Best and Worse places you have visited in the UK

dvds2000

dvds2000

Gone But Not Forgotten
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ok, so shamlessly nicked from another forum, just wondered what people though were good and bad area's.

For me, I love London (bit not to live, just to visit), Edinburgh and the Northumbrian national parks are lovely. However, my favourite area has to be the west coast of Scotland, especially around Ayr, Brig o Doon, Culzean Castle, Alloway (Burns Cottage), the Lochs, Ailsa Craig and the countryside is all stunning, on the rare occasion it doesn't rain of course :D. The Electric Brae is weird too, still baffles me now (although I do know how it happens, it still doesn't make sense when your car rolls up a hill!)

Worst area has to be Middlesborough, what a **** hole, full of smack heads and prostitutes, what a depressing area. Stanley is horrible (Co. Durham) and Benwell in Newcastle - wear a stab proof vest if you visit there. Weirdly, considering the surrounding area, Ayr town centre is horrible. I used to go on holiday there with my parents every year in the late 70's and most the 80's and loved it, was a lovely town. Took my mam up there about 6 years ago, omg, what has happened to it, what a horrible, dirty run down **** hole it has turned into. Blackpool is the same sort of place, in the 80's great to go on holiday to, now full of subhuman scum (no disrespect to anyone who lives there!)

Where have others been that have impressed or made you never want to go again?
 
London is without parallel. l I live here and still find more and more. I cycle different routes most weekends and work in town a lot. never ceases to amaze me what i find. Has to be the best

Agree west coast of Scotland although further up is my experience. stunning. and do like Edinburgh a lot Good choices

The South Downs are beautiful and Brighton is a fine and vibrant town. York I like a lot. Liverpool I know well and enjoy but it's unbelievably down at heel in places. I like west Wales too. I fact there are many many places

Worst?

Hmmm. Manchester leaves me cold. Perhaps most overrated. Medway towns are a bit grim. Croydon is a mess but know nice people down there. Doncaster is a dump

But worst place I've been to lately is tilbury. Fcking hell it's horrible
 
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I would only ever go to London if I had to. Been there a few times and never met so many ill-humoured morons in any other city anywhere I've been. Makes New York look the friendliest place on earth by comparison.

Cheltenham was great for the races (and the forumites) but the one evening spent in the pub in the company of locals was unpleasant. I had to leave and find a bar with plenty of Irish folk to be made welcome. It seems the Irish accent is very welcome but not the Scottish one.

I quite fancy Yorkshire but have never stopped off there.

I wouldn't really want to nominate anywhere in Scotland as I'd probably come across as biased. Anywhere north of the Trossachs is worth seeing and I really enjoyed going to Mallaig and Morar and other places out that way.
 
To be fair Clive, and I'm originally from London, it isn't exactly a City with the friendliest people on the planet. I'm not saying everyone is like that in London, but alot are.

To add balance though, I've been chased down a street in Ayr with about 6 Scottish lads shouting get the english **** :D
 
There's good and bad everywhere . Cornwall can be very surly but certainly don't tarnish everyone there as a moron. And yes I've had great friendliness in Scotland and stinking attitude too

I take as I find.
 
Enjoyed Edinburgh a lot.

Been to Birmingham a lot and it's not really moved with the times

Liverpool is a great city, travel over 4-5 times a year.
 
Being a sociopath I find that most cities are horrible. Especially London - a stinking shathole of a place, crammed full of cunts. You would need to be paying me to make me go there again.

Britain is, however, awash with beautiful countryside, be it the sensually strange East Anglia, the bleak hills, interspersed with postcard villages of Yorkshire and the Dales, the lush beauty of the Scottish Borders or the natural splendour of the Trossachs.

Keep people in the cities away from me, that's what I say.
 
dvds2000 said:
To be fair Clive, and I'm originally from London, it isn't exactly a City with the friendliest people on the planet. I'm not saying everyone is like that in London, but alot are.

To add balance though, I've been chased down a street in Ayr with about 6 Scottish lads shouting get the english **** :D
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I'm not saying they're all like that either.

The last time I was down (about 10 years ago) a woman helped me work out which tube train I needed and we got talking as we waited. Turned out we were getting off at the same station and we chatted very pleasantly for the entire time and said our goodbyes very respectfully. She almost changed my mind about Londoners.

Then some kunt barged past me as I was exiting the station mumbling something along the lines of, "Fuxake..."

Then Clivex joined the forum.

I rest my case.

Ayr has also gone downhill a lot, I agree.

And I was very disappointed when I passed through Elgin some years back. Obviously a beautiful little city at some point in the past but badly run-down with loads of empty shops.

Lossiemouth, just along the road, has beautiful beaches.

I really liked Port Soy too. Very granitey.
 
Oh, and Cumbernauld was thoroughly deserving of the Carbuncle Award a few years back. The town centre there is totally soulless. The surrounding housing areas are okay but the town centre is the pits.

