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There are not that many countries/capitals where I've not been in Europe, so I think I can compare instead of pushing my hometown:
My personal top of metropolis:
1. Berlin - great startup stuff, cheap (in context of west Europe/ Germany), sexy, English, easy to adopt from e.g. US
2. Istanbul - cheap, hacker friendly, kiloton of culture, but need to manage/like a bit asian way of life. Best food.
3. London - great startup stuff (services and top people), high costs but high revenues also. So great if you want to earn a lot, not sepend a little.
4. Dublin - low taxes, good startup stuff, all US IT is there (but maybe already working for Google etc), moderate costs, no language problem - Northern countries (Scandinavia, Baltics): good/moderate startup activities (ask me, I'm from there), high costs and also revenues (except Baltics which is vice versa), low corruption, e-services (eg. Estonia: open company in 15 min online). Can manage in English mostly (less in Baltics but still). My key problem: long winter - East Europe: low costs and revenues, high corruption (paperwork/tax pain), problems with English except in small startup enclaves, need local friends (especially bigger countries like Poland, Czech Rep, Romania). If you can cope with this a bit Asian/Russian lifestyle, I'd skip it and go to Istanbul already, you'd have not only pain but also gain of this mess. - South-West Europe - each country is quite different, but generally medium costs and revenues, need to know local language or friend (spanish, italian, french, greek), ton of culture which tends to bring also bureaucracy (expect months to your paper processing) , high living quality. |