On hot summer days, relax by the heavenly pool or enjoy the big garden and revel in distant views of the Luberon range.

BBC: Provence's most atmospheric B&Bs

The ability to use a mobile, sea-going platform means that the regime and its friends need not seek long-range missiles to attack distant targets.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Concentrating on missile defense

So although there are azure skies on the distant horizon, in the short range the airspace is getting crowded with new competitors and new planes, and there may not be enough business to keep them all flying.

ECONOMIST: Corporate jets

From this Iron Age hill fort, built in 400 BC, the views sweep down from the North York Moors and over to the Vale of York and the Vale of Mowbray to the distant Pennines, a low-rise mountain range sometimes dubbed "the backbone of England".

BBC: Eat your way around Yorkshire

It will still need, though, the support of other specialist observatories, operating at a range of different wavelengths, to study these far-distant locations in detail and make sense of them.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Telescope looks to go to the edge