I really want U to be for Ulaanbaatar. I do. It's a capital city, so it deserves a mention but, well, no-one goes to Mongolia for a city break. Mongolia is about snow and mountains and plains and yurts. And Ulaanbaatar is largely incidental to that.
Utrecht on the other hand. Now that's a city you can city break too. It's bursting with Dutch character, somehow seeming way more Dutch than Rotterdam, and way more exciting than The Hague (as an aside, I always feel a bit daft calling it The Hague - Den Haag seems far more Right - but let's stick with the British names for the purposes of this distraction, otherwise madness lies: W for Vienna, K for Cologne, and etc).
Maybe I'm biased, I had a chum live in Utrecht for a bit, so I know it a fair bit better than Ulaanbaatar, but the whole (un)point of this is bias. So there.
U is for Utrecht.
So Europe and Asia, neck and neck on two cities. Vienna and Varanasi are on the table, which one will take the lead?
Will it be the city that I visited at the end of backpacking round Eastern Europe, where I spent more in two days than I had in the previous two weeks? Well no. You left a bad taste in my mouth, Vienna. I appreciate that that was my fault and not yours. If I visited you now I would probably think you were ace. But I didn't. I visited you in my early twenties and thought you were expensive. And a bit dull.
Varanasi on the other hand... monkeys on the roof and burning bodies on the river banks. Great food, great lassi, loads of weird. One of my favourite cities in India. But it was busy. Unpleasantly busy.
Oh hello Valparaiso. Look at you with your Chilean charm. With your culture and your poetry amd your funicular railways. I did like exploring you. Okay, you can stay. Looks like a new continent has entered the game.
V is for Valparaiso.
I should mention Vancouver, but I've not been, so it's not in the list.
Wellington and Washington. Two cities that have some really interesting bits - two of the best museums in the world (well the Smithsonian is like ten of the best museums on its own, but you know what I mean) - but ultimately feel a bit suited, a bit diplomatic and ultimately a bit soulless.
Which pretty much leaves Warsaw out there on its own. That's a city with soul - don't get me wrong, it's not as pretty as Wellington and it's not got the seen-that-on-telly familiarity of Washington but it's got that thing that you can't quite put your finger on.
W is for Warsaw.
X was always going to be for Xi'an. Not too much pondering required for that one. I'm not certain I've even heard of another X city - are there some in Mexico? I think so, but none that anyone has ever recommended to me.
Despite that, I did like Xi'an. I went for the pottery soldiers, and came away just really liking the city. The snow was crazy, the clearance crazier, the dumplings were everywhere and you could cycle on the city walls. Where else can you do that? Try and do that in Chester and you'll be tsked right off.
Plus Xi'an is somewhat immortalised for being laughed at by locals for eating weird meat off a barbecue. I think it was a ram's personal area. And if eating sheep penis doesn't make you like a city what does?
And yes, you're right. I have started at this end of the alphabet because I thought it would be easier. Umming and Aahing because I couldn't decide between Arequipa and Asuncion (bad example, my experience of Arequipa was eating Domino's whilst racked with food poisoning whereas Asuncion was all about karaoke and pirate bar. Asuncion wins hands down - but you know what I mean), whereas this end of the alphabet the cities are fewer and further between. Or all in China. Either way:
X is for Xi'an.
Yichang was my first Y city, which was one of the last gaps in my city alphabet. I was never really happy with Yichang though, it didn't feel city-y enough. Have you heard of it, no of course you haven't. Now in it's favour Yichang is bigger than Leeds, but it's in China, so most villages are bigger than Leeds. It was massive, but had the feel of a provincial market town.
What I needed was a proper, culturally significant Y city.
Yogyakarta, the soul of Indonesia, with its temples, its gudeg and its extreme spiciness. That's a good Y, right? Well yes, but we could do better. How about if an internationally significant megalopolis, chock full of streetfood and pagodas, got its capital status revoked and its name changed so that it begins with Y? Thank you Rangoon.
Y is for Yangon.
Here's a Travellercliche in Y city fact for you. Avocado smoothies are lovely. But I've only had them twice (they're not readily available, presumably because they sound weird): once in Yangon, once in Yogyakarta. Maybe Y should be for avocado smoothie.
I went to Zurich off the back of a list. It was a "best cities in the world" list and it came second after London. I went there, and it was pleasant enough with its raclette and its crystal fairy lights. But holy moly was it expensive. I heard it was expensive and went braced for London-prices-plus. I felt violated when it was double-London-plus. So Z is not for Zurich.
Zagreb, now that's a proper city. My first accidental visit (we missed a rail replacement bus - evidently just round the corner has a different meaning in Croatia) gave me enough to leave me wanting more.
My second visit bookended one of my most ramshackle backpacking trips. The stolen bag / Transylvanian lightning strike / wrong flight one - it preceded this blogging lark, so you probably don't know about it. But Zagreb was ace. An oasis of only-slight-abnormality, compared to the fist-in-the-air bonkers of the rest of the trip. Great vibe, great city.
Z is for Zagreb.
