Category: Contest

A reader thinks it’s San Francisco:

The new strip mall on the other, never-photographed side of Alamo Square?

Another picks the “Smokeless Coal Capital” of America:

Looks like the roof of Tamarack arts center near Beckley, West Virginia. I just stopped there during a road trip in late April.

Another:

Hard one this week. The closest I can get is Aden in Yemen, judging by the profile of the mountains and Arabic signage.

Another correctly notes the significance of taking the contest to the Middle East this week:

So, as a Muslim (fringy as I am), I couldn’t help thinking that this week’s contest was maybe in honor of the beginning of Ramadan. If so, great! If not, thanks for not posting a picture of one of the souped-up Arab metropolises built to be viewed from the space station.

The view looks like some sort of shopping plaza, or entrance to an arcade. It’s rather desultory, certainly doesn’t call to mind the shiny new buildings and streets of one of the UAE cities. The hilly terrain bordering the city suggested Yemen or Jordan or Algeria. Given that of the three Yemen seems the most economically oppressed, I settled on Sana a. Never having been there, I have no clue as to whether or not the signage is in multiple languages. I’m pretty sure that in Jordan and Algeria they are at least also in English and French.

Of course, I could be dead wrong, again … grr. Perhaps if we were to get a glimpse of the populace, as in whether or not there is a completely or partially shrouded female population. That would certainly give me a better idea as to the sort of prevailing religious influence on the politics.

Still, I really hope I’m closer this time, and NOT because it’s Ramadan!

Another is thinking Kabul:

That dust (rumored to be a very high fecal content due to the open sewers), those mountains, the Arabic script, and somewhat decrepit window – looks a lot like the Afghan capital. Actually, it’s the wife’s guess. I’ve learned to listen to her. A few weeks back she said: that’s Chateau de Chillon! I said, no it’s not; it looks a lot like it, but the view is wrong. Stupid me. I lived in Lausanne 7 years and now feel very silly.

I can’t guess a window now, as we’re at 34,000 feet over Alaska en route to Tokyo. Normally that would give plenty of time to search, but the 9 month old in my lap is demanding attention and refuses to sleep.

Or Lebanon?

Well, I see Arabic writing in a somewhat rundown city, but no visible minarets, so perhaps a relatively secular nation. I’d guess Beirut or Amman, but Amman has lots of buildings on its hills, while Beirut has areas that look relatively sparse, so I’m going with it. I’m not one of those folks who tries to get the exact building; I’m just hoping this isn’t a shopping center in Detroit. That would be embarrassing, even for someone whose goal is “get the right city.”

Another gets the right country:

The only times I think I know the view it’s because I think I’ve been there. Well, it’s a big world, so the chances of that happening are miniscule.

But it really does seem like these are the green pyramids on top of the Golestan Mall in Shahrak-e Gharb, Tehran, Iran. It’s where my wife would buy dubbed pirated Disney DVDs for our bilingual children (they were only allowed to watch Disney movies in Farsi) Of course it could be that every mall in Iran has green pyramids …

Another nails the right city:

By George, I’ve got it! This was taken in Isfahan, Iran (or, as most Iranians call the city, Esfahan). The turquoise roofs are unmistakably Persian, as is the script on the store signs and the somewhat less prominent signage in the middle of the photo for some sort of civic office (the part I can make out says “Information and Communications of the Mayoralty of Isfahan”). I hope the recognition of Farsi won’t be considered a case of cheating, albeit a mild one.

The beautifully intricate architecture, impressive bridges, ancient artwork, and overall grandeur of the city warrant the famous proverb “Esfahan nesf-e jahan” (Isfahan is half the world). I should know: I have fond memories of family visits to Isfahan as a child, but am reluctant to return so as not to spoil the mental imagery I have of evenings spent on the banks of Zayandeh-Rood (Zayandeh River), which, alas, has been drying up gradually in recent years.

Here’s our sparse OpenHeatMap of everyone’s entries, which totaled less than 30 this week:

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Another reader was tipped off by “distinctive mountain peak in the background”. And behind that mountain is apparently some international intrigue:

We pretty quickly narrowed this one down to Isfahan, Iran. Firstly, it’s obviously somewhere in the Middle East and secondly one of our number is an Iranian Jew whose family is from that area. Then once comparing the mountain range visible in the picture to that on the map we determined it was in the north-northeast suburbs of Isfahan looking generally to the northeast (see map):

But from there we were stumped. So that’s what we’ve got for this week.

It’s interesting to note that on the other side of those mountains is the Natanz nuclear uranium enrichment facility, host of 1,000 centrifuges and the very plant that was infected by the Stuxnet computer virus at the hands of Israel and the U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007.

