Atlas

For some people, atlases are nothing more than useful books of reference; they consult them only when they are obliged to do so. For others, they are a source of infinite delight. The real map-lover is transported beyond his own room into the countryside he knows well, cities he has visited, or distant places he has read about but never seen. He holds the world in his hands, and his imagination leads him everywhere.

Large-scale maps of your own neighborhood are Tag Heuer Carrera Replica fascinating, precisely because you know the district well. In no time, you are following a familiar path, turning the dots on the map into houses and shops, and the crosses into churches. You climb a hill, and as the contours of the map fall away before you, you trace the shapes of grassy slopes and valleys as far as the horizon. When you, return home you feel as if you have, been wandering about for hours, even though you have not stirred from your armchair.

Maps of unfamiliar territory provide a different sort of pleasure. Here you are lured into the unknown; you imagine strange people and magnificent scenery; you traverse seas few ships have crossed. With an atlas in your hands, distance is no object. You have only to turn over a few pages and you can be travelling along great rivers. That intriguing mystery, the source of the Nile, is solved before your eyes and you can stop to marvel at the Victoria Falls before beginning your voyage across Africa. The numerous tributaries of the Amazon fan out across South America like huge blue veins. The river slowly gathers force on its journey through jungle and mountain, until it finally spills into the Atlantic. Changes of climate can be rapid. From the burning sands of the desert, you can be swept to the broken coastline and floating ice packs of the Antarctica.

Old maps can be just as exciting. Outside the small area of what was then the known world, the great continents we know so well are Tag Heuer Replica given fantastic shapes. Rivers of incredible size cut across them; mysterious creatures glide through the oceans, and then, suddenly, the world ends. Beyond the flat edge of the map, there is nothing but angels blowing their trumpets at the corners. We can only marvel at the intrepid explorers who had the courage to travel over the extreme edge of this odd world to turn it into the one we know.