Top Five Urban Panoramas

In honor of my upcoming trip out to the Western U.S. (more about it later this week), this week's blog entries are dedicated to the wonders of the natural world. While my trip will be devoted to hiking and exploring wilderness, it is important to note that you do need need to escape from civilization to see some gorgeous vistas. Today's list is my top five urban panoramas (listed by viewing spot). The stipulations are that there must be a nearly 360-degree view and there must be natural geographic features that are complemented by the city.

1. Corcovado, Rio de Janeiro
Without the city beneath, Rio would be gorgeous, with hills rising directly out of the ocean and rainforest running all the way down to the beach and inlets of water up and down the coast. The city only adds to the allure. It's as if someone poured civilization onto the coast and it ran downhill into the lowest altitudes, covering the beaches and the valleys with high-rise apartments while leaving the mountains in their unadulterated state.

2. Il Duomo, Florence
Looking down from the roof of the Duomo Cathedral, you can see the red roofs of Florence and its environs surrounding the cathedral and stretching out toward Pisa and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west. But fencing in the north and east are the hills of Tuscany, dotted with villas and vineyards. The places just breathes relaxation. When I climbed up to look around, I lingered for several minutes, swearing I was going to remain in Italy and never return to the U.S. My self-control returned but my fantasy remains.

3. Lykavittos Hill, Athens
You don't realize how sprawling the city of Athens is until you climb (or take the tram) to the top of Lykavittos Hill. In all directions, a nearly-unbroken sea of white extends miles into the distance, stopping only at the port of Pireaus or at snow-capped mountains. The glaring interruption is the Acropolis, topped by the 2500-year-old Pantheon, and sitting right smack in the middle of modern capital city.

4. Empire State Building, New York
Perhaps the confluence of the Hudson River and Long Island Sound is not quite as impressive a geographic feature as other places in this list, but gazing out at New York City from atop the Empire State Building, you realize how amazing it is that one of the world's greatest cities grew up on a few small islands on the Atlantic coastline. What I always find curious about New York is just how hilly Upper Manhattan and the Bronx and the Palisades area of New Jersey are and Staten Island are, despite the fact that they sit right in the coastal plain.

5. Montjuic, Barcelona
Montjuic is impressive on its own for being an oasis where you can completely forget you're in a city of well over a million people, even though you're less than a mile removed from civilization. The vista from the castle atop Montjuic is amazing. Montjuic sits right on the Mediterranean Sea, and looking toward the water, you can see the port and the beaches below you. Looking north, the city of Barcelona spreads out, dotted by the Sagrada Familia and the Torre Agbar, blanketing the gentle climb from the ocean toward the mountains of Catalonia.