I grew up in small Nebraska towns, and I never saw the town wake up there - after all, I lived in residential neighborhoods, and like most of us, once we were ready for school, that's where we went. And it didn't entail a trip through the center of town, or by any businesses at all, in my case.

But in NYC, even a morning trip to the subway stop can give a sample of the experience: a super washing the sidewalk on a hot morning, or salting it if there was snow; the big, noisy street sweepers, and the drivers moving their cars out of the way of that machinery so they don't get ticketed; people breakfasting at the diner, or getting a coffee to go from the bodega or bakery; folks dropping laundry or dry cleaning to pick up later in the week (and this is, of course, walking with it, not driving!) Also moms and dads dawdling or rushing little ones to day care or to school; groups waiting at the bus stop; deliveries arriving at the restaurants, grocer and other stores; too many cars streaming off the West Side Highway ... if you get up and out early enough you can witness all of that and more. We don't have that self-contained town square feeling in many places - we don't truly have even a Place Vendome or Piazza Navona. But if you're in midtown or downtown with time to spare before going into the office, you can find a place to sit, eat your pastry or bagel and sip your coffee, and definitely watch the city wake up. In a town where cars are required, you miss that, as many have noted above.

It's definitely NOT the same kind of thing as watching the European town, but it's related. Remember the scene in the film of ON THE TOWN, where the sailors see the whole city of New York transition for the last hours of night to the first hours of morning? That's it. And since, as RM67 remembered just above, the city never sleeps - so it doesn't quite wake up the same way.

Surely, the frisson comes from a basic principle: "I love work - I could watch people doing it all day".

Now, there's a man with his thumb on the pulse of the working world!

Count me in, Patrick, if you'll be organizing a work-watching tour of Europe!

But that defeats the object. No fun unless I can watch someone else doing it.

Ah, I see. So we need someone else to do the organizing ... your logic has true beauty.

We would see something very similar in our Philadelphia neighborhood, or in the towns of Cannon Beach, OR, Port Townsend, WA, and Stowe, Vermont (in September, not winter!).
But my favorite "watching the town wake up" was in Bellagio on a Monday in May. The day trippers hadn't arrived, most of the week-end visitors had left Sunday evening, it was a gorgeous morning with a just right temperature of about 70 degrees, I sat with a cappuccino at a cafe on the square at the top of the village and thought it seldom gets any better than this.

one of the more interesting cities to watch waking up is venice. If you take a very early morning vaporetto trip along the Grand Canal -- you can see the boats delivering food, the boats collecting garbage, the mist rising from the water. It's a unique perspective a beuatiful city that is so often overrun by people like us!

we took the iJourneys.com ipod walking tour and loved it.

have a snack near the aresenale -- follow the workmen in their distinctive jumpsuits and you'll have an Italian tapas (chiccchetti) lunch of every conceiveable kind of seafood.

I disagree that it is just being on vacation that makes it so special. When I am in Paris for business and walking to work, I still enjoy this scene very much. It IS different than anything you would see in US

Spanish Sundays: At about 10 am the man in the house goes out to buy the Sunday paper, bread (maybe churros!) and has a cafe in the nearest bar. All shops are closed, but cafeterias and bakeries are open (the smell...). Mass at 13:00, everyone -mostly the vey old and the very young- dressed to the nines. Half an hour later (short mass, no singing) people come out and it's time for ... el aperitivo! Parents, children and grandparents. Afterwards they go to a restaurant to have the sunday meal. Or back home (but do not forget a dozen cakes from the bakers as dessert) I miss Sundays in provincial Spain...

ttt

I leave Friday for Vienna, Prague and Berlin so I'm happily awaiting seeing large towns waking up.

I'm in GA, too...about an hour from Conyers, a tad more from Madison. We need a GTG. Any KFC or maybe even a MickeyD's inside Super WalMart....

My wife and I had a memorable experience in Avignon. We arrived on an early morning night train while it was still dark. We walked right down the middle of Rue de la Republique into town (this was several years ago before the new TGV station was built, so we arrived at Avignon Centre). No cars on the road except the street sweepers cleaning up the debris from the previous day's activities. There were just few shopkeepers out scrubbing the sidewalk, but it was still too early for most.