Another gets the exact location:

This is a view from a window of the Shah Abbas Hotel in Isfahan, Iran. The hotel is currently known as the Abbasi Hotel. The view is towards the south. The building across the way is a shopping mall housing carpet dealers and other tourist shops. The hotel was created from an old Safavid caravanseri and is attached to a small bazaar and a religious school. As the Iranians say, “Isfahan is half the world”. A wonderful place with great people. I was there as a Peace Corps volunteer forty years ago and went back again five years ago. I stayed at the Abbasi, perhaps in this room. Certainly one very similar.

A fantastic entry from a former winner:

The contest view is from the southern-facing exterior of the Abbasi Hotel (entry on Amadegah Street) in Isfahan, Iran. Not surprisingly, the view is from a lesser photographed aspect of this very elaborate hotel and misses most of the hotel’s iconic views.

The Persian writing on the shopping complex signs suggested Iran, so I began searching hotels and general views of Tehran. A series of photographs linked to a Tehran hotel included scenes of the Khaju Bridge in Isfahan. A mountain peak in the background appeared similar to that in the contest window, so I switched the search to Isfahan. I passed through many photographs from the Abbasi Hotel before seeing one taken towards the south, which included the distinct rows of blue triangular decorative elements on the roof of the neighboring shopping complex. The brick balcony arches on the hotels southern façade also matched that of the contest window (very nicely done brickwork). The angle of the contest photograph shows only the upper portion of the baloney’s decorative railing which is characteristic of this side of the hotel (part of the railing’s cross pattern is slightly visible in the right-hand corner of the contest photograph). A collage of clues:

Several features of the shopping complex visible in the contest view place the window on the western side of the building’s southern façade (number and relative location of blue triangles on roof, the stairs, bend in the shopping complex roofline, roof triangles visible in right-hand side of photograph, etc.). I relied primarily on sight lines to locate the general area of the contest window and chose, with significant uncertainly, the third window in from the western side of the building’s southern face on the upper-most floor (see attached):

I selected the upper floor because the view is through the upper tree canopy and misses the tops of palm trees that line this side of the hotel. I suspect a view from a lower floor would include crowns of the palm trees. Views from the shopping complex toward the hotel suggest that the tree canopy would extend to the upper floor.

Thank you for another fine tour of a World Heritage site.

Thank your fellow readers, one of whom is a former resident:

This is a view of a shopping complex built when I lived in Isfahan, Iran in the 1970s. The highest peak in the distance is crowned with the ruins of an Assasin’s Castle. This group gave us the word assassin and is currently known as Ishmaelis. The blue tile roof echoes the colors across the street of the side of a large complex built in the 1700’s.

There is the Madrassa (religious school) Modari – Shah complete with a bulbous blue tile dome. On the other side of this is a brick covered bazaar called the Boland bazaar because of it’s high domes.  Next to the school and across the street from the pictured complex is the former Caravan Serai. Rents from this and the Bazaar helped finance the school. This is a very practical arrangement often followed in the Islamic world. A shopping complex supports the mosque. Of course this can often get out of hand.

This caravan serai was turned into a deluxe hotel with a beautiful garden in the central courtyard. By the 1900s, all of these buildings were in severe disrepair as Islamic dynasties rarely keep up buildings from a former dynasty. A sadly little known American Persian scholar and his wife, Arthur Upham Pope, convinced the last Shah’s father, Reza Shah, to fund the restoration of Iran’s architectural heritage. This involved the training of scores of craftsmen, research, etc. Much of the Islamic Architecture one sees in Iran is due to his work. Without him there probably would have been little left as. Reza Shah’s son, the last Shah, continued this funding. His wive, the Shahbanu was very active in this area. Mr. and Mrs. Pope elected to be buried in Isfahan. They said they were not just ordinary scholars, they loved their adopted country, Iran.

The Shah built them a wonderful simple brick tomb in an early Islamic style on the banks of the river that flows through the city. When Khomeini took over mobs smashed into the tomb, dug up the bones and fed them to the stray dogs. The tomb has since been repaired.

Chini, as is wont, was the only reader to guess the correct window:

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Persian speakers had a bit of a head start with this one. But not being able to read the signs helped to make this one of those perfect not too easy, not too hard views. More importantly, we’re not in Tehran. Lovely city, but another search through its 10,000 high rises would have just about driven me mad.

Instead, this week’s view comes from Isfahan, Iran and looks south by southwest along a heading of 191.78 degrees. The pic was likely snapped from a balcony on the third (physical) story of the Abbassi Hotel. The hotel itself is a local landmark because it was once a caravanserai, an ancient form of Persian trading inn.

