What is Steeplehopping?

Steeplehopping is, put simply, a method of exploration. While travelling in Europe, I would often find myself at a train station, no idea where to go or what to see in this strange European city. What I would do in these circumstances is to scan the horizon, above the buildings. And I would find a steeple that looked interesting, and resolve to go there.

In Europe, of course, the streets are almost never in a grid, so it would take some time, a long, circuitous route, to find the building to which my target steeple attached, but on the way, I'd have seen so much of this city. When I finally got to the steeple in question, I'd spend some time admiring or investigating the building, and then I would be off: I would find a new steeple, a new destination, and a new journey.