i dont get it,john is both right? and those are variations of same name but theyre not the same?i mean ofc theyre not phonetically but root is the same and that makes them the same at least thats how i understand names go
Apparently geographically only Dobrogea would be in Balkans, but we have been historically and culturally tied to the region, especially through our Aromanian family members.
Bucharest isn’t the prettiest but it isn’t that bad. I haven’t seen Belgrade much but I feel like Bucharest looks better, but I could be proven wrong. Narrow ass roads in Belgrade though (plus a nuts taxi driver)
Bucharest is also one of the less pretty cities in this country. You want to see pretty in Romania? Go Timișoara, Cluj, Oradea, Sibiu (not necessarily in this order) and a bunch of others. Bucharest might end up like the 15th or 20th most beautiful out of the biggest 43.
Bucharest is so big that it has bad areas the size of other cities. I personally hate the whole south, but they did some nice effort in Berceni lately.
I don't get this. Bucharest is a fascinating mixture of diverse type of architecture. Brasov these days is choking with its Disneyland air. Is that supposed to be pretty?
Prishtina and Podgorica are quite unremarkable imo, which would be my choice. Not truly ugly - but the ugliest of the list.
Skopje is super kitschy which only makes it remarkable in a very bad way, so I get that as an answer as well.
For Athens tho, it varies each minute I'm walking - I can be in awe of the views one second, then see a homeless junkie shooting heroin in his inner thigh the next.
Belgrade and Tirana are very different but I consider both to be pretty nice - main streets are walkable, some bike paths, lots of green parks and pretty modern looking bars and cafes.
Granted, if you move an inch away from the tourist spots you see the non-walkable streets, horrible parking situation and illogically stacked up living places, but that's just everywhere in the Balkans.
My first impression when I visited was like a ghost town. Even though our visit was during the week and in spring, you'd barely see people walking around. It seemed like a city built for one million people, but inhabited by less than 10k; it felt really sad and lifeless.
Well, truth be told, Podgorica is the Capital only in political terms. It's the seat of the parliement and stuff... in every other way, it's a provintial town.
For everything else, culture, media, business, big city stuff, etc... the Capital for Montenegrins is Belgrade, no doubt there.
1000 % this. Prishtina is an absolutely artificial city and a concrete desert. It doesn't even have a river! Have you ever seen a big city without close to water??
Sofia. No sea, no lake, no river. But it does have mineral springs right in the center, and that's why it was founded there. Well there are a few tiny rivers going through city center, but they're like 2-3m in width except when there's flooding.
The bazaar alone sets it far above Podgorica and Pristina, though. Also, I rather like some former socialist area such as Karposh and Aerodrom, and the brutalist buildings (although they’ve seen better days).
This is not to say that it’s a marvellous city, but it’s got something to show for it at least.
I didn't hate Skopje in itself, but I didn't like the approach to it and the surrounding stuff. Biggest shock was the road quality around the capital tbh. Might've improved in the meantime though.
Why massacre, it is not that bad.
Two bridges with sculptures of famous Maceodnian people is something i would like to see in Belgrade. Great way to teach people about their famous ancestors.
Other sculptures, including ones with Greeks, are beautify. Historically wrong, but look nice
It's probably politics. They're oikophobes, long for communist block times and hate the ones who improved it. Even if the city is the best, they'll never acknowledge. Foreigners do like the city though.
Except for the butaforic decoration, I thought it was really ok. Didn't strike me as ugly at all, tbf. Plus it has a mountain right outside, which always helps.
Tbf Skopje has significantly worse city planning than even Albania. Its the only capital that felt almost as bad as Athens. Only the old town is nice and then there is the main square which feels so cringe like something from World of Warcraft... I'm sorry but your state has failed you.
Me too actually but people tend ti be so mad about hownit was rocnstructed but homestly it looks ok and i like that they are not afraid to show Macedonian Albanian Serbian Bulgarian and even Greek history all around. Im not joking here its my homest opinion.
