Climbing the tower at Flanders is really something special. Even for someone like me who has been visiting Flanders Moss for nearly 10 years and since the tower was completed in November has been up it 4 or 5 times a week it still has a special feeling of anticipation as you climb the steps for a whole lot of reasons.
Firstly there is the chance to see what you couldn't see before. The panoramic view across the moss to the hills and mountains that make the amphitheatre that Flanders sits in is something special and having looked at Flanders for man height for so long it is still a novelty to see as you haven't seen it before. Once on the platform you are into the tree tops and so on bird level. With the summer migrants arriving this means that you are ear level with willow warblers, chaffinches and redstarts, and the cuckoos call and swoop right past you. You are also up in the weather, the sun is brighter, the breeze fresher, the wind sharper and the rain wetter. For some the climb offers a challenge to be overcome if vertigo or the stairs are a problem but the exhilaration can be all the more if they make it to the top.
For me there is a feeling of escape from everyday life as you climb the stairs. Up on the platform is just a different world. And for many people they climb the tower just cos its there, perhaps it is an unconscious desire to get high on flat land and just to look where you couldn't look before.
So what does the tower mean to you ?
