At dawn I got up and spotted an Andean wolf trotting past a stunning panorama of distant snowy volcanoes.
But Ulriken, the "south tower" of the Bergen massif, offers its main prize to everyone: the view is stunning, a panorama of distant snow-covered peaks and the city tucked into its fjord, enhanced by paragliders, abseilers and cyclists.
Residents who left for work in the morning would return in the evening to find an entirely new, much larger home, with floor-to-ceiling glass doors opening onto glassed-in winter gardens that gave way to balconies with panoramas of the distant Eiffel Tower and La Défense.
En route, British Columbia's best nature panoramas unfurl below, from distant snow-capped jags to vast, broccoli-green forests – and maybe a bear or two snuffling for wild berries.
Start at about 4 p.m. on a clear winter day, and you'll get a different angle of the Hollywood sign, but better still, a Technicolor panorama with setting sun, a distant sliver of the Pacific, city lights at your feet and a whiff of horse manure to keep it real.
Maybe Limestone Canyon & Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park or O'Neill Regional Park, where you can make the 3.2-mile round-trip hike up Live Oak Trail to Ocean Vista Point, 1,492 feet above sea level, for a panorama of hills, suburban fringe and distant sea.
Our panorama included the village of Lauterbrunnen below, distant valleys, gleaming snow-covered mountaintops, pastoral fields, stark cliffs, tall, ribbonlike waterfalls, and occasional tidy wooden chalets.
As mulberry leaves drifted down like flakes of rust onto the laden table, I gazed out over the panorama of the Magdalene hills, the castle, the distant smokestacks and tenements of the city below, the river plain spreading toward the Alps.
The house is modest in size but feels spacious; in the living room, two simple stone columns frame a panorama of woods and fields falling away to the distant ocean.
"Italian Scene Composition" (1833), painted in New York from impressions gathered in Italy, is a grand panorama of sylvan countryside with classical ruins and a distant mountain, contemplated by a tiny figure in the foreground who sits with his back against a broken column.
Look out from the quayside across Guanabara Bay and the panorama takes in Sugarloaf mountain, the Niteroi bridge and the distant hills of the Serra dos Orgãos national park, while behind you are the palm trees of Flamengo Park and the statue of Christ the Redeemer.