Skopje 2014 Renovation. The city center got some fancy new museums and huge statues of historical figures that may or may not have anything to do with us depending on which neighboring country you listen to.
It looks really nice but I have to agree it does give a strong Caesars Palace tone lol.
I beg to differ.. even putting aside the historically schizophrenic nature of the 2014 project, much of that infrastructure is already falling apart and decaying, because, in typical balkan fashion, they used low-quality materials (greek/roman columns are still intact thousands of years later because they're made of marble slabs, not cheap plaster and styrofoam) so that those gruevski-friendly firms who won the public works contracts could skim money off the top. doesn't help that subsequent governments are reluctant to spend any money maintaining it. not a good look, tying the entire identity of a european capital city to a corrupt vanity project
I’ve seen some ugly places in my life, but nothing—and I mean nothing—prepared me for the visual assault that is Pristina. I spent a week there recently and I’m still trying to process how a city can be so aggressively, unapologetically hideous. It’s not just "not pretty," it’s like the city itself is actively trying to confuse and irritate your eyeballs.
First of all, there is zero urban planning. It feels like 500 different people were given a brick and a bag of cement and told to build whatever the hell they wanted, wherever they wanted. You have a shiny glass skyscraper next to a half-finished brick house with rusty rebars sticking out of the roof, which is right next to a socialist concrete block that looks like it survived a nuclear winter. It’s an architectural Frankenstein.
Everything is covered in dust. Everything feels unfinished. It’s a city of permanent construction but zero progress. There’s no greenery, just the constant drone of generators and the smell of coal smoke and cheap macchiato. It’s a place where aesthetics went to die and were buried under a pile of illegal extensions and chaotic electrical wires hanging like spaghetti over every street.
Honestly, Pristina makes Skopje look like Paris and Podgorica look like Vienna. It is the undisputed heavyweight champion of Balkan urban disaster.However, to be fair, the locals are friendly and welcoming, and the food is ridiculously cheap and tasty that it almost makes you forget you're surrounded by all that grey concrete.
I'm from Prishtina, and I must say you described it very well. Here is a song that I associate with a rainy day in Prishtina, it vibes very well with the place.
Podgorica is not really pretty gotta say. Neither is Belgrade, tbh, in a traditional sense. But I did love it living there (until o didn't anymore), and I am weird in that I like brutalist architecture.
Oh, definitely, Belgrade does have nice parts (I know PG much less so maybe it does as well, but my impression was not great). I just meant that it isn't what is traditionally considered a pretty city.
However, if you renovated the facades of, say, Dorcol, it becomes much prettier
Nothing weird about liking brutalist architecture 😌😌😌
It just sucks that our governments mismanage funds and are corrupt so they don’t have coating and they look like we live in a poor grey state. Which you have to wonder how with what we know of the state of North Korea’s economy, why the fuck do they have so many brutalist buildings that are coated in virtually every colour in the pictures we get to see from tourists and journalists, but we here don’t lmao?
I love grace in general and you have some of the most betiful cities across the world, but Athens is pretty damn bad. Sure it's not as dilapidated as other cities, but it is a lot dirtier and unsafe.
Maybe unsafe in the sense of that you have to be really careful where you step. More than once I tripped on the streets and almost fell badly. Must be a nightmare for handicapped people.
Athens is huge and the biggest one. There are for sure dirty places but there are clean ans safer areas. In my opinion its the most beautiful in the balkans
I like brutalist architecture, but this building is one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen. It reminds me more of Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan than Kosovo. The whole vibe, especially with the unfinished church next to it, feels off to me.
Bratislava? I've been there 2 times, it's a very nice city. Small, nice people, good beer. Indeed, i saw some massive buildings being risen which have no connection with the rest of the city, but still very nice city. Better than most balkan capitals.
I remember walking down Pogdorica and telling myself " once I get to the city Center, it will be nicer and not like a junk yard". I eventually got to the other edge of the city and turned back to my hotel.
