PalenQ

hands down. Every year watching the Tour de France I am astonished at how neat the countryside is - the gorgeous side roads - and castles and chateaus galore - medieval looking towns swirling around a grandiose church and often ancient castle - no country to me can match France for sheer beauty - well France south of Paris at least. To the north is kind of the pits. The farther south you go the more dreamy and old-looking towns and villages become and the terrain as well.

Switzerland is a close 2nd but too much all the same.

What country do you think is the most beautiful in Europe?

Check out coverage of the "Ter de Franz" on NBSSports cable channel to see how gorgeous much of France is!

iris1745

No doubt, France is so beautiful, as is the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, England and Switzerland.

I love watching the Tour.

traveller1959

I just triangled this as advertising.

hetismij2

Every country has it's beautiful parts, no one country is more beautiful than another, just different.
Every country has it's ugly parts, no one country is uglier than another, just different.

PalenQ

ah yes beauty is in the eye of the beholder! I agree all countries have their beauty - but to me at least I love France the most - all countries are equally beautiful? Not to me at least but yes maybe to youse!

Viajero2

I have to agree with you.

Traveller1959-- PalenQ has probably been posting on this forum way before you, so....advertising? nahhh. How I know? because I have been posting before either of you-- Posting since March 1993

PalenQ

Me thinks traveller1959 was jesting - for sure.

Macross

Ireland is where I keep returning. It just has so much beauty. Bavaria is my second favorite spot, Scotland, Italy, Austria and then France.

Whathello

Too bad French inhabit it.

sparkchaser

LOL @ Whathello

hetismij2

What! Many may think it but a Belgian can say it .

tonfromleiden

Scotland's west coast. Best in a light drizzle.

justineparis

I love France.. really , my favorite country.. but I think Switzerland is more beautiful over all.

I do think Paris is the most beautiful city .. but some of the countryside is boring.. or just not my taste.

Each country I have been to does have beautiful areas.. but over all Switzerland just doesn't have an boring or blah spots.

iris1745

The problem is, we don't get to see the countryside from the air, like during the Tour, so it's a very different, difficult comparison.

PalenQ

iris makes a prescient point - had not thought of the skewed view from the air but still having biked and driven and trained around the Hexagon for centuries now it still gets my nod - except of course the northern part near Belgium, one of the least attractive countries outside of the eastern portion.

I love The Netherlands too but it's same ole same old everywhere - cookie cutter modern cities and nary a hill in sight except along the German border - tower block flats everywhere but Amsterdam and some old cities like Haarlem, Alkmaar and Delft and Utrecht and Leiden, etc are neat but talking here about the flat boring countryside of canals and sluitjes and fields with trees for windbreaks and cows and cows and cows and... cows!

kerouac

The advantage of France (just like the United States) is that it has total variety of landscape and coastline as well as other bits in between. A lot of other countries have completely spectacular sights but lack the variety.

hetismij2

Sorry Pal but you are talking rubbish about the Netherlands. You clearly haven't visited much of it.

Great Britain has a huge range of countryside, and cities and villages and towns every bit as beautiful as anything in France. Ditto Germany, Italy and Spain.

Huge chunks of the places the Tour goes through are really boring from the ground.

danon

"The advantage of France (just like the United States) is that it has total variety of landscape and coastline as well as other bits in between. A lot of other countries have completely spectacular sights but lack the variety."

Sign me up for Spain...variety of :landscape,, coastline, languages and cultures, architecture..
(and the Moorish heritage )

Cowboy1968

Tonight I think that I like Portugal better than France ;-)

PalenQ

Sorry Pal but you are talking rubbish about the Netherlands. You clearly haven't visited much of it.>

au contraire - I led bike trips thru NL for a decade and then traveled all over by train -I have see more of NL than I'd say many Dutch folk.

And I like the landscapes - just that it is pretty much all the same and one town's pedestrian shopping zone seems a clone of each other - very pleasant,etc.

But you are dead wrong that I have not visited much of it - I have been to all part of NL- all parts - perhaps more than you have?

You know I love Amsterdam and NL and many Dutch cities-some of the nicest in Europe but a canal in Haarlem looks pretty much the same as a canal in Utrecht or Leiden, etc.

Much of NL seems to lack much variety on the whole.