We arrived at Esplanade St Bénézet in time to watch the sun rise over the Pont d'Avignon and the Rhone. After sunrise we walked back past the Palais des Papes as it glowed in the early morning Provençal light. The street sweepers had completed there task and the shopkeepers busy readying for the day. The first few locals were beginning to emerge and greet the day and one another. The whole town had been transformed right before our eyes.

It is because of this that we will always have a place in our hearts for Avignon.

Sallyjane, Vienna is a very nice city to watch wake up....and it doesn't wake up too early! Most of the shops in the city centre open at 10.

I did a German Course there in December and every morning I walked through the city at 8.30, it was really nice.

I particularly like the Graben early morning.

One of my fondest memories is of sniffing out French bakers in the morning.

Years ago we were taking our boat through the Canal du Burgogne to the Med., and each morning I would wake early, put the bike ashore from where we would be moored along the canal, and pedal through the early mists into the nearest village along the towpath.

As I would enter the village I would start sniffing. Almost always I could smell bread baking. Following my nose, I would locate the bakery and buy baguette, and croissant, often from a baker who was covered with flour.

I felt very French, tooling back to the boat with baguette sticking out of the bike basket at odd angles.

Good memories!

:-)

Anoukaimee, I think I miss Provincial Spain, too, thanks to your description. And I've never been there.

And wouldn't it be fun to spend a morning this week watching the sun come up in Avignon?

The last time we were in Rome, we stayed at a small B and B (recommended by people on this board)near the forum and colosseum. We watched that area of Rome go to sleep, strolled around the ruins (boundaries since gates were up by then, of course) under a full moon, and then got up just before dawn and strolled again, watching Rome come to life. Rome has always seemed so noisy and hectic. It was great to see it in relative stillness.

Now that I am prone to awaken early, I love to get up and see sunrise and early morning life whether I am in Europe or on vacation in the U.S. or at home in the Ozarks. Watching the sun come up over the ocean as I run the walkway along the beach in Ft. Lauderdale is not quite the treat that being in Europe is, of course, but I have great memories of doing that. PJ

PJK
Runners, the ones who run in the AM before work that is, as opposed to the ones who run in the evening, get to see the waking up wherever they are.

On my first trip to Paris I was sleeping badly, a combination of a sinus thing I couldn't shake and the time dif. When I would wake up at 5:00 a.m. I'd contemplate the world for half an hour, then finally just get up and go for a walk. We were staying at the Britannique, near Hotel de Ville and just across the Seine from Ile de la Cite.

Emerging from the hotel at 5:30-6:00 I would find plenty of people stirring in the center of Paris. Some were the usual urban workers: trash collection and street cleaning just winding down, deliveries just begining. Strolling across to Notre Dame, with the sky just brightening, or on another day with a fog, very little traffic noise the first half hour or so, passing a priest or a maybe another early riser or two, being passed by the occasional jogger, as the Seine islands are a nice place to run. One morning I saw workers putting up Christmas decorations outside a little row of shops.

I discovered a newsstand on Ile St. Louis that, like newsstands the world over, opens at dawn with the early editions. There I happened on beautiful postcards of Paris under snow, which I bought by the dozen and mailed out as Xmas greetings to the US before leaving France.

Taking that daybreak walk is one of my favorite images of Paris. The calm, the chance to look without hurry, to watch people heading off to work or home from the night shift; being among the first to grab a coffee at the cafe or patisserie while listening to the chatter (uncomprehended by me) of the customers and staff. Seeing schoolchildren being kids in the street in that short interval of freedom between home and ecole, being noticed pleasantly by the hotel staff, being the only person in view or earshot when you turn a corner onto a pretty, narrow street.

Early risers tell you they get this every day! Thinking about it makes me think I should start getting up earlier ...

