birthdaygirlstrip

To me it is the overall feeling you get for the people and the locale.

For example, I saw the eiffel tower and took some pictures, but I got a feeling for the quaintness of the little area around the tower by seeing the cafes and the people out walking their doggies.

I saw big ben, but maybe didn't see how the people in that area lived.

Getting a feel is perhaps understanding how it is for the people that live their on a day to day basis.

That's just my two cents.

escargot

our individual experiences and perspective offer all different explanations.

In my opinion, to do both, or at least a combo of both during a standard vacation time, usually requires skipping some of the 'major well known sights' to find other opportunities to feel a pulse for the place as a 'place where people live" - naturally this depends on how much time one has, and if one can be in a place, esp if it is their only chance to be there, and leave w/out seeing the 'usual things'

To me, seeing the major sights" is when I see the more structural things they are famous for : the museum, monument, bridges, dine in restaurants from the varied top ten list type of thing - or magazine articles, tour books, etc - sometimes, if lucky, with a bit of adventure thrown in with finding the less known or unusual spot to dine or hang out or a hidden gem of a small - although some only want to see what's made that destination 'famous' to the general public.

And there are times, because of time constraints, when I weight the fact that I may never return, that I opt to do the above -

The trips where I've really felt "I got a feel for the place" was when we had a bigger chunk of time, returning to a place we'd already done the 'typical major sights' and

escargot

sorry hit some button i didn't mean to...


and instead 'get a feel for the place" - these times woudl be when we rented an apartment for a month in Paris and were the only "non-french" people in the building, and made friends with the neighbors, shopped locally for our food, enough so the owners recognized and chatted and made suggestions and shared recipes, made meals in, ate at local spots where a relationship was built with owners, chefs or bartenders, enjoyed some evenings with the neighbors, and had the luxury of lazy lazy days just walking wherever our feet took us.

Or in Ravello on a long stay, and the young boy of the owner of the place we were staying made friends with our young 7 yr old and he spent his days hanging with all the local kids, going to their sports games, being invited to join in as a player, having dinners in their homes, me getting the chance to work in the owners garden with their gardener - and between pointing, my broken italian and his patience, I learned so much from him, - hanging many evenings in Ravello square with those locals we'd become friends with and not the tourists, ......these experiences are the ones that gave me a "feel for the place"