It’s room 301, to be exact. Our winner this week was the only reader (who hasn’t previously won a contest) to guess the correct hotel and floor:

This picture was taken from a second or third floor balcony from the Abbasi Hotel in Isfahan. It is facing south toward Amadegah Street. There is a sign in the picture for the telecom organization of the City of Isfahan. The website of this organization gave me the address which I was able to find on Google Maps.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

A reader ventures a guess:

Björlanda, Sweden. I believe that is the Fladen fishing store on the pier.

Another looks east:

This looks very much like the area of Hakone, Japan in which I took an excursion in 2009. Those old-time looking ships are part of the tourist industry. I’m pretty sure this is on Lake Ashi, in the Japanese Alps.

Or the Caribbean?

I’m not entirely sure of the building, but I think this is from the second floor of the DeLugo Federal Building on Veterans Drive in Charlotte Amelie, St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Hassel Island is the island across the water in the foreground, and the building with the tall ship docked in front of it is next to the Legislature of the US Virgin Islands (which is out of the frame to the right). I haven’t been there since 2009, but it was raining then too! Thanks for a great window!

Another goes down under:

This contest is a pain in my ass. I went through chart after chart of tall ship logs (I finally settled on Australia/New Zealand and environs). I can’t take it anymore. I finally Googled “Tasmania esplanade” after searching with “quay”, “inlet”, “bay”, “tall ships” and just about every permutation of “port” and “harbor” I could think of … I landed on this painting of Strahan, Tasmania.

That sure as hell looks like the VFYWC, even though I can already tell the dome is missing from the building with the orange roof. I’m out. It’s probably clear on the other side of the world, like the Isle of Man.

Another nails the right island:

I see obvious English signage, a yellow-orange number plate, and double yellow lines, cars parked facing the left side leading me to think it’s somewhere in the UK. All my searches keep pointing back to Falmouth, but I can’t find any place that would match. The surroundings remind me on the gut level more of the area around Edinburgh, but again no dice. Brighton does a Tall Ships festival, but I can’t find any tie.

After looking at thousands of photos, tracing the UK on Google Earth, and going through every company beginning with “Community” I could find, I’m no better off than I was to begin with. I’ve got no more time to give, so I’m registering a frustrated “United Kingdom” as as close as I can get, and I’m even less than certain of that at this point. Grrr. Why do I love this game?!

Because of the drama of near misses? Another reader said the view “screamed” UK because of the “rain and depressed looking tourists”. Another hits the wrong end of the island:

Alrighty, so we have another dismal-ish looking port/harbor/beach view. If I hadn’t seen the little huddle of people bundled up in cold-weather clothing, I would have immediately guessed somewhere warm. However, the vehicles being on the left side of the road, the clearly English sign on the community whatsoever building on the pier, all led me to think that this is somewhere that the British were, or at least had an influence. The numerous blurry masts in the lower left corner suggest a yachting/boating is popular. There’s a sort of castle-y looking building on the waterside to the right, it looks quite old, as in a couple of hundred years or so. The steep slope of the hill at the right leads me to believe that that it probably goes up quite a ways, maybe the hillside buildings comprise a significant part of the landscape we’re not seeing.

All of the above only serves up some rather vague ideas about where this may be. Nonetheless, I’m going to guess somewhere in the Channel Islands or along the British coast.

Another gets the correct (presently non-sovereign) country:

I don’t have any more than this guess: Ullapool, Scotland.

This reader, like most this week, identified the correct city and hotel:

OMG, I FINALLY GOT ONE!

After years of blankly staring at the view from your window photos and wondering how anyone figured these out, I decided to stop doing anything else until I figured out where this one was. After all, there were plenty of clues: European license plate on a car, UK street markings, and even words on buildings! This would be easy, right?

Um, no … it appears that an insane level of persistence is required to search every possible clue until you get that magical hit. Then you get to obsessively triangulate in on the photo’s precise point of view. But holy cow, this was fun!

The town is Oban, Scotland, and it looks like the photo was taken from a third floor window at the Oban Caledonian Hotel.

Chini chimes in:

Normally it’s a tad disappointing to get an easy view, but between travel for work and Sunday’s World Cup game I’m grateful that this was a near instant find. Plus, it’s a good photo for new players because there’s at least half a dozen different ways to find the location.

Indeed there were:

Northern seaport.
European buildings, license plate.
“Community” on building – aha! Scotland.
Google “Piazza Scotland”: “We are a family friendly pizza/pasta restaurant on a pier in beautiful Oban Bay in Scotland”

Bingo!

