What’s the most disappointing country or city you’ve visited in Europe?
July 28, 2025
And why?
37 comments
Bruges, not because it was bad, in fact it’s a lovely city, it’s just that later on we visited ghent abd realised we’d have had a better time having an extra day in Ghent and skipping Bruges. Bruges is a bit too overly touristic while Ghent feels a lot more lived in with much of the same things available + incredible mustard.
Luik/Liege, diry, pretty boring and gray and grim for the most part. Day trip from a stay in Dutch Limburg but it was not even worth the effort, everyone left a bit dissapointed.
Amsterdam, to much tourists even it is in my home country
Honestly hasn’t anyone here ever been to Coventry or Amadora?
Türkiye – just generally an unpleasent experience. Unfirendly, partially aggressive locals, our accommodations were obviously falsely advertised and in general a series of bad experiences.
Malmo is a very dreary and bleak spot. Can’t put my finger on why, but it just felt very empty and dull
Rotterdam – people told me it was better than Amsterdam, the only way it beats Amsterdam is less tourists.
I think I had too high expectations of Brussels.
While the city has its advantages, I was shocked by the level of neglect and decay.
Milan. There’s nothing wrong with the city per se, it just wasn’t my vibe at all. Fashion, luxury and glamour aren’t really my thing.
I expect to see basically every major European city answered here. You can’t please everyone – and I’d rather see big cities please their actual inhabitants than tourists.
Paris, hated it so much I went to the airport 6 hours before my flight. I’m a big aviation enthusiast and usually love airports. But I hated that airport too
Napoli.
It was extremely dirty and run down. The locals were a mixed bunch when it came to friendliness, some were great but we were also scolded for not speaking Italian (in a tourist location?). And all in all it felt more like visiting a developing country than a European city.
Roads were bad. Traffic was chaos even by Italian standards. Everything was dirty. Hundreds of people sleeping on mattresses at tourist locations. Human excrements on the streets. Barely functional trams. Everything covered in graffiti. Rude waitstaff. And why do cities that get so hot not have any proper green spaces???
Most people would disagree but I didn’t enjoy Berlin very much. It’s not bad as cities go but I guess I had different expectations.
Lourdes – France
Nothing against France, the French or the city. But the sanctuary was a little bit tacky and the whole atmosphere made me sad. People were desperate for a cure and you could feel it.
Marseille. Not sure why (and it’s totally my fault for not researching it at all), but in my mind Marseille was a beautiful spot on the French Riviera. What’s not to like?
Well, I had to spend a week there, and it was absolutely horrible. The entire city seemingly smells of piss, with little kids roaming around shitting in the streets, you’re constantly thinking you’re going to get mugged by gangs of youths on mopeds and there’s pretty much nothing to do apart from go and get bladdered in the Irish pubs. (Most of the lists of ‘top things to do in Marseille’ suggest getting out of Marseille and going to much nicer places elsewhere in the area.)
Overall, would not recommend 😬
I kinda found Dublin boring? Much prefered Cork, Galway and even Limerick which stuns every Irish ive spoken to. Dublin was kind of just bland, and oh my god so expensive
Malta. I had high expectations but it’s now my least favorite southern European country. I’m not saying it’s bad but it’s nothing special compared to other southern European countries.
Also Athens. What’s up with the graffiti everywhere?!
Dublin. Ridiculously expensive and full of homeless and crazy people.
Russia, I’ve been there for multiple times. The infrastructure is so bad that it’s mindblowing to have this developing country next to modern and clean Finland.
The old Soviet buildings are rotting away, the flat apartments have like cowhouse corridors (nothing compares to it other than farming buildings in my own country). There are no home owner societies so the corridors and the outer building and communal garden rots away even though individual apartments can be nicely renovated inside.
Soviet buildings were famously badly built, so there are odd stairs where the stairs are not the same height etc.
I haven’t been to Moscow (except for the airport) but everywhere else all place looks neglected and not cared for.
Lenin statues still in many buildings. They call ww2 ‘the great patriotic war’ even though soviets attacked and bombed small neighboring country Finland relentlessly, and only because Stalin had made a deal with A.H1tler and Soviet Union wanted to expand.
Russians are proud of ‘freeing Europe from the nazis’ even though they weren’t much better themselves. (And US helped them with a lot of artillery / gun etc. help which they always conveniently ‘forget’). After all, they murdered millions of people in gulags, many Finns, Estonians and other minorities just because of their ethnicity. Ethnic ‘cleansings’ etc.