My husband and I have visited the town of Oia, Santorini several times in the high season over the past few years. We just love it. I have seen Santorini described on this board many times as busy and touristy and this might put a lot of people off. This is not my experience because I adore getting up around 7am and going for a walk as the sun rises over the island. It's just me, some sleeping dogs and usually some elderly ladies helping each other down those steps to church. I love standing outside the churches and listening to the priests chanting and smelling the incense. You can take perfect pictures of the ice-cream coloured houses without disturbing anyone or being disturbed by the cruise ship passengers who swell the streets by 11am.

This year I have been persuaded to go to the Amalfi Coast so I will miss my beloved Oia. But I am very much looking forward to an early morning rise on Capri as I hear it's a magical island too.

In Boulder, CO, known by most people in the rest of Colorado as the Peoples Republic of Boulder, you would strap on your Birkenstocks and head to the Trident Cafe and Bookstore to watch the city wake up. Almost as cool would be the Boulder Bookstore (and cafe) a few blocks away but on the Pearl St outdoor mall. It's not a bad way to spend a nice summer's morning if you have nothing else to do before your tee time later on that day. Boulder seems to hit the brakes frenetic-wise in the small downtown area.

Bill

Great image, nukesafe.

My first arrival in Paris was marked by a strange enconter in St Merry Church but I enjoyed the coffee I took after that. Though I was working, I was glad to be in the place of art par excellence. And today, that I am trying to make a living there and that I am tried by circonstancies of all kind, I still enjoy to pause at the first terrasse and pry the so talkative form of Paris memory.

http://murcia.over-blog.com

It seems much more relaxed because you're on vacation. You can do the same in small American towns and see similar sights. It's just that we aren't usually on vacation in small American towns.

" we aren't usually on vacation in small American towns"...
Hmmmmm, I wonder why not.......

As an early riser, I too love the vibe of the early-morning "coming to life" of towns and cities in Europe, when the misty and dew are gently kissed by an unfiltered sun on the rise, and the local merchants are sweeping their doorways and stocking up their wares.

It's the best time to get a good shot of the ancient town square, before it fills up with cars. And it's the best time to get croissants while they're still warm and fresh.

Wish I was having one of those moments right now.

There are great small towns in the US.

There are great cities in the US.

BUT, life in Many European towns still - for the moment - retains more of the picturesque flavor than most US towns. Lots of reasons to explore, as all have noted, but certainly the car culture and relocation of small businesses out of town centers has a lot to do with it. Go to a suburban European enclave and it looks less like "Europe" and more like us!

I have only ever seen this in Madrid (very hot and dry in the summer). Early in the morning-like 6h00am, they spray the streets with water. I loved it, as if the whole city was taking a shower before work. Like its people.

Favorite places for an early morning stroll include Bejing (after the flag raising AT DAWN) Central London around Covert Garden during the set-up, but the winner is Salzburg in the late summer finishing with a coffee in the old city (It just takes your breath away no matter which way you walk) Love it

My most memorable wake-up was in Grindelwald, Switzerland, in late September, when the shepherds bring the cows down from higher to lower pastures for the season. While not quite the bustle of set-ups for the days, it signaled the change of seasons, and a concern of the area.

'By the way, this comes with a recommendation for a stay at the Hotel Gletchergarten, a wonderful Swiss inn on the edge of town. Family-run for many generations. View of the Eiger and glacier from many rooms.

It is so great to hear others' great memories of the day's early hours, somewhere in Europe.

Makes us all wish we were there right now!!!!

<i>&quot;By the way, this comes with a recommendation for a stay at the Hotel Gletchergarten, a wonderful Swiss inn on the edge of town. Family-run for many generations. View of the Eiger and glacier from many rooms.&quot;</i>

Seconded. We loved the place.

Here are two views from the front porch:

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/111...53249937eCiWPM

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/111...53249937BOThlW

I woke up this morning in my house in Northern Illinois, put on my slippers, grabbed my cuppa joe and went to my deck to watch my back yard wake up - sun coming over the trees, birds going everywhere and the dew on the flowers. Almost anywhere is magical if you take the time to see it...Maybe we just don't take the time when we're not on vacation.