Please rate the following cities in terms of interest, sights. people, hotels and food. Paris, London, Rome, Florence, Vienna ,Salzburg, Venice,, Athens, and Barcelona using the 1st to last system. this will assist us in planning a European holiday Thanks for your help!!! Terry

Well, that's not exactly possible to do for a stranger. I mean, food is great in Paris but not if you hate French cooking. What if you don't like Greek food but someone else thinks ít is their favorite? How do we rank a city by "people"? I imagine every city on your list has fabulous hotels and total dumps. There's got to be a better way to approach your planning.

Looks like London is a given, since another post says you're flying into Heathrow... and you've planned for Barcelona although I suppose you could drop it if everyone said they hated Barcelona.

I agree with Travelnut. My favorites may not be yours...but here's my list:

Paris
London
Venice
Rome
Florence
Barcelona
Vienna

I've never been to Salzburg and Athens.

st2317, unless a person has visited every city in your question, how would they know?

Also, unless they had the same budget, the same interest, the same idea of a vacation, how would this help you?

May I gently suggest that you either go to a library, pursue websites, or buy travelbooks and figure out what would be the best for the two of you. Taking your budget and interest into consideration of course. Have fun planning your European trip.

Well, I have visited all those places (and all but Salzburg and Athens more than once).
My ratings would probably be (hard to be exact on this):

Paris
London
Rome
Venice
Vienna
Salzburg
Barcelona
Athens
Florence

But Patrick, unless st2327 has the same inerest in sights, people, hotels and food as you do, what help would your thoughts be to him? I just do not understand. Also, are the budgets the same? Just my thought, for whatever it is worth.

How 'bout we rank all the people in the world, from best to worst?

I don't kid myself that I'm at the top, but I'm ahead of Tom DeLay.

Best wishes,

Rex

I must agree with LoveItaly that everyone's likes and dislikes will vary. I think you have made a fine selection of cities to look into, so do some research on these and decide which ones suit your interests the most.

But just for fun, I will cast my vote:

Paris
London
Venice
Rome
Salzburg
Vienna
Florence
Athens

I omitted Barcelona because I haven't been there.

It really does all depend on your interests, but here goes:

Paris
London
Venice
Rome
Florence
Vienna
Salzburg
Barcelona
Athens

Ok, I'll bite. Never been to Salzburg or Vienna and don't especially want to, but as for the rest:

Rome
Athens
London
Barcelona
Florence
Venice
Paris

My tastes are:
1: Paris
2: London
3: Venice
4: Rome
5: Florence
6: Barcelona
7: Salzberg
8: Vienna
9: Athens

Rex: I had Tom Delay rated low, too. Below Athens and Barcelona, in fact.

It's a silly question as it's all subjective, and if you were analysing the results, statistically speaking there's no valid conclusion that can be drawn.

However, here goes:

Athens;
London;
Paris;
Rome;
Florence;
Venice;
Vienna;
Salzburg;
Barcelona.

Athens if full of history, character, warmth and genuine feelings, oh and the American tourists don't flock there thankfully. Barcelona is a pretentious dump that caters to Americans, and other equally pretentious wannabes, it's a really vile place. Paris is chic, a little impersonal, but it's the home of couture. London, well I live here so I suppose I should like it. The Italians, classically Italian etc etc. The Austrian connection, Helmut Lang and confections.

We all deride this system yet no-one can resist opining. I agree with all the people above who commented that the subjective opinions of strangers can be of little use.

Moreover, the system favours Austria and Italy because they have multiple choices.

If some vote for Vienna and some vote for Salzburg, you will go to Austria because the 2 places are so close. Whereas Athens will get dropped because it is far from everything else.

I have never visited Barcelona (nor Salzburg) but if M_K2 says it`s a dump, it should then be avoided.

So here are my 2005 faves (my opinions change with every trip:

Rome
Paris
Venice
London
Vienna
Florence (the above all rate pretty high on my list)
Athens (indifferent)

And I take the privilege of adding names that the OP did not include: Copenhagen, Budapest, Prague, Edinburgh

Hmmmmmmmm,

Should I rank them according to sights. people, hotels and food in that order?

What weighting should I give to each of the criteria?

This will require a 9x4 grid in which each cell is ranked on a scale of 1 to 5.

From that I shall have to set up an ANOVA analysis.

What if it turns out that there is no statistically significant difference for 2 or more cities, will you go to 2 at the same time?

How ANOVA invokes memories, and F-ratios and all that nonsense! I think we'll need several hundred more responses first, and it'll still prove inconclusive!

Thanks to everyone who ranked the cities. Interesting that Paris and London were at the top of almost everyones list in spite of comments about people being on different budgets, different tastes etc. Actually I was kind of fishing as I have been to all those cities, some 3 or 4 times, but never Barcelona and I was trying to decide if I needed to stop there on my way to Ibiza. You have certainly answered my question in spades!
Thanks " LoveItaly" ( and I do too as it is my favourite country) for your suggestion to visit libraries, web sites and travel books. I never would have thought of that. And "Eleni" you might really love Salzburg....settting in the mountains is beautiful and you can almost hear Julie Andrews singing the "sound of music"! And finally "Rex" as a Canadian does Tom Delay have a left wing brother name John Doitnow???

This is a very strange post! Particularly when the OP explains she/he has been to all the countries listed.

I don't think Tom DeLay has a brother named Doitnow. His motto is doitorelse!

st2327, if you're the kind of person that goes to Ibiza, I'm pretty sure you'll love Barcelona as well! It may not be liked by some people here, but if next to great architecture and food you like a young atmosphere, good weather and lots of fun and partying (and since you're going to Ibiza I assume you do), Barcelona is the right place for you!