Wheel of Time - TV Show on Amazon Prime

Here we are. This is the Tar Valon map, taken off the page of a book. https://aidanmoher.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/y1tR8.gif (make-pretend NSFW if you know what I mean)

On that map, Dragonmount is at approximately 8 o'clock due to the fact that North is the upper-right on the map.. It's hard to pin because Dragonmount is massive and looms in the background.

And I'm saying that there is an ARGUMENT that Dragonmount is closer to 10 (I wouldn't say anywhere near 11, and I misspoke if I did) because of the particular angle... but I think it is an accurate reprsentation of what a massive mountain at 8 o'clock would look like. The "Hill View" however seems to have a slightly horrific lend effect like someone overusing a cheap fish-eye. That's the reason I think the position is slightly distorted there. That's what I meant by "bad vfx". The latter view overlooking Osenrein, however, I think is a perfect representation plain-and-simple.

I honestly can’t justify why they would have crossed the Tar Valon / Caemlyn road (it doesn’t have a name that I can find),

I'm a bit rusty on some of the road names. I thought it was stilled called "The Caemlyn Road", but now I'm second-guessing myself on that. My reasoning however is that the Road directly connecting Caemlyn and Tar Valon is a massive thoroughfare, and despite there being about 100 people or so on it, the tiny 1-foot-wide dirt path we see around the 7:01 mark in S1E5 is absolutely not that.

Look at your map, though. I swear (but can't cite) there were formally a few small connecting roads between the road from Caemlyn and the Cairhien Road (the latter is correctly named). But the "why?". They were avoiding big roads by (and after) the Grinwell Farm. And remember, they aren't coming directly from Caemlyn anymore, despite coming from Andor.

You want an Easter Egg? I keep going back-and-forth about this one, whether it was intentional. Look at THIS map You might recognize the town closest to where that shot must have been taken. My estimate of the town closest to the spot the "Hill Overlook" picture was taken? Just a small off-the-grid no-named town called Dumai's Wells. As we all know, subtly hinting at Dumai's Wells couldn't possibly be an attempt to pander at the most hardcore of us.

And those ARE the families of Easter Eggs we're being consistently given by the showrunners who knew they had a hard uphill battle to fight.

...and while I agree about odd choices, there are very few even readers who are going to fault the show terribly from the angle they arrived that aren't already faulting the show for Tar Valon replacing Caemlyn.