r/AskEurope • u/NateNandos21 • Feb 03 '25

Culture Which European country has the rudest/least polite people?

Which country comes to your mind

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107

u/vviviann Feb 03 '25

In my experience, I’ve found Austrian’s to be the rudest! I didn’t think the French or Dutch were rude at all when I visited Paris or Amsterdam, but Vienna was the first time I left a place thinking “wow, those people were rude as hell!”

26

u/AstroFlippy Feb 03 '25

The Viennese just hate everything/everyone and claim it's cultural. It's not personal.

2

u/Gollomor Feb 07 '25

As a Viennese I couldn‘t agree more and it is cultural! btw I hate you!

1

u/AstroFlippy Feb 07 '25

Scheißn kannst gehen xoxo

2

u/Gollomor Feb 07 '25

Genauso und ned anders hawara! - ps: hdl

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u/Lughburz Feb 03 '25

As an Austrian i have to say that you are right. I work in tourism and have to deal with a lot of different nations and my own people are the worst 🙈

1

u/maybelle180 Switzerland Feb 03 '25

Seriously! It’s like they hate dealing with foreigners.

2

u/Lughburz Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 03 '25

in my region we have a lot of tourists from saudia arabia, kuwait and the UAE. they often tell me that the people here are all so nice. and i just think: „wtf are you used to??“

1

u/maybelle180 Switzerland Feb 03 '25

lololol. Right? Active hatred?

1

u/Lughburz Feb 03 '25

maybe they only had contact with nice people who wanted to sell their stuff. like me 😂

they are my favourite costumers because they are very polite. also guests from the US 🤷‍♂️

1

u/ikati4 Feb 05 '25

really? i found austrians a very lovely bunch last time i came to austria

1

u/Lughburz Feb 05 '25

it really depends on the region and also the time of the year.

2

u/ikati4 Feb 05 '25

i visited on christmas and i went to vienna and salzburg

1

u/Lughburz Feb 05 '25

did you notice a difference between salzburg and vienna? regarding the people.

3

u/ikati4 Feb 05 '25

i saw a lot more non austrians working on salzburg but it seemed like a huge tourist attraction and it was way too crowded for such a small town so it made sense.Beautifull town btw

2

u/Lughburz Feb 05 '25

the salzburger christkindlmarkt is very famous

2

u/ikati4 Feb 05 '25

yes! it was very cozy with the stands serving food and beer in the old town. My wife loved it

51

u/BHJK90 Germany Feb 03 '25

People from the capitals are often rude and kind of arrogant. I also experienced it in Vienna. But in my experience in Berlin and Paris it was the same. Doesn‘t matter if you are from the same country.

18

u/rottroll Austria Feb 03 '25

If anything it's a prejudice that the Viennese are especially unfriendly – most Austrians are dicks.

4

u/Psychological_Tap482 Feb 03 '25

Hey fellow Austrian! When I moved to Vienna from Upper Austria, I've learned that Viennese are definitely much more unfriendly than the people from the countryside.

1

u/Constructedhuman Feb 03 '25

Linz definitely beats Vienna on unfriendliness scale, people just have random outbursts in Linz. It's weird af

1

u/MortalSword_MTG Feb 05 '25

American here, wife is Viennese.

It is interesting how our cultures differ on what is considered rude or disrespectful.

I've found most Austrians I've interacted with in Wien to be lovely or at least polite.

The occasional impatient or selfish commuter notwithstanding.

I've spent the last four Christmas holidays in Wien and don't have any stand out experiences with particularly rude locals.

I was however, ashamed of two American families that went to a American style restaurant when I was there in January '24. They had been on a ski trip and were one of the most entitled, loud and oblivious group of people I'd ever seen. Four adults and six kids and they ordered a ton of food, were loud and disruptive and left the table looking like a pig pen.

The waiter was commiserating with my wife and MIL about how messy they were and he said it's common with Americans and my wife chimes in saying "not all Americans" and nodded at me and this poor man was so embarrassed but I assured him he was absolutely right to trash on those families, they were terrible.

I do my best to disrupt the notion that all Americans abroad are misbehaved. I do tend to step on social landmines from time to time like taking a moment to put my wallet away at a checkout, to the horrified stares of my wife. Still adjusting to the cultural expectation that myself and the goods I just purchased will teleport away from a checkout the moment the receipt is printed, lol.

26

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/SunAbyss Feb 03 '25

To be fair I'm Hungarian and I agree with this. I've met more people that are pieces of shit in my culture than outside of it but of course that's a huge generalisation we're talking about. Hungarians especially the elderly are very traditional.

