The view

As a person living and travelling overseas, I’ve come to pass through some pretty spectacular views. The view of Logrono from the caves inside Mount Cantabria. The view of Waterford from the top of Dunhill Castle. The view of Madrid from the top of El Corte Inglés.

And then I wondered, why do we have such a fascination with nice views? People pay exorbitant amounts of money for rooms with a view. How does looking at something from a long distance spur such emotion?

I think it’s the way you kind of disappear from the world. There’s a giddy sense of voyeurism in looking at a city that doesn’t know you’re there. The world becomes a caricature. Cars look like matchbox cars moving slowly, aimlessly. People look like ants: silly, colliding into each other the way they do. They look so stressed, so rushed. And all for what?

From up high our on-ground worries look conquerable, like the winding streets below that have somehow sorted themselves out into neat little blocks.

And it’s funny because even if you’ve seen a beautiful view once or a hundred times before, through no amount of photos will you be able to recapture that same sense of sanity.

And that, you see, is the magic of ‘the view.’