A Sense of History: Thálatta! Thálatta!
While he never climbs the stairs of this Elf-tower, in Lothlórien Frodo Baggins descends a flight of steps to look into Galadriel’s Mirror, wherein he first sees the sea. This post examines the view.
After living for hundreds, never mind thousands, of years by the sea there's no way that Círdan wasn't a) as brown as a berry, and b) didn't invent surfing.