Now they write history again and teach the school kids a very false version of the truth, painting Russia always in the best light.
The food is mostly good when it’s home made, but the cheaper food options in supermarkets is total rubbish and unedible. I’ve tried Russian ice cream that tasted like sawmill dust. Food like that couldn’t be sold in my country at all.
Hotel breakfasts were tasty but ton of plastic was used when it wasn’t even necessary. There is absolutely no recycling, by the way. People in villages just dump their rubbish down a cliff.
There are lots of homeless dogs and cats.
Russian people are mostly friendly and great when you know them but they seem to always be very patriotic and anti-Nato/US.
Dublin was a huge dissapointment for me. The whole city is run-down, homeless people everywhere and public transit is a complete mess. I remember being truly shocked there because for some reason I expected something like a smaller version of London. The surrounding areas were nice though.
Belfast. As a tourist, I couldn’t get rid of the shadow of its past with all the graffiti and walls. The whole place gave me bad vibes.
For me Helsinki. I visited just some days after Stockholm so maybe that’s why but i found it quite dull. The famous church was covered because of renovations and apart from that church and Temppeliaukio Church which was quite nice it wasn’t thst much to see . The architecture was more russia inspired than i expected. Even though it can be appealing too it wasn’t this time. It felt quite empty too, not much people and very few restaurants where you could sit outside. At least where i was when i got hungry. I later found a georgian restaurant where i was the only customer. Maybe i need to come back and give it a second chance.
Brussels by far. It is more like a homeless camp than a bureaucratic young professionals’ city. Meanwhile, Istanbul exceeded my expectations.
Bratislava. Maybe it was due to the bad weather or the fact that I visited there while I was in Vienna, but it was quite depressing and nothing to do. Dublin is a close second. Huge expectations but the whole city was like Neukölln, Berlin.
Liechtenstein. Nothing to do. No restaurants unless you prebook. We had booked a one night stay, toured the capital in the morning when we arrived from France and by 17:30 we decided to cancel our hotel and sped to Austria. We tried to stay for dinner but that plan didn’t materialise either.
For me it’s Skoplje. The center of the city is just too much with all those big statues and façades made of styrofoam, i honestly felt like I was in Disneyland. The only part I actually liked was the old town, the bazaar was quite nice and had some great turkish coffee which gave it kind of a oriental vibe. The fortress was also nice, it had a good view of the Disneyland parts of the city 😂
Bratislava is still the most boring capital that I’ve visited and I’ve been to Podgorica
Athens. I was expecting so much and it was so grey, run down and dirty.
Milan, does not look like an Italian city. Very industrial and boring tbh.
Salisbury. Went there with my bodybuilder comrade to sell some supplements and see the world-famous cathedral spire. Wasn’t very impressed with it, to be brutally honest.
Torino.. i was told about its charm. but i found any city in France or Austria is much more lively and lovely than Turin. In simple words it was very boring
Naples. Every mode of transportation was terrible. Walking, City bus, Car. Only metro/train was decent. The city was very loud. Tried to buy tickets for the match, everyone was unfriendly and not supportive at all.
But the nearby islands Ischia and Procida were superb.
not country but city – Bucharest. it has a few good parts but really dirty and overcrowded. i even saw a derelict building with a tree growing out of it not far from the centre! from the european capitals i visited it was definitely the worst in my opinion.
but i do recommend rest of romania, from what i saw Timisoara was prob my favourite, but im coming back to see more next month to see the the north and black sea coast of romania. (also visiting moldova)
Brussels. To this day it’s the only other city I’ve been to that made me say “maybe Dublin isn’t so bad”.
Margate was a real shock. I mean I didn’t expect anything, and I had been to Blackpool and Southend-on-sea before so I had a rough idea of what British seaside towns can be, but Margate was on a completely different level. (Both Blackpool and Southend are actually okay).
Bratislava. It is my fault, we were reading articles that described it in superlatives, as ‘little Prague’ or ‘little Wien’ and the ‘new center of Europe’…
Yeah, no…
Bratislava was disappointing. I had multiple unpleasant experiences there and the people seemed to be very rude to me at times. Not sure if I am Chinese contributed it.
Rome.
I wouldn’t say I was disappointed with it per se, but everywhere was just too busy to properly enjoy.
