No kidding. Let the French have Paris and the Canadians have Montreal and take a trip to Prague or Budapest or Romania. It would probably be a heck of a lot more enjoyable.
There is nothing pretentious about the beauty. It is just Old World Europe at its best.
When I was traveling from Hungary to Czechoslovakia, it was 1991, and just as we crossed the border into Czechoslovakia, on our right was a large statue of a black eagle with a hammer and sickle in its talons. Except the hammer and sickle had been BROKEN OFF! I get goose bumps just remembering it.