“Provincial towns don’t count.
I have it on good authority that the most beautiful city in the world is Prague...”
- Prague is widely regarded as a very beautiful capital, but most would agree Rome and Paris can compete.
Stockholm is beautiful with all the water, the old steam boats etc, but the only real landmark it has is the City Hall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_City_Hall
Vienna is another very beautiful capital.
Places like Berlin and London are great but not especially beautiful IMO.
Paris is beautiful in the historic cultural core, but a lot of the sprawl there, and especially the northern suburbs, can be as ugly as almost any urban sprawl. Still, the city’s well-deserved reputation comes from the famous areas along the Seine, etc.