Or you could take a more circuitous route:

Google indicated alternative European yellow tags could have been the Netherlands, Cyprus, or Gibraltar (who knew?), but the English word “Community” led me back to the UK.  Web searches for “wharf red metal roof” were totally useless, as was the “Plazen(?)” word by the red-roof building.

Reluctantly, I then circumnavigated the UK, starting near Dover (it was a hunch and not a good one), along the English Channel, then through Ireland, then up to the west coast of Scotland, looking for a bay with a red roof on wharf.  The UK train logos fooled me many times, but the red roof of the Oban North Ferry Terminal finally gave me hope that my efforts had paid off.  There is something really powerful about first seeing the street view confirming this sought-after location.  It’s a really cool feeling.

Below is this week’s OpenHeatMap of everyone’s guesses (zoom in by double-clicking an area of interest, or drag your cursor up and down the slide):

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Most readers got the right window too, but only one nailed it with a GIF – a first for the window contest:

I found it by googling “fish restaurant on dock scotland.”

A long-time lurker:

Aha! I’ve been following this contest for years and have yet to come any where near guessing correctly. And then finally, this morning, it’s somewhere I’ve been! I almost feel guilty (well no, not really).

The red roofed building on the pier is Ee-usk, a perfectly reasonable seafood restaurant that my wife and I walked out of in favor of fish and chips at a pub down the road. This photo was taken from there:

Another describes the scene:

The location is familiar because I visited Oban once more than twenty years ago. It was the last family holiday with my parents before I went to university. We stayed in a guest house near St Columba’s cathedral which you can seen in the distance behind the building with the red roof. The island straight ahead is Kerrera. It is a pity the weather was so bad when the picture was taken because the views from here are beautiful. If it had been clearer, to the right of Kerrera you would see across Loch Linnhe to another long low island, Lismore (the most boring place I have ever visited), and the mountains on the mainland again beyond it. Behind Kerrera, to the left, you would see the mountains on Mull.

A first-time player:

I am from Glasgow and first took my wife to Scotland to tour the country in 1999 (we met as students in Canada and started dating the previous year). We stayed for a night in Oban and sailed from there to Mull and went on to Iona. The night in Oban was wet (natch). We sat in our rental car on the seafront (possibly a spot in the photo), listening to “Just A Minute” and watching a diver ease his way out into the bay. Thanks for bringing the memory back to the surface.

Many readers have been there:

Not only is this week’s contest easy, but I’ve had pints at the Oban Caledonian Hotel looking at harbour. My wife and I stayed in Oban with our daughter, then almost two years old. It was our daughter’s first time experiencing the sun setting after 10 pm and she couldn’t sleep. So while my wife rested, I packed my daughter in the stroller walked into town, ordered a beer and rocked the stroller back-and-forth while looking out over the water.

I’ve mentioned this Scottish trip to The Dish before. The first time you posted one of my emails was for Contest 157(tbd) when you also used one of our Glen Coe pictures.

Anyway, back to the window. It is the third floor window over the balcony and labeled in the attached. The angle of the view, the details of the stonework around the window, and the newel post on the balcony below led me to the window.  For the room number, I’ll guess 215.

Above is a picture I took several years ago from the B&B we stayed at looking back towards the harbour. Unfortunately, it is not a high enough resolution to label the contest window. For anyone trying to figure out that window, I believe it was room 6 of the Alltavona Guest House.

Another reader:

I recognized Oban Harbour immediately. It is one of those places I felt really “at home”. I did the tourist thing to visit Castle Sween, a castle where some of my MacMillin ancestors were sheriffs for the Campbells. I stayed in Oban/Fort William to explore the western coast. It was November, off season and wonderfully full of locals only.

Another:

I’ve only been to Oban once, as a child, and I remember nothing but the harbour being full of dead jellyfish. The city was, like my native Cardiff, the hereditary home of the Marquesses of Bute. The 3rd Marquess, who converted to Catholicism, furnished the Cathedral Church of St Columba in Oban, which can be seen in the window, and was originally clad in corrugated iron (known locally as the “Tin Cathedral”). I think my great-great-grandfather was one of his boy choristers.

Another learned some vocab:

This week’s contest taught me the difference between “piers” and “quays”! Specifically, piers are wooden and quays are stone. And more importantly, when you Google “red buildings on piers in the UK,” you get nothing relevant, while the same search for “quays” just might do the trick.

This husband-and-husband team learned about ships:

Rather than brute-force through a zillion possible cities in Google Earth, my husband chose instead to search for sailing ships, first using reference materials found online to identify the brown and tan vessel in mid-frame as a ketch. “There can’t be that many ketches in the world,” he said, but he ended up viewing hundreds of images before finding this one on ship-photographs.com:

Ship-photographs.com (another handy site for window hunters) identifies the ship as Maybe, a 26.13m Bermuda ketch built in 1929. This information led in turn to Maybe’s web site, where an itinerary can be found. I got tangled up in news stories about Maybe’s arrival in Whitehaven such as this one before looking at an earlier stop in Oban, Scotland.

