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Some years ago, an American tourist said cruelly but not, at the time, inaccurately, "Wellington is half the size of the New York City cemetery and twice as dead." Today, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, it is "the Coolest Little Capital in the World."
Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2011, published in November, ranked Wellington at No 4 on its list of the top 10 cities to visit in 2011, a remarkable accolade for a place that only a generation ago was one of the most maligned capitals, with a reputation for inclement weather and boring people and atmosphere.
The capital city continues to earn its nickname Windy Wellington, as gale force winds frequently funnel through Cook Strait, which separates New Zealand's two main islands, strafing the city nestled on hills around a landlocked harbor.
"But despite (or maybe because of) its impetuous weather, Wellington is Cool-with-a-capital-C, crammed with more bars, cafes and restaurants per capita than New York, and a slew of gourmet producers including some 10 independent coffee roasters," Lonely Planet writer Catherine Le Nevez writes in Best in Travel 2011.
Small - being home to under 480,000 of New Zealand's 4.4 million people and a third the size of the biggest city, Auckland - its compact size energizes its sense of community, Le Nevez writes. "Locals love their city and get a kick out of helping visitors fall in love with it, too."
Up until the early 1980s, Wellington was "a gray, boring, bureaucratic city," in the words of former Mayor Fran Wilde, who now heads the Greater Wellington Regional Council.
A change of government in 1984 dismantled a century of regulations, paving the way for an explosion of bars and restaurants and 24-hour, seven-days-a-week opening. This coincided with extensive rebuilding of the central business district as the old, gray blocks of buildings were a prime risk in the earthquake-prone city on the Pacific's Ring of Fire.
Sensing a seminal mood change, a group of businessmen launched an "Absolutely Positively Wellington" campaign that the city council was quick to adopt, and the slogan continues to decorate flagpoles, sweaters, posters, bumper stickers and shop windows.
Wellington justifiably calls itself New Zealand's culture capital, with a booming film industry (home to The Lord of the Rings studio), the national museum Te Papa, an abundance of art-house cinemas, theaters, an annual international film festival and a biennial arts festival.
（中國日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）
About the broadcaster:
Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.
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