Best history/nerdy places to travel

If you like WW2 sites... southern UK has a ton of them. Tank museum at Bovington, RAF museums in Colindale and Cosford. Further away, almost every large city in the former Soviet Union has incredible museums - Moscow, St Petersburg (Leningrad), Volgograd (Stalingrad), Kiev... and these cities also have countless other great things to see and are relatively low cost.
 
We spent a month in Ireland last year and I was really impressed with how much history, even back to prehistoric times, you can see just about everywhere on the island. We'd like to go back and see more.
 
Several years ago we spent 10 days in Malta followed by almost three weeks touring Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. It was one of our most memorable vacations.
 
Several years ago we spent 10 days in Malta followed by almost three weeks touring Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. It was one of our most memorable vacations.

Our bucket list is long. Sometimes people ask us why some places are on our list. Different mindset I guess and our willingness to go most anywhere that interests us.

We typically like to rent cars. For a week or two or more at a time or for a few days. As we approach the magic age of 70 in the car rental business we have come across rental agencies in some countries that will not rent to those over 70. We are considering this carefully when we review and update our respective bucket list. DW is a few years younger but cannot drive a standard nor has any inclination to drive in some of the countries we travel to.
 
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Nerdy? Doesn't that mean Science Museums and Natural History Museums? I noted that the OP mentioned Munich which is a great place, but London has great science museums as do Sydney and Melbourne. Add maritime museums and the list expands.
 
Mr._Graybeard said:
I visited Turkey 40 years ago, right after a military coup. Pairs of soldiers with Thompson submachine guns patrolled the streets of Istanbul and Ankara. The troops were especially high-profile in Ankara.
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I visited many places in the US after 9/11 and there were always soldiers with submachine guns. Even before that my neighbor was required to have one and take it home with her. Our kids were playmates, so she told us, "Don't worry, I have two safes: One for the gun and one for the ammunition."
 
braumeister said:
We spent a month in Ireland last year and I was really impressed with how much history, even back to prehistoric times, you can see just about everywhere on the island. We'd like to go back and see more.
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To me, the charm of Ireland is that it seems like you're stepping into a living, breathing past once you get outside the airport, especially in the west. Of course, I haven't been there in decades, so perhaps it has changed.
 
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LOL! said:
I visited many places in the US after 9/11 and there were always soldiers with submachine guns.
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I worked in Manhattan then and grew accustomed to the sight of them. They also usually had a substantial amount of body armor. I always thought of them as Robocops.
 
LOL! said:
Nerdy? Doesn't that mean Science Museums and Natural History Museums? I noted that the OP mentioned Munich which is a great place, but London has great science museums as do Sydney and Melbourne. Add maritime museums and the list expands.
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If you're thinking Munich doesn't qualify, then you've never spent much time in the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum of science and technology.
 
Mr._Graybeard said:
To me, the charm of Ireland is that it seems like you're stepping into a living, breathing past once you get outside the airport, especially in the west. Of course, I haven't been there in decades, so perhaps it has changed.
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No, I don't think that has changed a bit.
 
I would definitely go to Romania, and visit some places, where Dracula was living (like people say, hah)
 
Mr._Graybeard said:
To me, the charm of Ireland is that it seems like you're stepping into a living, breathing past once you get outside the airport, especially in the west. Of course, I haven't been there in decades, so perhaps it has changed.
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We went there last year looking for the pub life. With the advent of satellite television, citizens remain home most nights, and the pubs are now sports bars with a few men hanging around at dinner.

We found Ireland to be a beautiful country and loved the people. Dublin is probably our least favorite of all large cities in Europe, and also quite expensive. The B&B we stayed in was great, but the SW corner of Ireland was quite boring.
 
Bamaman said:
We went there last year looking for the pub life. With the advent of satellite television, citizens remain home most nights, and the pubs are now sports bars with a few men hanging around at dinner.

We found Ireland to be a beautiful country and loved the people. Dublin is probably our least favorite of all large cities in Europe, and also quite expensive. The B&B we stayed in was great, but the SW corner of Ireland was quite boring.
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I agree that Dublin isn't worth much, but we only spent three days there out of our month in Ireland. Especially enjoyed everything in the west of the country (the Wild Atlantic Way). Pubs there were great, with good live music everywhere, almost nightly.
 
DW is a big Civil War buff, so for the U.S. her "nerdy" vacation is visiting Civil War Battlefield sites. One of her favorite vacations I gave her was a week of driving among various sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, finishing off with a plane trip to Atlanta and a weekend visiting the sites in that area. There are still plenty of sites on her bucket list.
 
Bamaman said:
We went there last year looking for the pub life. With the advent of satellite television, citizens remain home most nights, and the pubs are now sports bars with a few men hanging around at dinner.

