Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities for 2011
Who doesn’t love a city? Lonely Planet has scoured the globe for next year’s hottest cities. Our top picks show that a city doesn’t need to be a heaving metropolis to get on the list. Then again, sometimes it helps. One of our
favourites is the world’s largest city that cannot be reached by road. And there are even a couple of European cities that remain criminally underrated. Here they are, Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities for next year, ranked in order:
1.New York
Since 9/11, the site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers has stood out as a closed-off, out-of-view, painful gaping void. This year that changes, as the former WTC site finally reopens to the public with the National September 11 Memorial, a 6-acre, tree-filled plaza with 30ft-deep waterfalls at the footprint of the former towers, rimmed by the name of each victim and
illuminated at night (its museum will follow in 2012). For the city, this will be more momentous than if the Yankees, Knicks, Rangers and Giants won simultaneous championships while the ball dropped in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. For all of New York, 11 September 2011 will be a defining moment.