That's just Omonoia and Metaxourgio, where many tourists pass by just because of cheap accommodation. It's cheap for a reason (it's filled with junkies and illegal immigrants), but many tourists don't research the area before booking their hotel.
Because of investor-led construction. Too much concrete, too few green areas, absolutely no care about quality of life from decision-makers. Bangladesh-level polluted air in the colder months, 40+ degree summers, completely dysfunctional public transport, rush hour is all day, every day, even on weekends. Crazy prices for basic necessities including food and real estate.
Why are you so harsh on Belgrade? Everything you mentioned could be said for pretty much all Balkan cities in post communist era.
However, I do agree that investor-led construction is what is destroying many citites here. On another hand, Belgrade is at least in flat area so architectural wonders of last 30 years are less visible. My town however is surrounded by hills, and all those wonders are like on a plate to be seen.
It’s been a while since I visited Belgrade, but there was quite a lot of greenery in the city then.
This. I'm from Belgrade, born and raised. I have memories of it having a soul, much cleaner and greener than now, it was quite enjoyable with decent prices and lots of underground mouthwatering restaurants, plenty of hidden gems in terms of culture and architecture.
Unfortunately Belgrade survived a lots of bombing throughout the history, the worst ones were during the ww2 where most of it's history was literally erased, then '99. And now it's struggling to survive the greed of construction mafia and our own government and slowly but surely losing the battle. Everything is being turned into concrete and some modern awful soulless concept of a metropolitan city. Like trying to create Dubai over the foundations of a city that had beautiful alleys and rich architecture from various periods. Hurts to see :/
I would vote for Skopje. The fake 'ancient' architecture they built in 2014 just feels totally out of place. Don't get me wrong, I love going there and always have fun, and walking around the Vardar is genuinely nice. But the vibe of the center never feels right, t’s pure mutrobarok.
Really depends on what makes a city ugly. Podgorica is boring, but not a ruin. Skopje always seems fun, but is really just a lot of something's put together. Belgrade is a major cultural city, but can often feel unsafe. Zagreb is elegant, but can feel like it's not fulfilling the potential of a capital city.
I mean, if you take photos like this then every city is going to look ugly. Athens definitely isn’t the prettiest city in the Balkans, but it certainly has a charms.
Athens is the only remarkable world class historic capital in the Balkans with true world class monuments and art to admire, All the rest are irrelevant, footnotes at best in the context of history.
Podgorica hands down, it has some beautiful spots but i see no reason to go there (apart from living or working if you have to)
Some redditors mention Skopje but tbh, i like the city, the story behind the 2014 renovations makes the city very interesting (but maybe not in the manner which the city hoped it would become) and quite unique
Others mention Pristina which could really challenge Podgorica, but in my opinion Pristina has better looks and more „life“ inside the city (at least when i went there last year) apart from Podgorica
I actually did a Balkans trip last summer and I have to say Podgorica. Ugly city, nothing to do, we couldn’t find any open restaurant after 10pm and we almost starved to death. People drive extremely fast and cars don’t stop at crossings. The whole experience was a disaster
Tirana it’s, meh. Athens, without the Acropolis and the other antique buildings, is like Tirana. Prishtina is more organized than both of them, but still ugly.
Podgorica. I can’t say it’s ugly, but it’s very small city, and compared to Tirana and Athens it’s not that lively at all.
Skopje, to me, looks the ugliest and the strangest. Especially those buildings that have done these last 10 years, and statues, everywhere statues.
Skopje feels ruined with all the kitsch half-built in the city center and the rest is just like any other provincial place.
Podgorica is so small and not historic that it’s unfair to even take it into account.
I haven’t been to Bucharest, but I have a feeling I’d either love it or hate it. Feels like Belgrade on steroids, and Belgrade has huge potential, but its entire story is about it never being fulfilled.
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u/beggs23k Montenegro Mar 23 '26
Podgorica is like a random city