Athens and Perth have been named as two cities people must visit in 2014 by the New York Times. In the list of 52 cities from all around the world, Perth was ranked the highest of the two at number nine, citing its changing persona for its ranking. “Lately Australia’s fourth-largest city is exhibiting the signs of a trendy transformation,” Baz Dreisinger wrote on the entry. “Regional wine lists”, “modish new restaurants in repurposed spaces” and “up-and-coming neighbourhoods like Mount Lawley and Northbridge” are key in Dreisinger’s reasoning, and he says with more flights connecting the city in Australia to the world, it’s becoming much more accessible.
Athens was ranked at number 36 for is resurgence out of economic crisis. The post by Gisella Williams states “vibrancy and innovation can bloom even in hard times” and points to changes in Athens’ old and new sites. Old sites like the Acropolis are undergoing restoration with the famous Caryatides still getting cleaned and restored in the new Acropolis Museum for everyone to see. While in the city centre, new sites like the National Museum of Contemporary Art will be opening in Autumn. “Neighbourhoods have also seen a resurgence, including the quickly gentrifying Monastiraki and the still gritty Kerameikos-Metaxourgeio,” Williams writes, while also mentioning new restaurants and hotels opening to meet tourists’ expectations.
Topping the list was Cape Town in South Africa, for “celebrating design” as it becomes the World Design Captial for 2014, while surprisingly Christchurch in New Zealand came in second, for its “rebirth” after two large earthquakes decimated the city in 2010 and 2011. “Though much of the central city has yet to be rebuilt, entrepreneurs and volunteers are finding surprising ways to make temporary use of empty lots and bring life back to the downtown,” writes Justin Bergman.
Top 10 in places to go in 2014:
1. Cape Town, South Africa
2. Christchurch, New Zealand
3. North Coast, California
4. Albanian Coast
5. Downtown Los Angeles
6. Namibia
7. Ecuador
8. Quang Binh, Vietnam
9. Perth, Australia
10. Rotterdam, the Netherlands