We found Ireland to be a beautiful country and loved the people. Dublin is probably our least favorite of all large cities in Europe, and also quite expensive. The B&B we stayed in was great, but the SW corner of Ireland was quite boring.
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Again, it's been some time since we were there. We took advantage of an Aer Lingus deal where we got a flight, a rental car and some vouchers to stay at family-run B&Bs. Early on we stayed at a tidy cattle farm near Castleisland run by the O'Mahoneys (DW got a crash course in Irish pronunciation when she pronounced the name O'MaHOney, and was told it's O'MAhoney). Another night we spent at a house run by a two spinster sisters who kept a pet crow. Seeing up close how people live was as interesting as any other part of the trip.

Our fellow lodgers could also be pretty interesting ... we spent a couple days in Dun Laoghaire and shared lodgings with two sisters from France and a Brit who seemed perpetually hung over. The family also had a regular boarder, an older man who liked to chat (he called the Brit a "night bird").

Of course we did the touristy tours, like the Ring of Kerry, the Rock of Cashel, got lost in the Connemara ... missed the Blarney Stone, though.
 
Mr._Graybeard said:
... Seeing up close how people live was as interesting as any other part of the trip. ... Our fellow lodgers could also be pretty interesting ... The family also had a regular boarder, an older man who liked to chat ...
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This is why we avoid commercial hotels like the plague. B&Bs and AirBnB for us. Unfortunately, AirBnB's attraction has been dulled by the growing number of professional hosts just renting flats and you never meet them or anyone else.
 
Bamaman said:
We went there last year looking for the pub life. With the advent of satellite television, citizens remain home most nights, and the pubs are now sports bars with a few men hanging around at dinner.

We found Ireland to be a beautiful country and loved the people. Dublin is probably our least favorite of all large cities in Europe, and also quite expensive. The B&B we stayed in was great, but the SW corner of Ireland was quite boring.
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It interesting that you say that. We went to Ireland for hiking and we enjoyed that very much, but the towns in general with the exception of Dingle, we found lacking in things do and history. The people are probably the nicest that we have met.

Compared to the continent, Ireland doesn't seem to the have the layers of history that can be found in other countries and the towns are somewhat boring.
 
One interesting place that comes to mind is the Camargue, the Rhone River delta in the south of France. It's a nature preserve of sorts, home to herds of feral white horses and bulls as well as -- it being a river delta -- a lot of waterfowl. We spotted flamingos when we visited.

But the attraction goes beyond nature. A well-preserved walled city called Aigues-Mortes dates back to the 13th century. Nearby salt flats along the Mediterranean produce a sea salt sold in the US as Baleine (if you happen to run across the product in your supermarket, the label has an aerial photo of Aigues-Mortes.

The Seventh and Eighth Crusades departed from this city. We found it easy to get lodging at inns within the medieval city walls when we visited.

A popular cultural tradition in this part of France is bullfighting -- but in contrast to the Spanish tradition, the bull is not killed. Instead, contestants try to remove ribbons from the charging bull's horns. BTW, this region is home to France's "cowboys."

A town on the sea is home to an annual pilgrimage for the Romany, who celebrate their patron saint, Ste. Sara.
 
Fatehpur Sikri, India

Being the Foreign Service, I was able to travel a lot. Actually to 109 countries . One of of the memories that truly stands out is going to the Taj Mahal . It was as majestic and beautiful as imagined. Our guide asked if we wanted to see Fatehpur Sikri since we were within 20 miles.

OMG one of the most architecturally beautifully cities we have seen . Long history and long legend. One of the finest memories of all our travels.

And to think it was a fluke Our guide just happened to ask if we had time to see it.

Turns out most people who go to the Taj Mahal do not go to Fatepurshikri which for my money rivals the Taj
 
raypep said:
most people who go to the Taj Mahal do not go to Fatepurshikri which for my money rivals the Taj
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I had a similar experience. When visiting Czechia, a good day trip from Prague is to Kutna Hora, where the big attraction is the Sedlec Ossuary, essentially a chapel decorated everywhere with old human bones.

But if you go into the nearby town, there is a church, St. Barbara's, dating from the 14th century, that is an incredible architectural treasure, and most visitors don't even bother to look at it.
 
Echo all the comments about Croatia.
You could also spend weeks in Crete (recommend off beach season if history is primarily what you seek). History and ruins from the Minoan civilization (2000-1400 BC) to the Greeks, Romans and Venetians to World War II. Layers of archaeology in the coastal towns with several Venetian shipyards and fortresses still standing - as along the coast of Croatia. Also beautiful gorges if you like hiking or just viewing.
 
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