A former winner saw the street markings and was reminded of a “corny old family joke”:

A tourist asks an Irishman what the yellow line on the side of the road means. “Ah, it means you can’t park there at all.” “So what does it mean when there’s a double yellow line?” “That means you can’t park there at all, at all.”

Another reader:

First, as a heavy scotch drinker:

I thought this was going to be an easy one as there seemed to be tons of clues to go on – left-side driving, European license plate style (but also maybe Australian), distinctive seafood restaurant, some visible text (“community”), but it nonetheless took me a lot of hunting to track it down. I don’t know if that’s because it’s a hard contest this week, or if I was just unlucky or not very clever.

I finally managed to track down a photo of the EE-USK restaurant with the Google query “seafood restaurant pier scotland”, which found this photo showing the restaurant’s recognizable red dome:

How did I know to search Scotland? I didn’t. I tried “seafood restaurant pier england” and “seafood restaurant pier australia” and so on until I got lucky. The restaurant looks interesting. Its name is a phonetic spelling of “iasg”, Gaelic for “Fish”, which makes sense as they get their fish directly from the fishing vessels and can serve them fresher than pretty much anywhere else. A few hours from swimming in the sea to being served on a plate, as this YouTube video demonstrates: Ee-usk on “Town with Nicholas Crane”

After locating the correct harbor, tracking the view to the Caledonian Hotel was not hard. By my calculations it could only have been taken from one window.

My calculations are, however, sometimes wrong. Who knows what room number it is – I’ll take a wild guess at 222.

There were so many great entries this week, so see if you can find yours in our collage:

This week’s winner is a three-year, 19-contest veteran from our esteemed list of players who have correctly guessed difficult views in the past without winning:

My first thought was British Columbia/Alaska, but then I noticed the yellow elongated license plate and figured it must be Scotland. I googled “tall ships Scotland”, found a couple companies offering holidays on tall and small ships, and started looking at the ports mentioned. Oban was the first place I checked out, and the red roof on the Ee-usk Seafood Restaurant on the North Pier made it clear that I had found the right location. Looking for the crenelated seawall and the area with the benches got me to the Caledonian Hotel.

So far, so good. I’ve found the correct building any number of times, but I always lose it on the precise window locations – I’ve decided I have some hereditary problem judging sight lines and angles. After looking through every single customer photo of the Caledonia Hotel on Trip Advisor, I’m guessing the photograph was taken from room 204. I’m inserting a picture with a circle around the (I’m desperately hoping) correct window.

That’s exactly correct. From the photo’s submitter:

We’re terrible at playing VFYW, but we thought our current view would make an excellent submission for an upcoming contest.

We’re currently staying in room 204 of the Oban Caledonian Hotel in Oban, Scotland. Since their upcoming vote on separating from Britain has been in the news, we thought it would be timely too.

We snapped the photo upon our arrival this afternoon, being careful not to show any buildings that included “Oban” or other obvious words on them. We’re including Skitched photos from two angles in case someone identifies the window that way vs by room number. We thought it might be extra challenging to get the exact window because it looks out the side of the building rather than the front (which you can see by comparing the two angles.

By the way, this is our very first time on the UK, and we love it so far!

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

A reader writes:

At first glance, I thought I was looking at an airport. The wide concrete slabs and numerous arrows triggered that impression in my brain. Of course when it registered that there were benches lining the edges, I realized how wrong I was!

The wide man-made beach leading to what looks like a very unfriendly lagoon is clearly not South American, although it does conjure up the vision of a curiously deserted section of Ipanema. Most interesting are what looks like windmills on the upper left corner. The top of the hill has what looks like some sort of ruin, but probably isn’t. I’m not sure what makes me think Scandinavian, except that it is an unusually pristine beach and surroundings. However, I couldn’t find a pic resembling this image online. Again, this feels like a sad little place, the overcast skies darkening the lagoon water, with rather stark architecture. Somewhere in Scandinavia, Norway or Sweden, Copenhagen.

Another reader senses “a very Russian feeling” from the view. Another gets topical:

I do not have the time to follow through on my immediate instincts, which are “World Cup,” and “Brazil.” When I start looking at beaches in Brazil, I find some that have very similar light fixtures, so I think I am in the right country. But there are a lot of beaches! I’m taking a guess to say it is a beach in the vicinity of Recife, Brazil.

