FORGOTTEN HISTORY: Europe interesting photos - Caught on Camera

“When Reddit first created subreddits, a lot of subreddits that focused on a specific place were created. Among those ones was also r/europe. The original moderators of that subreddit have long left the moderation team, and r/europe actually took some time to really pick up speed, but little by little, and urged by the need for a common place to learn news from all over the continent, it grew up to the current size of about 6 million subscribers,” one of the current moderators of the subreddit told Bored Panda, discussing how it all started.

“Even if this is indeed a continent of 750 million people, in more than 50 countries, talking more than 250 different languages, there are a lot of things that unite us—and that includes dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law,” the redditor shared.

“It also includes disparaging the various European bureaucracies, whether that's EU or otherwise. And each year, we get a pan-European festival of music and kitsch and fun in the Eurovision Song Contest. And all of that is heavily reflected in the content of the subreddit.”

Discussing the influence of such online groups as the ‘Europe’ subreddit, the moderator shared that even just listening to people from other cultures is beneficial. “Finding out how much we have in common after all, even if we literally don't even speak the same language has got to be a positive influence,” they said.

Nowadays, the continent of Europe is home to roughly 740 million people. According to recent statistics, the majority of them live in Russia, which is the largest country in the continent population-wise, followed by Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain respectively.

In addition to permanent residents, Europe is brimming with visitors from all over the world. In the first half of last year, tourism in the European Union—which entails the majority of the countries located in Europe—reached the highest level in the past decade.

According to Eurostat, during the first half of 2023, there were 1193 million nights spent in tourist accommodations, which marked an increase of 11 million compared to the same period the year before.

If you’re curious about what city in Europe attracts the most visitors, it wouldn’t probably take you a lot of guesses to get it right; it’s Paris (at least based on 2022 data).

The city of love, good food, and the language that sounds so beautiful but can be so torturously difficult to master (trying to learn the numbers alone can make you want to wave the white flag) reportedly recorded roughly 19.4 million inbound tourist arrivals. Ranking just below Paris, London and Istanbul were popular destinations, too, with over 16 million inbound arrivals each.

Coming back to languages and French being a difficult one to learn, I might have been too quick—or too biased—to judge, as in the context of other languages, it falls within the category of the easiest ones in Europe for an English speaker to learn.

Other mother tongues in the same category—which reportedly take less than 24 weeks of learning to reach speaking and reading proficiency—are Spanish, Italian, and Norwegian, just to name a few. 

The second hardest, requiring roughly 30 weeks, is German, followed by Polish and Lithuanian, just to name a couple, with 44 weeks, and Hungarian and Finnish with an undetermined number of weeks, as no one would probably last long enough to master something as difficult as this.

While languages in countries all over Europe are indeed fascinating, not many people choose to travel to—or within the bounds of—the continent just to hear them with their own ears. The majority of visitors arguably seek to explore some of the most popular landmarks, or on the contrary, the hidden gems unknown to the masses, and gain some unforgettable travel experience.

Those more interested in the popular sites, as seen in pictures online and TV screens, likely still have Paris in their minds; and for a reason, as it is home to the iconic Eiffel Tower—undeniably one of the most recognizable landmarks in Europe, if not in the entire world.

After analyzing the data from Google searches, Tripadvisor reviews, TikTok views, and Instagram hashtags, Holiday Cars found that the iconic structure is indeed Europe’s most popular tourist destination, googled roughly 84.4 million times yearly.

Other popular landmarks on Holiday Car’s list respectively were Big Ben and Westminster Palace in London, Gaudi’s iconic architectural marvel, the Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona, Colosseum and Roman Forum in the Italian capital, Rome, and Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

While visiting the places in Europe—or elsewhere in the world, for that matter—is undoubtedly more fun to do firsthand, sometimes it simply might not be possible to. But that shouldn’t deter you from working on that bucket list, as it can still happen; and before it does, make use of the internet and browse whatever it is that interests you the most.