then too, there is kremlin square and the square in front of the hermitage and the admiralty in st petersburg. the central square in front of the palace in prague also is quite lovely ..and crowded.

and by comparison, for open spaces consider the beauty in the southwestern part of the US-- canyonlands national park, john ford western country, Mesa Verde National Park with its anasazi and navajo cliff ruins, nearby Chaco Canyon National Monument cliff dwellings, Death Valley with its dune and windswept mountain peaks, and Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, too name a few less cluttered spaces than the squares of Europe.

The Piazza Duomo at night in
Siracusa!

St. Marks.

Piazza Santo Spirito, in Florence--- a palazzo on one side and a Brunelleschi church on another. It is austerely beautiful in winter and enchanting the rest of the year, until, like San Marco in Venice, the crowds overrun it.

Place Des Vosges is my other favorite and it seems able to withstand crowds without losing its appeal.

Well i'm off to the Hotel Carillon in Haarlem for a 4-night stay on "Europe's Most Beautiful Square" - will report back on whether this square fits the title given to it by the hotel web site. I've seen it before but will have to scrutinize it better - hopefully from my hotel window.

The square in Barcelona is the Plaça Reial, with the palms and the arcs.

I will probably vote for two very similar squares, Praça do Comercio in Lisbon and the Piazza dell´Unitá d´Italia in Trieste.

And the person who mentioned the "S" squares might be onto something : Salamanca, Siena, Plaza Porticada in Santander and Plaza de la Quintana in Santiago de Compostela ... and not a square, but the Alderdi Eder gardens in San Sebastian are also lovely.

Rgds, Cova