Another is clearly looking forward to summer:

Congratulations. Wherever this is, they have created the perfect beach experience for people who hate both sand and water.

Another hits the States:

This week’s view is really a puzzler. At first glance I thought there were plenty of clues to go on: the beach next to a densely-packed urban landscape, the concrete promenade, the bike path. There are odd buildings along the shore, and … is that a set of stairs going down to a parking garage? I can’t tell. There aren’t any palm trees, which suggests a temperate climate. I’ve been chasing up all these clues obsessively and haven’t found anything that seems remotely close. I’m certain it’s not Chicago, but I’m going with that anyway. So frustrating!

Even a correct guesser notes:

Wow, this one was hard.

Indeed. There were only 20 readers who even hazarded a guess this week. One of them frowns:

I would waste the day investigating this location but I am disqualifying it because it shows no part of the window frame and contains an animal (dog). I can do something productive instead.

True, we never post frameless views for our daily VFYW feature, but due to the lack of good candidates for the contest, we occasionally use them here.  And animals are only disqualifying when they are the central focus of the view, not incidental background. The closest incorrect entry:

Nice beach. No one swimming, not even a dog, despite the green flags. Must be the North Sea. I say it’s Dunkirk, France.

Another nails the right country and city:

My guess for this week is a city on the northern coast of Spain, specifically Gijon, Spain. The dense city, the streetlight fixtures, and the beautiful beach were my clues. There are a number of half-moon beaches in the area, and I suspect this photo was taken from the aquarium or some restaurant in the area looking east.

A previous winner nails the building too. Here’s his breakdown:

It took a while to figure this contest out because the items in the photo pulled me in different directions. The buildings and grey concrete sidewalks next to a beach with calm waters made me think it is an Eastern European location, perhaps on the Black Sea. The Kompan pirate playground, the wind, and the people dressed in long sleeved clothing made me think western or northern Europe. But the palm trees are too tall for northern Europe.

To confuse things further, I initially thought the statute on the hill opposite was a Greek ruin. After realizing the object was too large for that to be true, I started to try random bits of the European coastline. Then after stumbling across similar looking lamp posts in San Sebastián and Biarritz in North Spain, I realized the contest window must be nearby.

Soon enough, I discovered that Gijón, Spain had the same lamp posts as in the picture and I arrived at Calle Mariano Pola, 2, 33212 Gijón, Asturias, Spain. Based on this photo, I think the contest picture was taken from this two-bedroom vacation apartment for rent. For the exact window within the apartment, I highlighted it in the attached screenshot. The sculpture in the distance turns out to be Eulogy to the Horizon by Eduardo Chillida.

Below is a visual glimpse of all of the entries (zoom in by double-clicking an area of interest, or drag your cursor up and down the slide):

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From a reader in country:

Well, no special story or anything other than I have walked along that waterfront, as it’s fairly well known here in Spain. Only once have I been up to Gijón (pronounced in English as “hee-hone”), but I instantly recognized it, so I imagine you will have quite a few correct guesses this week. Let me recommend Asturias and the northern parts of Spain in general to so many of the readers who may have an image of the country that completely forgets the very verdant North. It’s a completely different style that is absolutely lovely.

Anyway, after knowing where it was from memory, I just used Google Maps to confirm it was the same place I was thinking of and found a nice street view photo sphere of the area:

And looking around I found a pleasant piece of architecture that I’m pretty sure is the building in question:

​Now that I noticed that the rules were bent a bit this week to not show the actual window, I’m going to guess that the photo is from the top balcony of the building at Calle de Mariano Pola, number 2.

A veteran player:

I got lucky looking at beaches with roof structures. I found a TripAdvisor shot, showing that striking wall design at the beach steps. That led to Google Map view, excerpted below, at a sunnier and more populated moment:

Below is a photo from an apartment for rent, described as Calle Mariano Pola, 2, 3:

I am not sure if this is the very apartment, but it seems awfully close! Perhaps the VFYW was taken early in the day; beach looks very empty, and with its lack of shadows, can’t tell what time it was. But I am thrilled to have found it, anyhow!

Another reader:

Playa de Poniente, white building shaped like a ship (there are three in a row; it’s the one nearest an old chimney), fourth floor. For the window, see the attached image:

This one was really hard. I came close to giving up, then my sister told me: “looks like Spain” (I was sure it was a northern country somewhere in Europe). So I googled “playa artificial” (it is definitely an artificial beach), and after a hundred photos of Japanese beaches-under-a-dome there it was.

Another:

Six in a row!  A new record for my wife and me.  And hard-earned, too, as this was easily the contest I’ve had to spend the most time on over the last month and a half.