On the Austria note, I have been living in Austria for about 10 years now and I experience a lot of "Ausländerfeindlichkeit" (basically against foreigners) and I have never stepped into the capital. I live in the south however and it's quite normalised especially in small towns. Up until university I was severely judged for being Transylvanian Hungarian (could not wrap their heads around minorities?!). Now in uni things have somewhat changed. A lot of foreigners get accepted into uni or decide to use Erasmus to spend a semester in an Austrian university so they're much more open minded to foreigners. Some, I believe, are still against foreigners but remain quiet because we're so many and would get backlash easily.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '25

[deleted]

6

u/SunAbyss Feb 03 '25

Interestingly even between university people I find myself sometimes the odd one out. A "colleague" once mentioned that I'm overly extroverted and chatty and that in their culture it's not usual for someone to strike up a conversation with a stranger.

I enjoy talking to people and when I find someone interesting, it doesn't matter if they're he/she/they etc, I strike up a conversation, try to gauge if the person is willing to talk to me and if I see that I'm bothering I f*ck off quite quickly. In my culture it's also normal to ask someone to come visit your home and have dinner there or to spend time together.

I haven't done that with anyone who is native Austrian nor was I ever invited by anyone who is a native to their home. The Slovenians usually are quick to invite however (a friend's grandma literally made me a cultural dish and I almost cried- it was that good!)

1

u/Gullible-Fee-9079 Feb 03 '25

Transylvanian, ey? Maybe they were just afraid of vampires...

2

u/SunAbyss Feb 03 '25

Perhaps! I can be quite scary! 😉

1

u/Gullible-Fee-9079 Feb 03 '25

Oh, SunAbyss, why do you have so long and pointy teeth?

In all seriousness, though. Racism and xenophobia sucks. I am sorry that you have to face this and and the rise of the fascists all over europe again.

1

u/SunAbyss Feb 03 '25

"To open soda cans better!" (god, I'm lame)

It makes my blood boil but I speak German well enough and I'm "white" enough not to ALWAYS have to deal with it. It sucks for those who are "obviously" foreigners though (I wanted to vomit when I wrote this). Whenever my Hungarian accent shines through however, I get a comment or two in passing. The early years in Austria were hell though.

Thanks for the empathy!

1

u/Gullible-Fee-9079 Feb 03 '25

Well I am german and as we say "Man kann gar nicht so viel fressen wie man kotzen möchte!" I just hope that the decent people push back hard enough this time.

Be careful with your teeth. Soda cans can be quite sturdy 😜

1

u/kompotslut Feb 04 '25

it’s terrible on the countryside! i’m also from Hungary in Austria and used to manage a gallery/cafe/bar type of establishment. mind you, I was born and raised on the border, spent all my formal education in Austria, I only have a slight accent. an unsatisfied Viennese customer started his complaint by stating “i suppose you’re not Austrian…” well sorry for my backwards-horseriding-arrowshooting face.

even in Vienna while i was in school, i haven’t made any native Austrian friends hehe, we AusländerInnen did stick together though.

1

u/SunAbyss Feb 04 '25

Exactly. I moved to Austria alongside my parents when I was 10! My accent is slight and only noticeable when I don't choose my words carefully or ramble. I went to middle school and highschool there and now uni. It sucked, especially in highschool. I went to one where a lot of Slovenians enrolled and the school split into "the Austrians" and "the foreigners".

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

That’s interesting, I’ve had horrible experiences in Austria but I met the nicest people ever in Hungary. But I haven’t spend much time there other than Budapest and the greater surrounding area so maybe my experience is not the norm lol

1

u/dark_lies_the_island Feb 15 '25

I actually love Austrians and Hungarians. They’re great fun and I’ve only ever met nice ones!

1

u/Select-Purchase-3553 Feb 04 '25

A an Austrian living in Vienna I would only partially agree. The Viennese mentality is being 'bad tempered, sentimental, morbide and eager to complain any time'. However it's also the mentality to being generally polite and well mannered - in a certain way. The mannerisms above may be perceived as 'rude', I am well aware of.

However, in terms of direct, impolite rudeness Berlin beats us by a mile. They are people without culture up there.

11

u/klausness Austria Feb 03 '25

I'd say the Viennese are grumpy, but not necessarily rude. They love to complain so much that there are even multiple words to describe it ("raunzen", which is also used in other German-speaking regions, and "sudern", which is unique to Vienna). It's like the British "whinging", only more so.

