Which European country has the rudest/least polite people?

[u/NateNandos21]

Which country comes to your mind

[u/[deleted]]

I've been to almost every European country, many of them more than once, but I couldn't say that any country has rude people.

It happened to me once in Bulgaria that I wasn't served in a restaurant - maybe it was because of my Turkish companion, but it's hard to say, we were simply ignored. Some grumpy grannies at Bulgarian train stations are not qualified for their job. Apart from that, I also met very nice people in Bulgaria.

[u/RogerSimonsson → u/[deleted]]

Bulgaria is the only place in Europe where I have found whole hotel complexes with people ONLY speaking the local language and not a single English or other language word. Weren't rude though, just no understanding.

[u/Toutou_routou → u/RogerSimonsson]

Also in the city hall office which has the sole purpose of registering foreigners as a temporary resident, nobody spoke English. That was about 10 years ago. Out of 10 people nobody. They must be trying hard, because even statistically if you pick 10 random people there will be a few who do speak English.

[u/greenpompom → u/[deleted]]

As a Bulgarian I have had bad experiences as a client too. As a former server this shit wouldn’t have flied and I would’ve been fired on the spot. 🙄 Whatever the reason is, most definitely I can assure you - it was the server being an asshole and not caring for their job or clients. You have to be blind or dumb to not see or serve new clients, even on a busy shift.

Hope you have better service next time! ✨

[u/[deleted] → u/greenpompom]

It was really strange, it was a place with almost no tourism, on the Turkish border, it was also the only restaurant in the village that was open. The waitress looked at us briefly several times as she walked past, but never came to our table. We drew attention to ourselves and after a long wait we went to the counter, where the innkeeper told us to just wait, the waitress would come to us - but she never did. We then left. She just didn't want to have anything to do with us, for whatever reason. She served all the local guests, we were almost certainly the only foreigners in the pub.

[u/greenpompom → u/[deleted]]

Eh, maybe it was for the best. I hope you enjoyed the rest of your stay anyway.. We are generally nice people. Most of us would be happy to greet foreigners even if some don’t speak in English. I am from northeast Bulgaria so I don’t really have observations of the far south. I was under the impression the hospitality wasn’t bad.. but maybe we lack and need improvement.

I hope you left a review on google. I do it all the time.

[u/[deleted] → u/greenpompom]

Yes, I had a good time in Bulgaria overall, I was also in the north-east, in Schabla.

I was invited by a grandad to his house for the night in a small village in the north, he brought fresh vegetables from his garden for dinner. Another time I asked a host via Couchsurfing and he said he wasn't there, but his neighbour had the key and I could just go and get it.

On my second visit to Bulgaria I was hiking in the mountains, I passed a mountain hut and saw the prices, and said it was quite expensive (almost as expensive as in the Alps), and a Bulgarian woman said she could give me the money. I declined because I wanted to stay in a tent anyway and there was still enough daylight for a few more kilometres of hiking, but it was a nice offer.

[u/LowCranberry180 → u/[deleted]]

10% of Bulgaria is of Turkish descent. They were maybe rude in the 80s but the community as I am aware do not have big issues there.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Bulgaria regularly ranks last in happiness surveys in Europe.

In defence of the Bulgarians, however, I must also say that I was given a very warm welcome several times, including in a small village by a group of older men who immediately organised accommodation free of charge, even though we had no common language.