I imagine many of the new towns developed in the 50s and 60s will be quite similar but fair play to the people who oversee East Kilbride (used to be a local development authority, who were brilliant, but now run by South Lanarkshire, I think) as they have done their best to keep the place attractive although I know people who live in the posh bit of Glasgow just down the road who wouldn't set foot in the place.
 
Bar the Bull said:
I liked Arundel in Sussex. I liked west Wales. Bath is lovely, even though it is over-run with tourists.

Not so hot on Torquay (surrounding area is nice, though.

Hated Lewisham and Croydon.
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Arundel is very nice, have stayed there several times.

Sussex in general is great.
 
Lived in London for a couple of years in the very late 70's, and loved it.
It truly is one of the worlds great cities. A vibrant place with so much for all age groups. A lifetime isn't lng enough to see all that London has to offer.

I enjoyed visiting quite a few times both the inland and coastal areas of Kent. The cinque ports are lovely; whilst inland is dotted with these wonderful little villages with cricket greens, and pubs and churches still as they were in the middle ages.
Agree with the comment above about the larger Medway towns however -- Gillingham, Sittingbourne, Croydon etc etc nothing much to praise about them.

Visited Devon once, and would like to return someday. Dawlish is lovely and quite unique.

Worst place ever -- and anywhere -- was Glasgow. I found it quite threatening. And very grim. Nor could I understand anything the locals were saying. The pubs were awful, the streets down-at-heel. But that was in the Eighties -- I haven't been back since. :)
 
I love Glasgow but agree about it being a bit threatening; only time I spent there was when my son was studying Mackintosh and we took him there to see the School of Art etc. At the time I preferred it to Edinburgh, but now I spend more time there Edinburgh is my favourite [sorry Glasgow]. Have just come back from Northumberland, somewhere that is so different from my favourite place in the world [Cornwall] that it took a while to grow on me [the flat beaches not comparing favourably to the rocky coves that I love] but the history of the place quite overwhelms me [we can see Lindisfarne in the distance]. However, I don't want too many people discovering it as it's wonderful driving for ages without seeing another car, and the sky at night, with no light haze from a nearby town is amazing [want to be there for the next meteor shower if possible]. People are really friendly as well. I spent my misspent late teens in Cornwall [mainly Boscastle]and did find the locals weren't too keen on the emmetts, although it was more second generation Cornish folk that felt that, not the proper locals.A little gem in the [Northumberland] area is the Ashington mining museum, which houses the work of the 'Pitmen Painters' Had a rotten holiday in Brighton once so I don't have a great desire to go back there. Once realised that I know London less than places like Paris and Venice and feel I need to get to know it, although it does frighten me. Nearly lived there when my ex was offered a job but after two days we just looked at each other and both said 'lets go home' so we did.
 
I've never felt threatened in Glasgow, certainly not in the city centre.

The only thing that did annoy me once was my first evening in town for many years, going to meet my late mate Jim for a pint after not seeing each other for a long time. I had to walk from Central Station up to the pub near Queen Street Station and was stopped maybe 6 or 7 times by young folk begging for money. I reckon I could take any young jakey-junkie if it came to it but I couldn't help but be dismayed at the impression outsiders would have on facing the same 'welcome'.

I've been in town in the evening a few times since and it hasn't been as bad, though.

Edinburgh is a beautiful city. Shame about the people...
 
I worked in London through the 70s and 80s and would never want to do so again. Londoners are (mainly) fine but the tourists are a nightmare. I enjoyed living in St Albans. In those days it was supposed to have had more pubs per head of population than any other city in England.
North Wales is a decent place to live although, like anywhere that you put down roots, it's best to remember that it's their country so you do it on their terms.
Probably my favourite British city is Chester. Compact but full of history.
 
Did you ever go in that pub at Old Brickett Wood [The Fox ??]that had the photo of Arkle in the bar [not Arkle in the bar but Arkle outside the pub with his lad having a pint whilst out exercising him there]. Sadly the pub was decorated and the photo disappeared [hope to goodness it wasn't destroyed].
 
moehat said:
Did you ever go in that pub at Old Brickett Wood [The Fox ??]that had the photo of Arkle in the bar [not Arkle in the bar but Arkle outside the pub with his lad having a pint whilst out exercising him there]. Sadly the pub was decorated and the photo disappeared [hope to goodness it wasn't destroyed].
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I don't recall it. I tended to go to the Garibaldi, the Lower Red Lion and the Goat in the centre and the Plough at Tyttenhanger Green out of town.
 
There are plenty of nice and interesting places to see in every part of the UK, so I'll only mention some not already referred to.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Lake District, which is everything they say about it. I loved the drive along Hadrian's Wall, the open skies of East Anglia, market and cathedral towns like Wells, Ripon and Ely, the stately homes like Blenheim and industrial heritage of places like Saltaire and Ironbridge. I also greatly enjoyed a five day spin in a boat along the Thames, from Reading to Windsor and back.

Tilbury has been mentioned as a dire spot, and having been there several times I would agree it wouldn't be my choice of where to live, but I think Immingham is even worse.
 
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I know that seaside resorts in winter are not at their best, but a few years ago I spent one November week working in Bridlington, God it is a depressing place.
 
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