But why, when there’s so much to look at?  I really thought a European beach would give itself up rather quickly, but this tiny beach near the Gijon marina hid itself as well as any place can on the internet these days.  Our first instinct was actually Scandinavia, and the lack of wave activity had us thinking it was perhaps a lake beach.  So a lot of wrong roads turned down this week, and had it not been for our streak I may have given up.  Eventually some combination of search terms yielded a travel site about Spanish beaches, and while Gijon wasn’t featured there were certain similarities in the plazas and access ramps that made me think Spain was the way to go.  That also made me aware that all those dark-haired people in the picture probably aren’t milling about a beach in Scandinavia.

And so I did what I’ve done before on obvious coastline scenes — just follow the damn coast of spain, stopping at every spot where sandy beaches intersected with a densely-populated area.  Plenty of false positives, but with so much detail in the view I was able to move on from each rather quickly.

There are three parallel ugly apartment buildings (I presume) lining that plaza, and the view is taken from the far-right one that sorta looks like a cruise ship.  3rd floor, let’s say.

Another:

The view is from Calle de Mariano Pola, 2, Gijón, Spain. Third floor balcony, at the northeastern corner. This is a private building, one of three condo buildings that are shaped like a ship, so I can’t even venture a guess as to the exact address. Attached I can’t believe I found this, but I’ve circled what I think is the window.

I’m never right on my first guess with these, but I looked at the photo and said, wait, I’ve been there. It’s Gijón! I had a summer of fun debauchery as an exchange student in a small town in northwestern Spain, almost 15 years ago. My host brother and I took the bus up to Gijón for a couple of days on the beach. Lovely. That’s the Playa de Poniente, one of Gijón’s several beautiful crescent beaches.

Yes, I questioned myself for a few minutes, because it could’ve also been San Sebastián with its famous crescent-shaped Playa de la Concha, and I haven’t been to either in 15 years and maybe I was wrong. The tip-off was the big gray building, when I re-reviewed the photo. It had to be the Talaso Poniente.

I assume you’ll get lots of submissions because it’s a rather unique building. Takes all the fun out of things that the crazy savants can always turn these out easily. Oh, well.

Our favorite spousal team rocks their 11th contest in a row:

Our guess is that the contest photograph was taken in Gijón, Spain. The view is of Poniente Beach and the surrounding area, and was taken facing northeast from the building and fourth-floor window shown in the photograph below:

We were out of town this weekend and did not expect we would be able to get to the VFYW contest, but we did a whirlwind search this evening (Monday) and got it done. Once our toddler was in bed my wife hopped on Google and called out possibilities while I was on Google Earth checking out her suggestions. Narrowing this one down was difficult, but my wife (correctly) suspected northern Spain. The contest photo featured several construction cranes, so when she spied a New York Times article that mentioned new construction in Gijón she sent me there to check.

Not that Chini is feeling the heat:

Unlike the memories that last week’s visit to the Musee Rodin brought back for me, this week … oh who am I kidding #distractedbyworldcup. The basics then: This week’s view comes from Gijon, Spain and looks east-north-east along a heading of 70.12 degrees from a 3rd floor window in the Linea Rural apartments located at 2 Calle de Mariano Pola.

This week’s winner was the longest-playing veteran with a near-miss guess (by one floor):

A third floor apartment in this block, which looks like the rear end of a liner, on Calle de Mariano Pola in Gijon, in northern Spain.

It was the bike path that made me think Spain, the calm water that made me think bay, and the crane at rest suggested a northern facing coast.

Congrats! From the view’s submitter:

The photo was taken from the second (European) floor of the building at Poniente Gijón, Spain this week. The name means “where the sun sets.”

(Archive: Text|Gallery)

A reader writes:

Unlikely is one thing, impossible another. If someone gets a correct answer to this, there is devilry at work.

Another sees himself in the photo:

I think that’s me in the pink shirt.  Wish I could remember where I was.

Another:

Because no European would dress like that guy in the pink shirt, this must be America and not France (Versailles) or Austria (Schonbrunn). Thus, I go with the one European-style palace in America: The Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate, in Asheville, North Carolina.

Another surges into first place:

I knew right off the bat where this was, since I’ve spent many hours racing around the topiary bushes here with Mario and Luigi. This is obviously the garden at Princess Peach’s Castle in the Mushroom Kingdom (Mario Kart Wii). I can even point out the window from which the photo was taken:

Another looks to cinema:

I’ve never actively participated before, but when I saw this picture I immediately was reminded of Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Much Ado About Nothing. I am probably wrong – but in case I’m not, my guess is Villa Vignamaggio in Tuscany, Italy.

