8 SEPTEMBER 2001, Page 27

Choosing one's favourite town is not as easy as it looks

PAUL JOHNSON

This year, for unavoidable reasons, we were in London for the Carnival, which perambulates dangerously near our house. The event strengthens my growing distaste for London life. There are just too many people for comfort, and it is in the big cities — Paris. Rome, Madrid, New York are just the same — that you become frighteningly aware of just how quickly the world's population is growing. Does this mean that the quality of urban life, one of the principal ingredients of civilisation, will be irreparably damaged? I don't think so. For there are still plenty of fine places where it is good to live. I found myself pondering the old question: which is my favourite town?

As a very young man I would have picked Helsinki, a handsome blend of old and new. Swedish. Finnish and Russian, with a relaxed and generous way of living. The terrible struggle with Stalin had decimated Finland's young men, and I felt that the streets of the town were alive with beautiful blonde ladies ready to thrust Cupid's dart into you. Later my choice shifted to Stockholm, a city of islands and water: if only, I thought. I had a nice garconiere at the top of the Grand Hotel, with the royal palace across the water in front, the opera house to the right and the splendid national gallery to the left. Yes: but the winters are long and marked by endless cold rain pouring out of the darkness of endless night.

Climate is as much the key to city living as history. But for its atrocious climate, Chicago would easily be America's finest place in which to live. Edinburgh, too, seems to have everything — superb buildings and setting, art and music, beautiful countryside within easy walking distance — until you feel that nagging east wind on your cheek. Glasgow is now a satisfying place in which to live, and a bus ride takes you to the shores of Loch Lomond. But the rain it raineth every day, or seems to. Dublin, once enchanting and just the right size, is now suffering dreadfully both from a feverish prosperity and the refugees it attracts. If a small town would suffice. Ludlow would certainly win the prize in England, but there are strict limits to what it has to offer in civilised amusements.

Size does matter, indeed, otherwise I would be tempted to pick Syracuse, an enchanting, vibrant place with a curious douceur de vivre which may be explained by the fact that it is the only town in Sicily which is Mafia-free. But after a week there, what is there to do? The same applies to Dubrovnik, a marble city on a turquoise sea which is as near to an integrated work of art as any place can be. But it is hopelessly provincial. Venice, its parent, is a different matter: there is always something going on there. And who would not relish living in a flat formed out of the piano nobile of one of the Gothic palazzi of the 15th century? Or, for that matter, a small palace in its entirety, quietly situated in a backwater canal, with your own gondola for shopping? It is the only city in the world whose architectural vistas are not ruined by foregrounds of cars. But what is happening to this jewel? Its own population is going down, but at the same time it is invaded by a grubby and apparently permanent population of waifs and strays from eastern Europe.

When I was in my thirties I rated Cracow the finest cityin the world, and certainly its central square is a miraculous place, dominated by its great church, the centre of Polish Catholicism. But Cracow is now hemmed in by industry of the shoddiest kind and heavy pollution, dismal relics of communist rule — a place to visit but not to inhabit. Prague has been spared these abominations and has survived its Westernisation well. It is a superb city and its people are warm and ingenious. But it would pose for rue an insoluble dilemma. If I lived near the cathedral and palace on the acropolis, as it were, I would always be discontented that I did not live down by the river, in the heart of the city. And if I did live down there, I would always be yearning for a house up on the heights.

There are some places that are irresistible because of the materials of which they are made: Bath, for instance, with its golden stone, seated at the south-western end of England's magnificent limestone belt, which stretches as far as Lincoln. But it has not fared well in the last half-century. The same fate has overtaken 'Jerusalem the Golden'. The Old City, when I first saw it in the 1950s, was intact and magnificent, much as David Roberts and Edward Lear painted it in the mid-19th century. But it is now a mere appendage to an enormous modern conglomeration. Another golden city I admire is Lecce in the heel of Italy. The stone there has the peculiar quality that it is virtually malleable when first extracted. You can treat it like plasticine and mould or carve it into fantastic decorative shapes and statues. Exposure to the air then hardens it fast. As a result Lecce is a treasury of sculpture at its most exotic. Alas, there is precious little else. By contrast. Salamanca, which has an enormous and infinitely varied display of gold buildings and fantastic decorative schemes, has a great deal to offer. It is Spain's oldest and finest university city, and it is thronged with clever young people and distinguished scholars. It is invigorating, vivifying and inspiring. But, like Chicago, it is too hot in summer, too cold in winter.

Germany and the Low Countries are crowded with historic and beautiful cities, many of which have survived the batterings of two world wars remarkably well. Hamburg is a place I could live in, with its wide river, imposing seafront, skilful blend of the old, the new and the reconstructed, and air of purposeful repose. I could live in Antwerp too, and even in Bruges. I was in Bruges in 1952 when people still called it Bruges la Morte, because it seemed still drowsy from the spells of the Middle Ages. But now it has woken up and become a noisy, tourist city. Munich, like Hamburg, is a grand, wealthy place, well preserved and handsome, a city of traditional culture and religious display. But there is something sinister about it, ugly memories which persist and can't be tidied away.

My favourite town in Europe, if I had to make a choice, would be Nancy, the old capital of Lorraine. More attention has been paid to town-planning there, over a longer period, than any other place I know of— in the 11th century, when great engineers and architects like Vauban and Mansard were employed. The art of elegant town-planning reached its apotheosis under Stanislas Lesczynski, former king of Poland, who was titular Grand Duke of Lorraine from 1736 to 1766. He linked three great squares, the Place Lesczynski, the Place de la Carriere and the Place du Gouvernement, and embellished the whole with fantastic displays of wroughtiron gates and grilles, and architectural delights, adding to the whole open spaces brilliantly set with tree-lined avenues and flower beds. Thus the centre of the town is in many ways the greatest ensemble of buildings in the world, and to walk through it is a delight which never palls. III lived in Nancy it would constitute my morning promenade every fine day. Nancy is a place to explore and examine carefully, at leisure, to grow accustomed to and to savour: it is full of fine buildings and virtuoso craftsmanship. Readers who can think of a better place to relish should let me know.