You have to be very suspicious of anyone who presumes to tell you the “Best Places on Earth”. How do they know? Have
they been everywhere? Doubtful. I am doubly suspicious when I read a
list like
this and the only places listed are big cities…big cities everyone knows already? Now that’s not very useful, is
it? I mean, tell me something I don’t know. Find me a place out there that’s the “greatest” that I’ve never heard
of.
OK, I’ll ease up on the poor LA Times, whose
“Critics
List” of best places features such destination surprises as Paris, London, Milan and Barcelona (once senses a bit
of a pro-Euro bias here, eh? Though to be fair, they mention Shanghai and Hawaii, too). The articles are written by
Times’s critics and columnists, and despite my desire to see more interesting variety here, the various articles are
pretty good. Kenneth Turan’s celebration of
Paris as a cineaste’s paradise is particularly good.