Top three........ hmmmmmm......
Rome - The Sistine Chapel is the single most spectacular man-made creation

wink

I've ever seen. It makes me wonder how we'll be able to preserve it when we have to leave earth millions of years from now. And that's just one room in a city littlered with history. It's difficult for me to imagine living in a city with the ruins of another civilization going back over 2,000 years in my back yard. It's the kind of city where you can't tell where anything is. It's all a jumble. Yet every corner turned presents something fascinating or unexpected. In Rome you feel the presence of history like nowhere else. Other cities are old but only Rome do you have the very latest with the very oldest and everything in between. It's the attic of western civilization. Add to this the pleasant weather, great food, and the singularly Italian sense of style, and you find yourself in a city where celebrating
la dolce vita comes before everything else. Oh and you can drink from all the public fountains. The water isn't recycled and it all comes in to the city on aqueducts the Romans built 2000 years ago.
Bermuda - From one of the oldest places in the world to one of the youngest. Bermuda is a strange place. It's not freewheeling like the Caribbean islands it's often confused with, tourism isn't the biggest industry. It's British but it's not, nor is it American. Bermuda is its own thing, set apart, much like its geography of not quite being anywhere else. Unlike many islands, Bermuda isn't poor. It actually has the highest standard of living in the western hemisphere even if it doesn't look like it. The people of Bermuda are warmer than the climate if you are truly genuine and bother to respect their customs.
But then there's the island itself; a magical place riddled with caves, gardens, stunning pink sand beaches, and aquamarine waters. Bermuda feels small. The water is always very close and the enormous expanse of surrounding ocean is always present in mind. Yet for as lonely as this little speck of land out in the Atlantic is, the homes and landscape is very homey. There are few gigantic hotels and they're not all crammed onto the better beaches forming a line of white concrete. The brilliance of Bermuda is owed directly to its British lineage. The island feels vastly larger than it is. Pastel houses and landscapes are situated in such a way to make every place feel alone to itself. While nearly all the island is settled, there are spaces here and there where it seems no one has been for years. This, combined with the subtropical climate and plantings, makes for some of the lovliest gardens in the world. On the best days, time moves very slowly, the waters are warm, and there's a fun place to go for dinner and entertainment. Even on the worst days, it still doesn't feel as though you're quite on earth. You don't insult the queen here. You don't where flip flops in town. You always greet everyone you meet. You dress for dinner. The gentility of Bermuda is frequently lost on the masses of tourists herded off the ships like so many cattle and they have harmed the character of the island, but if you bother to do as the Bermudans do, you'll find all sorts of doors to private places opened to you.
New York - This is tough. I live 50 miles from the city of New York, yet I grew-up on a farm. I had no friends nearby to play with, just trees and fields and animals. And lots of plants and animals! Everything from delicate orchids to giant beeches, from crayfish to bears. Where I live there are no highways, no trains. It takes work to get here and thus, my little corner of New York state went unmolested for a very long time; a small town in the orbit of a gigantic megalopolis. My mom though, didn't allow me to be a country hick even though her side of the family has lived here for over 200 years. For my birthday or Christmas, or one special school day a year, she'd take me into the city and we'd see shows, go to exotic restaurants, see the sites, and visit museums. The city to me was very alien, filled with people whom I knew had no ability to relate to the life I lived in the woods not so far away. It was frightening and fascinating at the same time. As I grew older I came to appreciate the treasure on my doorstep. New York is a bitch mistress: wonderful if you can afford it, hell if you can't, so I always kept the city at arm's length despite my fascination with it.
It was only as I traveled around the US and the world more that I came to appreciate just how special New York was. Long before I ran across anyone mentioning it, I always felt like everywhere else was second-rate. No matter where I went, there weren't as many tall buildings, not as many top drawer artists, not as much
life. I called Chicago, "New York waiting to happen." I couldn't help the comparisons or the disappointment. When you're in New York, you just feel like you're on the leading edge of where ever it is humanity's going. Everywhere else is in tow.
I do appreciate London and think the world of Rome as you can see. LA just doesn't have any there there. You always feel whatever is going on is down the next boulevard but inevitably, it's just like the last boulevard you left. Tokyo is just plain batshit crazy and it has the same lively feel to some degree, but it's much less of a cultural repository. It can't boast 8 Vermeers :wink:. Of all cities, I'll agree with my friend and say Paris is most like New York. I love Paris. It's a magnificent city which has much in common with New York, but I have no love for the Parisians. New Yorkers are much friendlier.
I am in the unusual situation of being a New Yorker without being a New Yorker. All our news comes from the city, all our Sunday papers, all our radio stations. We're as interested in who the next mayor will be as people who live in the city, yet we're not really there. It's like being a life-long servant in a rich household. You know all there is about living rich, except you're not. And that gives me a unique appreciation for New York (the city). I know the subways, the streets, the bridges, and I can even reasonably tell a cab how to get somewhere. In contrast, I still look up at the buildings, generally walk slower than most other people, and have a larger sense of personal space. I'm in awe of what I see and hear, I am still in dread fear of places I don't consider safe. For all that, New York is a magnificent place filled with cultures from around the world, monumental architecture, and every example of everything to at least some degree. No other place is so rich in the world experience, no other place has the best of everything.
Yup, I'm a tourist in my own back yard.