37 comments
Bruges, not because it was bad, in fact it’s a lovely city, it’s just that later on we visited ghent abd realised we’d have had a better time having an extra day in Ghent and skipping Bruges. Bruges is a bit too overly touristic while Ghent feels a lot more lived in with much of the same things available + incredible mustard.
Luik/Liege, diry, pretty boring and gray and grim for the most part. Day trip from a stay in Dutch Limburg but it was not even worth the effort, everyone left a bit dissapointed.
Amsterdam, to much tourists even it is in my home country
Honestly hasn’t anyone here ever been to Coventry or Amadora?
Türkiye – just generally an unpleasent experience. Unfirendly, partially aggressive locals, our accommodations were obviously falsely advertised and in general a series of bad experiences.
Malmo is a very dreary and bleak spot. Can’t put my finger on why, but it just felt very empty and dull
Rotterdam – people told me it was better than Amsterdam, the only way it beats Amsterdam is less tourists.
I think I had too high expectations of Brussels.
While the city has its advantages, I was shocked by the level of neglect and decay.
Milan. There’s nothing wrong with the city per se, it just wasn’t my vibe at all. Fashion, luxury and glamour aren’t really my thing.
I expect to see basically every major European city answered here. You can’t please everyone – and I’d rather see big cities please their actual inhabitants than tourists.
Paris, hated it so much I went to the airport 6 hours before my flight. I’m a big aviation enthusiast and usually love airports. But I hated that airport too
Napoli.
It was extremely dirty and run down. The locals were a mixed bunch when it came to friendliness, some were great but we were also scolded for not speaking Italian (in a tourist location?). And all in all it felt more like visiting a developing country than a European city.
Roads were bad. Traffic was chaos even by Italian standards. Everything was dirty. Hundreds of people sleeping on mattresses at tourist locations. Human excrements on the streets. Barely functional trams. Everything covered in graffiti. Rude waitstaff. And why do cities that get so hot not have any proper green spaces???
Most people would disagree but I didn’t enjoy Berlin very much. It’s not bad as cities go but I guess I had different expectations.
Lourdes – France
Nothing against France, the French or the city. But the sanctuary was a little bit tacky and the whole atmosphere made me sad. People were desperate for a cure and you could feel it.
Marseille. Not sure why (and it’s totally my fault for not researching it at all), but in my mind Marseille was a beautiful spot on the French Riviera. What’s not to like?
Well, I had to spend a week there, and it was absolutely horrible. The entire city seemingly smells of piss, with little kids roaming around shitting in the streets, you’re constantly thinking you’re going to get mugged by gangs of youths on mopeds and there’s pretty much nothing to do apart from go and get bladdered in the Irish pubs. (Most of the lists of ‘top things to do in Marseille’ suggest getting out of Marseille and going to much nicer places elsewhere in the area.)
Overall, would not recommend 😬
I kinda found Dublin boring? Much prefered Cork, Galway and even Limerick which stuns every Irish ive spoken to. Dublin was kind of just bland, and oh my god so expensive
Malta. I had high expectations but it’s now my least favorite southern European country. I’m not saying it’s bad but it’s nothing special compared to other southern European countries.
Also Athens. What’s up with the graffiti everywhere?!
Dublin. Ridiculously expensive and full of homeless and crazy people.
Russia, I’ve been there for multiple times. The infrastructure is so bad that it’s mindblowing to have this developing country next to modern and clean Finland.
The old Soviet buildings are rotting away, the flat apartments have like cowhouse corridors (nothing compares to it other than farming buildings in my own country). There are no home owner societies so the corridors and the outer building and communal garden rots away even though individual apartments can be nicely renovated inside.
Soviet buildings were famously badly built, so there are odd stairs where the stairs are not the same height etc.
I haven’t been to Moscow (except for the airport) but everywhere else all place looks neglected and not cared for.
Lenin statues still in many buildings. They call ww2 ‘the great patriotic war’ even though soviets attacked and bombed small neighboring country Finland relentlessly, and only because Stalin had made a deal with A.H1tler and Soviet Union wanted to expand.
Russians are proud of ‘freeing Europe from the nazis’ even though they weren’t much better themselves. (And US helped them with a lot of artillery / gun etc. help which they always conveniently ‘forget’). After all, they murdered millions of people in gulags, many Finns, Estonians and other minorities just because of their ethnicity. Ethnic ‘cleansings’ etc.
