like there's been a holocaust (oooops...).

And lastly, EXPENSIVE.... I couldn't afford to live there. We have much to appreciate in Britain in terms of price competition that has driven down consumer costs, but just doesn't happen in Germany.

Thanks for rekindling the memories!

I lived in Germany for a couple of years, I really liked it there. The area we lived in had been flattened by the RAF in WW2, and we were RAF, so the locals weren't exactly friendly to us, but I persevered and once I got to know them, I liked them a lot!

We didn't live on base, we lived in the local town with the Germans, so an English friend and I were asked if we would meet up with some Germans who wanted to practise their English. We said we'd love to, and it ended up as a regular drunken night in the pub every week! Happy times!

Just out of curiosity, which bit of Germany? I was born in a RAF hospital, lived in Monchengladbach and my father worked at Rheindahlen.

This was supposed to be about places NOT to visit, I thought, rather than waxing lyrical....

Same here, thetruth, my now ex-husband was based at Rheindahlen and we lived in Rheydt, just on the edge of Moenchengladbach! Small world!

I lived in Rheydt too! Small world.

Fruits, if you weren't divorced, I'd start wondering whether you were my mother incognito....

When were you there?

1970-71 in Rheydt, then we moved to a house on the British estate in Monchengladbach for 3 years.

I'm not your mother then (whew!), we were there in the mid 1980s and we didn't move on to the base, we were in Rheydt the whole time...Richard Wagner Strasse.

We lived above a grocer's shop on Dahlener Strasse.

Think I remember Dahlener Strasse, am sure that was quite near us!

Got it...Dahlener Strasse was near the park, if I remember rightly...

What a small world...........

Lol, isn't it just, Jazz! :-)

Just google earth'd it and found that Richard Wagnerstrasse is the next along from Bruckner Allee - and my family lived either on Bruckner Allee or Blumenstrasse at some point....
The world keeps getting smaller!

That's right, thetruth, Brucknerallee was just next to Richard Wagner Strasse!

RW Strasse was a lovely boulevard lined with trees, we had the Polizei HQ behind us, which was cool in one way because the mounted police always rode along it, and the horses were so beautiful, but the down side was that the dear Polizei were totally incapable of driving in or out of their HQ at anything less than suicidally fast and with all their sirens going full blast! RW Strasse also had the best Schnelli just across the road! :-)

What an interesting posting thetruth and fruity. I have mentioned before that I was in West Berlin in 1989 just before the wall was taken down and visited East Berlin going through check point charlie. We bought some china in some shop behind some curtains I remember that much. We also went on a restaurant train for breakfast, lunch and evening meal to West Germany (I think I am right there) and it was a wonderful experience. The soldiers stood at the doors of the train with their guns and took our passports and then did the goose walk down the station. We weren't able to get off the train until we got to Germany where we were given our passports back.

Sabre, I still have my East German money from East Berlin!

I had an 'Ossie' (from near Dresden) penpal as a teenager in the '80s and acquired a bit of the East German currency from her - a bit like toy money.

It would have been interesting to have visited behind the Iron Curtain before it all came down.

Last time I visited Rheydt, I walked up Bruckner Allee & RW Strasse on my way out to Schloss Rheydt. Mid-autumn, all the trees shedding massively, but there was a roadsweeper lorry going up and down constantly, to keep things tidy. A nice stretch of road because all the traffic goes up the parallel main roads instead. A bit of a long walk to the Schloss, though.

It was always a neat and tidy street when we lived there, thetruth, although there was (and probably still is!) a college at the end of the street and all the students used to park their old bangers all around the trees! And, yes, it's a long walk to the Schloss from there...and not very exciting when you get there! ;-)

I have some lovely photos of RW Strasse covered in snow!

I completely agree - I've never been there and even the thought of going there scares me - truly the Wild East. I'd say the same for much of Africa and South America, when there's the likes of Bob Mugabe, Nelson Mandela & Hugo Chavez floating about.

And all of the middle east.

Yeah the world is actually becoming a smaller place - travel wise....For Christians and jewish people that is!

I see where you're coming from, thetruth, but I wouldn't include Nelson Mandela in the same category as Mugabe and Chavez.

Why not?

Ask any South African and they will tell you what they really think of the man - we have been brainwashed in this country like we were over Mugabe - Mandela has given all his cronies in the ANC jobs , big paycheques and lots of other nasty stuff - Remember he was a terrorist and murdered innocent people these are things people forget.

My next door neighbour is South African by the way - he had to leave because of Mandela and his cronies.

Any wonder the country is going down the sh*****

A lot of the poor townships are actually saying that they were better off under Apartheid so go figure eh!

Dont listen to the media Feline I know you women have romantic ideals of the poor and imprisoned but a lot of them are there for good reason and we in the west were quite happy to take all the diamonds and gold from south africa without thinking about the terrors and bad people involved in the gold and diamond industry out there pre-Mandela.

Wow, Omen, having been to both Zim and SA, and having friends in Zim, I will have to digest that.....

Seriously omen? Wow im in shock reading that! I love reading your opinions and as always you've given us food for thought!! ;)

A former work colleague (who was white South African and came to the UK for some peace) took his wife and baby daughter back there a few years ago, to set up his own business in the Jo'burg area. He was robbed and blackmailed so much by (Black) yobbos, with the police paying no attention, until they had to flee SA a second time - penniless. It's been a complete nightmare since the ANC took over - lawless, no-go areas and the general recommendation is not to stop at traffic lights unless your car has bullet-proof glass. Recently I encountered another SA exile who confirmed that nothing had changed.

Thats horrendous, thetruth!
Maybe our country isn't as bad after all!

I visited Russia for a month with a school party back in '75. Can still remember so much of it today. The never-ending train journeys, the greyness, the food, Lenin's tomb, the Kremlin, great memories. But wouldn't want to live there.

Oh wow, you lucky thing Bonz, I've always wanted to go there!! Our school never went anywhere so exciting!

I always fancied travelling on the Trans-Siberian train, until I heard that they give you fish heads for breakfast and the lavatories are frozen up.

Oh heck I wouldn't last long with food there!

Surely in this day and age, the Trans Siberian train has better food on offer? Mind you, I can believe the frozen lavatories.

Trust me, compared to some of the meals on offer the fish heads were a veritable delicacy!!

Not the best of places for a veggie then! I'd have a case of crackers and marmite!!

Isn't it such a pity nothing stays the same! Sometimes it's not even for the better, Rosetta! So sad!

A lot of the Middle East would be nice to visit - to soak up the history and culture - if it weren't for foreigners interfering to grab the oil and sponsor neighbours to attack one another. Truly sad.

Yes if it wasn't for greedy governments wanting just to steal and grab Iraqi oil and now pursuing Iranian oil under the same old false pretences of Human Rights, these might have been 2 countries worth visiting. It is too dangerous now.

I do believe that the Iranian issue is nothing to do with oil - Iran knows that its oil is running out and that's why they're developing a nuclear power generation programme.
It's Israeli paranoia (they want to be the only nuclear power in the region...) plus Yankee annoyance at Iran refusing to use US-supplied nuclear technology because of the blackmail risk (the Yanks could restrict access to technology and equipment).

Strange how in modern times Iran has been attacked by Israel and invaded by Iraq (both incidents being USA-sponsored) and by contrast Iran has never invaded or attacked anybody else.