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Comment by mmarq | Hacker News Reader

I’ve actually visited half the country, when I worked as a consultant. Weather in the north is horrid, much worse than in London, food is appalling in ways that can’t be described, pubs are all the same replica of a Wetherspoon or of a Young’s.

It could be that coming from central Italy I have very high expectations, maybe some form of Stendhal syndrome in reverse. But I haven’t had the same feeling when travelling in Germany or France. The UK outside of inner London is a distinctly ugly and boring place. Now it’s also the place in Western Europe with the worse supply chain disruptions and shortages.

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> Weather in the north is horrid, much worse than in London, food is appalling in ways that can’t be described, pubs are all the same replica of a Wetherspoon or of a Young’s

Perhaps you were going to a Spoons or whatever Young's is by accident. Brilliant food all around the North - maybe check OpenTable or Google Maps and find some proper restaurants/street food vendors. I live near Glasgow and there's some excellent food in the area.

Yes, the weather isn't as good as London/the South. You learn to love it unless you're spoiled with the sun all the time.

I don’t mean to be dismissive, but if you come from southern/central Italy (or Spain or Greece, etc…), your idea of good food is significantly different from that of the English.

I have to wonder why you're even here if you're just going to insult/dismiss all of our cities/towns and the tastes of our people as a whole without putting in any effort.

p.s. we know Wetherspoons is microwave crap, but it's cheap and comes with a free beer. :)

Saying that Manchester is uglier than Florence and that Italian food is better than English food are not insults, but a factual statements.

I’m in Inner London because I have a very high paying job, that allowed me to buy a nice flat in a nice area and that allows me to fly to Europe even 5 times a month with my entire family, if I want. But I was very close from leaving the UK a few years ago, when it became evident that my 100K£ salary wasn’t enough to enjoy the same lifestyle of a friend of mine that lives in Berlin with an entry level s/w development job and 2 children.

Manchester has some beautiful architecture, some very interesting places to visit and in the UK we compensate with culture, people and nightlife. And there are some very good restaurants & eateries if you actually put some research & effort in.

Maybe your £100k salary would go (a lot) further if you moved away from London and to somewhere like Manchester - everyone knows London is stupidly expensive ;) I'm on like £40kish around Glasgow in a nearby town and quite comfortable - I'd feel like Elon Musk on your salary.

If Rome and Paris and Florence are in the Champions League of beauty and Milan is in second division, Manchester is a funny non-league football team that once in its history got through round 1 of the FA cup and then lost 7-0 against a premier league club.

You may have visited half the country, but it doesn't seem like you saw any of it.

You must be nuts. Bath and the West Country are the prettiest parts of the country by far.

No, I’m not. They aren’t particularly beautiful and, outside of the UK, people don’t even know what these places are, for a reason. Compare to, in random order, Verona, Rome, Florence or Pisa or Orvieto or the Tuscan countryside or Tivoli or even Milan.

I'm betting that most people outside of Italy also can't tell where Verona or Orvieto or Tivoli are.

they might have heard of Verona though because of that pesky Brit from Nowhereshire who wrote that one play that one time.

If you don’t know what Verona is, you probably spent your entire existence under a rock. One would have to complete primary school to know that Tivoli or Capri exist. You are right, Orvieto may be only for the very learned.

The West Country instead it’s a rainy non-place that gets flooded every other day, with 0 historical or artistic relevance. And nobody even know it exists outside of the UK.

Having lived extensively in both the Cotswolds and Chianti, I can assure you: you are nuts.

OMG, a friend convinced my girlfriend to spend a weekend in the Cotswolds, allegedly the best place in England or whatever.

I’ve never been in a more isolated, yet overcrowded and noisy place in my entire existence. The quality of housing is abysmal as everywhere in the UK. A car was required to go to everywhere, queues everywhere, traffic everywhere, everything cost a fortune and it’s just like a random place in the Roman countryside but without the sun and the olive trees and good food. There was this weird dinosaur park/thing, “children love it!” they told me, that’s the best way of getting a mental breakdown.

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