A paradise on Middle-Earth

[Meriadoc1961]

What a tough assignment! When I first started reading, I couldn't help but think of the Shire. However, how can one discount Rivendell or Lothlorien? Lothlorien, the heart of elvendom on Earth, and yet Rivendell is described as having the best of everywhere: the Shire, Minas Tirith, Lorien, etc. Everything, that is, but the sea. So maybe it is the Gray Havens after all, although we are not given quite the mental picture of it as we are other abodes.

Merry

[The Might]

Well, it's not necessarily paradise, but definitely the place where I would want to live...Anórien, specifically on Min-rimmon.
I've grown up next to tall mountains and forests and so I would never give that up.
So it really is nice with a forest left and one right, mountains in the back.
You can get fast to Rohan and also to Minas Tirith.

[zxcvbn]

Rivendell. Because like Bilbo and the Fellowship, the Elves would give me all the food, shelter and creature comforts I want. I can just keep freeloading off them and living comfortably to the end of my days.

[A Little Green]

My first thought was of Lothlórien, but then I realised that there actually is one place in Middle-Earth I love very dearly. Ithilien.

There is something oddly wild and sweet in the land. I especially love it because of its location so close to Mordor. No, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't fancy Sauron as a neighbour or anything. Instead, I think that the presence of the Evil so near makes Ithilien's pride and beauty much more important, much more intriguing and much more, well, fair and sad. Also, I think one of the most beautiful quotes in LotR is one sentence describing it:

Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled dryad loveliness.

It's almost prettier in Finnish but I won't quote it here since only a few would understand it.

[Gwathagor]

Gondolin.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

We spent that class discussing and sketching (though more the former). Nevrast where Tuor tarried for a summer? Doriath, with Lúthien dancing in the shadows? Or what about Lothlórien? In the summer or winter? Or the gardens of Lórien in Valinor? It would be a little too ambitious to try to paint Taniquetil, wouldn't it? The Shire? The Old Forest, or even Fangorn?

From my POV, most of the places you named are the ones I could place under the term "paradise" if you asked me (of course as it was said M-E itself as whole is a paradise). Of those you said, I will exclude Taniquetil, as it is maybe too high but nothing else (and though I might like snow-covered mountains, I would surely find a better mountain somewhere on the other side of the sea), the Shire, as it is too much "common" for me, too "wordly", and Old Forest, as I don't see it as good as maybe Fangorn, though even Fangorn maybe does not fit under the term "paradise" in my thoughts. It is a nice place, where I would like to live, but it's a "common" place where I would like to live: the same value for me have Dale, Mirkwood (Amon Lanc), the shores of lake Rhun (!), Chetwood and Isengard (before fortified by Saruman). Also agree on Faelivrin, but what is the most outworldly beautiful place for me is indeed Cirith Ninniach. I was fascinated by it and still I am. And it would include the underground river as well, to balance the beauty and the light of day and rainbow with the calming darkness full of the sound of running water, which can bring one to the most beautiful and calm deep sleep in the eternal night.