Jaen - Nice people but a small and very boring city

I'm English, and I studied in Jaen as an Erasmus student between the academic year of 2013/2014.

As much as it was still a memorable experience, I ultimately found Jaen a very boring and often lonely place to do Erasmus in.

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Firstly, with regard to Architecture/landscape, Jaen is not an aesthetically pleasing city in the slightest bit. There are no amazing buildings or views of any kind, and the majority of it is is just flats and houses, with one medium-sized park in the centre.

Due to the fact that it is so small, the amount of places there are to go out is very limited. There are two clubs that are decent for a night out, as well as a few side-streets lined with Tapas bars, but none of this is really anything special whatsoever, and much better versions can be found in any of the bigger Spanish cities such as Granada, Madrid, Barcelona, etc.

As far as the people of Jaen are concerned, on a general level I found them very kind and also willing to help, but also overly serious for my liking and quite narrow-minded. I would emphasise that of course, not every single person who lives in Jaen is like this, and so there may be some exceptions, but this is generally what i found.

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There is really nothing that exciting in Jaen in the way of socializing/partying. As it is so small I would also bump into fellow Erasmus students a lot while out and about, which although in one way made the atmosphere of the place more welcoming, also made me feel as if I was trapped and could not get away from them when I wanted to.

The transport in Jaen is not too bad, and if you want to travel to another cities then you can easily get a bus or train for quite cheap that will take you there, although within Jaen itself the bus service is not very good.

I will never go back to Jaen, and if it is your only option to go on Erasmus within Spain, then go somewhere else.

Everything is generally quite cheap because Spain in general is a cheap country (cheaper than the UK), and also because Jaen is not a major city. The weather is sunny because it's the south of Spain and so obviously one would expect it to be, but this is not really a highlight, simply something which makes the city slightly less not worth going to.