#bestviewedfrombelow

An explanation of this seemingly self-explanatory hashtag.
When I was on the boat down the Danube with Doris’s Knee Problem I got talking to Anna and Alistair, and Anna introduced me to the concept of #bestviewedfrombelow.

Originally it referred laughingly to anything that was Way Up There when you were viewing it from the river-level comfort of your floating restaurant/hotel/chill zone.  But it is actually more subtle than that.

Because some things are genuinely Vaut Le Voyage as M Michelin would say, and you would happily expend a huge amount of effort to go up a Beeg Eel to see them – we’ve seen some great views on this trip which were definitely worth three hours of sweaty slog.

But other things are really #betterviewedthanvisited.  Examples:

1. Steam trains.  Who doesn’t love the sight, the sound, the smell of a steam train?  I love ’em!  The hint of a chuffa chuffa toot and I perk up like a meerkat offered an advertising contract.  But riding in a steam train?  Uncomfortable old seats, and some sort of made-up route.  Give me a sleeper ride with a modern engine any time – I have just had an instructive few minutes with the Man in Seat 61’s guide to the Orient Express, what a great chap he is.  (Sid points out that he did get to drive the actual steam engine on a train once, in Cuba,  but that option is not open to all of us, only those with $5 in bribe money.)

2. Monasteries at the top of hills.  OK sometimes there are exceptions, and to place-drop shamelessly I saw some that were definitely worth gasping my way up to in Tibet.  But otherwise, go and see a monastery in the valley and admire the profile of the building at the top of the hill.  It will be broadly the same inside.

3. Castles, ditto.  And especially villages perches.  Unfortunately the road you are on will usually grind its way up to them and then turn away about 5m short, leaving you to lose all that lovely height again.  Because the point of the road you are on is to join up all these similar-looking villages/castles.

4. Ruins of any age, ditto.  Especially when you are in an area that has loads of them.  Greece and Turkey are particularly bad for this.  Hooray some pillars, fine, I saw some just like this down there, let’s get back into the aircon.

5. Windmills.  Especially in Greece.  Who doesn’t love a picturesque windmill on the skyline?  Which is exactly where it belongs.  Up close it will be one or many of a) ruined b) full of sheep poo c) a recent location for a picnic/rave/toilet stop and full of the inevitable d) painstakingly reconstructed and charging you some money to enter.  Nope.

I may think of some more examples later but I think I have made my point.
From sea level.
Doris.

PS Viaducts.  And aqueducts.  And really amazing bits of bridge engineering.

PPS Rock faces.  From Stanage Edge to El Capitan, if you are standing at the top then you are only looking at the view (unless you are part of a climbing team of course).