Now they write history again and teach the school kids a very false version of the truth, painting Russia always in the best light.
The food is mostly good when it’s home made, but the cheaper food options in supermarkets is total rubbish and unedible. I’ve tried Russian ice cream that tasted like sawmill dust. Food like that couldn’t be sold in my country at all.
Hotel breakfasts were tasty but ton of plastic was used when it wasn’t even necessary. There is absolutely no recycling, by the way. People in villages just dump their rubbish down a cliff.
There are lots of homeless dogs and cats.
Russian people are mostly friendly and great when you know them but they seem to always be very patriotic and anti-Nato/US.
Dublin was a huge dissapointment for me. The whole city is run-down, homeless people everywhere and public transit is a complete mess. I remember being truly shocked there because for some reason I expected something like a smaller version of London. The surrounding areas were nice though.
Belfast. As a tourist, I couldn’t get rid of the shadow of its past with all the graffiti and walls. The whole place gave me bad vibes.
For me Helsinki. I visited just some days after Stockholm so maybe that’s why but i found it quite dull. The famous church was covered because of renovations and apart from that church and Temppeliaukio Church which was quite nice it wasn’t thst much to see . The architecture was more russia inspired than i expected. Even though it can be appealing too it wasn’t this time. It felt quite empty too, not much people and very few restaurants where you could sit outside. At least where i was when i got hungry. I later found a georgian restaurant where i was the only customer. Maybe i need to come back and give it a second chance.
Brussels by far. It is more like a homeless camp than a bureaucratic young professionals’ city. Meanwhile, Istanbul exceeded my expectations.
Bratislava. Maybe it was due to the bad weather or the fact that I visited there while I was in Vienna, but it was quite depressing and nothing to do. Dublin is a close second. Huge expectations but the whole city was like Neukölln, Berlin.
Liechtenstein. Nothing to do. No restaurants unless you prebook. We had booked a one night stay, toured the capital in the morning when we arrived from France and by 17:30 we decided to cancel our hotel and sped to Austria. We tried to stay for dinner but that plan didn’t materialise either.
For me it’s Skoplje. The center of the city is just too much with all those big statues and façades made of styrofoam, i honestly felt like I was in Disneyland. The only part I actually liked was the old town, the bazaar was quite nice and had some great turkish coffee which gave it kind of a oriental vibe. The fortress was also nice, it had a good view of the Disneyland parts of the city 😂
Bratislava is still the most boring capital that I’ve visited and I’ve been to Podgorica
Athens. I was expecting so much and it was so grey, run down and dirty.
Milan, does not look like an Italian city. Very industrial and boring tbh.
Salisbury. Went there with my bodybuilder comrade to sell some supplements and see the world-famous cathedral spire. Wasn’t very impressed with it, to be brutally honest.
Torino.. i was told about its charm. but i found any city in France or Austria is much more lively and lovely than Turin. In simple words it was very boring
Naples. Every mode of transportation was terrible. Walking, City bus, Car. Only metro/train was decent. The city was very loud. Tried to buy tickets for the match, everyone was unfriendly and not supportive at all.
But the nearby islands Ischia and Procida were superb.
not country but city – Bucharest. it has a few good parts but really dirty and overcrowded. i even saw a derelict building with a tree growing out of it not far from the centre! from the european capitals i visited it was definitely the worst in my opinion.
but i do recommend rest of romania, from what i saw Timisoara was prob my favourite, but im coming back to see more next month to see the the north and black sea coast of romania. (also visiting moldova)
Brussels. To this day it’s the only other city I’ve been to that made me say “maybe Dublin isn’t so bad”.
Margate was a real shock. I mean I didn’t expect anything, and I had been to Blackpool and Southend-on-sea before so I had a rough idea of what British seaside towns can be, but Margate was on a completely different level. (Both Blackpool and Southend are actually okay).
Bratislava. It is my fault, we were reading articles that described it in superlatives, as ‘little Prague’ or ‘little Wien’ and the ‘new center of Europe’…
Yeah, no…
Bratislava was disappointing. I had multiple unpleasant experiences there and the people seemed to be very rude to me at times. Not sure if I am Chinese contributed it.
Rome.
I wouldn’t say I was disappointed with it per se, but everywhere was just too busy to properly enjoy.