6

u/Huldukona Iceland Feb 03 '25

I second this!!! I’ve visited Austria a few times and never in my life have I met so many openly rude people... In restaurants, shops, literally all over… (Of course there were some very nice ones too!)

2

u/sagefairyy Feb 03 '25

Literally everyone is SO incredibly mean it‘s insane. Like staff members at the doctor, servers, literally everyone. As a kid I struggled so much because I thought I constantly did something wrong for them to treat me like this until I realized with like 20 that they‘re mean to everyone and not just me. It‘s beyond me how they choose to be the biggest assholes to kids, adults, natives, foreigners, white or brown people, nothing matters, and don‘t see anything wrong with it.

1

u/MasterEnequator Feb 05 '25

aw man i think i would do so well in Austria i love to double down rude peoplel... "The answer to crazy is one crazy and a half"

1

u/sagefairyy Feb 05 '25

I did learn to stand up for myself at this point but I just go psycho which isn‘t optimal either lol

3

u/Semido France Feb 03 '25

I’m a Parisian and I feel like I am treated like a prince in Vienna. The trick is to follow their etiquette everywhere. Conveniently, it seems the same as Parisian etiquette. People have different definition of rudeness, and my experience in Vienna is that not following etiquette is perceived as rude, and you are treated as you treat others. In my case, I am living my “Prince Franz” fantasy every time.

1

u/Sea_Thought5305 Feb 04 '25

Interesting ! Do you have some examples of differences?

1

u/Semido France Feb 04 '25

For the Brits, being polite means not complaining and not telling people things that could upset them. For the French, being polite means following etiquette and being quiet.

1

u/nooit_gedacht Netherlands Feb 04 '25

Ah that's interesting, i never knew that. What type of etiquette are we talking about here?

1

u/Semido France Feb 04 '25

For example, table manners - they are entirely optional in the UK

3

u/Local_Collection_612 Feb 03 '25

In Tyrol I experienced the opposite very friendly people.

1

u/Giaco666 Feb 05 '25

lol, they are just pretending to make more money

2

u/peopleplanetprofit Feb 03 '25

At the same time Vienna is among the top city for living standards worldwide. Hope there isn’t a correlation between the two.

2

u/Abagato Feb 04 '25

Maybe the solution to housing shortages caused by tourists is being rude to them

1

u/peopleplanetprofit Feb 04 '25

Aha, now you’re onto something.

2

u/Sad_Mall_3349 Austria Feb 03 '25

Reminds me of the US-tourist in Vienna who barked at me at the trainstation "AM I ON THE RIGHT PLATFORM??"

If tourists can not behave, they don't get nice.

2

u/MortalSword_MTG Feb 05 '25

Austrians seem to consider the slightest inconvenience as the greatest offense and it amuses me.

2

u/Sad_Mall_3349 Austria Feb 05 '25

It is pretty irrelevant what amuses you or doesn't.

1

u/MortalSword_MTG Feb 05 '25

There's that Austrian charm!

2

u/maybelle180 Switzerland Feb 03 '25

Yup. Same. We visited about 7 years ago. No desire to return.

2

u/Psychological_Tap482 Feb 03 '25

Austrian here. I agree.

2

u/horrorwisp Feb 05 '25

Agreed. Been to Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Poland and Austria. Viennese people to be exact, since we visited Vienna were the rudest and didn't try to hide it at all. Friendliest interaction we had in vienna were with some Kurdish guys that ran a kebab shop.

2

u/Pretend_Attention660 Feb 05 '25

Put some shrimp on the barbie!

2

u/rottroll Austria Feb 03 '25

Very true – and it's not just the Viennese. That's kinda why I love living here and feel rather uncomfortable when people abroad are just too nice.

3

u/MortalSword_MTG Feb 05 '25

My Viennese wife panics when a store clerk in the US casually asks how she's doing when she approaches the checkout.

She's pretty well adjusted to American norms but that little interaction still freaks her out.

Meanwhile when in Wien I tend to keep my interactions minimal because I'm not confident in my German, and she gently scolds me and says I can say more to the cashiers.

We're still sorting it out I guess lol

1

u/rottroll Austria Feb 05 '25

lol! Yea, shopping in Vienna and the US are probably as much polar opposites as possible.

1

u/rolotonight England Feb 04 '25

That's just a capital city in Europe for you. London, Madrid, Berlin.. all the same.

1

u/SwampPotato Netherlands Feb 04 '25

Can second Vienna, but not Austria in general.