Friday, June 17, 2011

Navigator: I will not follow you


The maps in Spain don't make any sense.  They print the map so the city fits in a rectangle, which never correlates with cardinal directions. There's always a compass in a corner somewhere, although I have seen a map or two that didn't have one, but North never points where you think it should.  Customarily, North points to the top of the page.  In Spain, it points in whichever direction it feels like - presumably its north, but its not pointing to the top of the page, so if you want to use cardinal directions you're going to have to turn the map all sorts of funny directions to find north.

I am the navigator.  Why?  Because I refuse to let anyone else hold the map.  Why?  Because I like to know exactly where I am.  But if the map doesn't point north, how do you read it?  Easy.

No comments:

Post a Comment