Another gets the right country:

The window in need of repair, with the garden looking immaculate, brings back memories of Versailles, France, and the righteous anger rising inside at the excessive opulence, which no doubt contributed to the unrest and eventual revolution. Yes, I say Versailles! Now let me calm down and foster thoughts of Jean Valjean.

Another makes an important discovery:

I’m pretty sure that this will be the most popular wrong answer this week. After a weekend learning about formal gardens, I couldn’t find the location in the picture, but while glancing at the screen, my wife noticed that a section of the gardens at Versailles looks like a panda from the air. So there’s that.

Another reader, although far too brief, nails the city:

Paris, France

Another gets the right location in Paris:

I’ll make this short and sweet because I’m leaving to take my wife in for spinal surgery:

The photo was taken from the far left window overlooking the gardens at the Musée Rodin in Paris. 79 Rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris, France. More specifically:

That’s also the right window, which most of our correct guessers picked this week. Below is an OpenHeatMap of all of the entries (zoom in by double-clicking an area of interest, or drag your cursor up and down the slide):

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Another reader goes into greater detail:

This is definitely France, given the particular kind of molding on the window frames, the fact they are French windows and not sash windows, and the way the roses are surrounded by trimmed box hedges. This could be any one of many 18th century manoirs/hotels particuliers/chateaux, but I would bet it’s the formal gardens in back of the Hotel Biron in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, aka the Musee Rodin.

Another walks us through the garden:

It contains characters from Dante’s Inferno, each depicted in a separate sculpture that Rodin brought together in his Gates of Hell.  In the contest picture, for example, sitting in the fountain is Rodin’s Ugolino before he devours his children:

I bet the family walking down the path in the contest photo will have a great time discussing that sculpture over dinner.  Also, one of the Shades which Rodin later combined with two others to create The Three Shades is off on the left of the fountain. Rodin placed a small version of The Three Shades at the top of his Gates of Hell above The Thinker.

Another:

I went to the Rodin museum in my stumbling early twenties and it absolutely transformed the way I thought and felt about art. Rodin had such a unique and powerful gift for capturing emotion and form, and to be surrounded by so much of his work was simply overwhelming in a way no previous museum or gallery had ever been for me. In particular there was something about the raw, eros-charged physicality of Rodin’s pieces that I practically had to restrain myself from reaching out and touching them:

His impressive private art collection is housed there as well, as is some of the work of his lover and muse Camille Claudel, which truly emphasizes the intimacy of the place. What an incredible, unforgettable experience. Everyone should go.

Along those lines, a few people mentioned the museum was on their bucket list, but none more movingly than this reader:

I immediately recognized the surroundings, as this is, along with Musée d’Orsay and Musée du Louvre, among my very favorite places in the world. Rodin’s most famous works are found in the elegant surroundings of the Hôtel Biron – where from inside this photo was taken – and the surrounding gardens.

On a personal note: You’ve detailed my health situation in the past, as I deal with an eventually terminal illness. My “bucket list” trip while I could still travel was to Paris with my wife last year, to visit these places one more time – and the first time with her.

This contest gives me something to fill my time and look forward to each week, and I would be lying to say that this week hasn’t been a little more special. The memories that seeing this window evokes have made this week’s contest a trip outside of my everyday reality. I’ve been hoping for a win, but this is (almost) just as good. Thanks.

On a very different note:

In the course of investigating this view on Google Streetview, I found what appears to be a lesser known Rodin work. Looks like Jared from Subway:

Another examines the image for more useful clues:

It’s not much past midday, judging from the shadows, a beautiful temperate day, the quality of light, the flowers, and the tourists’ choices of attire, yet very few tourists have chosen to spend this lovely day in this garden. Might that suggest that the garden has lots of competition for tourists’ attention just beyond the hedges?

Therefore we have a garden attached to a museum, probably a museum of statuary, which is probably in a great city. Since it isn’t the Galleria Borghese in Rome, because I’ve been to it, then it must be the Musée Rodin, 79 rue de Varenne, Paris. And the three statues visible in the frame are “Adam” to the left, “The Meditation” to the right, and between them, just above mister pinkshirt, is “Ugolino [kneeling over] and [about to chow down on] his children” in the center of a difficult-to-discern pool.

Tourists avoiding this garden may be a mile to the east perched at a table outside Café de Flore, nursing un p’tit rouge and trying to be existentialists. Or a mile and change to the west at the top of the Eiffel Tower, gazing east toward Les Invalides (and so, incidentally, over the hedge into this very jardin).

I only wish that was how I identified this window. But no. I Googled “sculpture garden hedges” and the 134th image looked remarkably similar to that tri-arch hedge in the background. It took seconds. After that it was just a matter of picking out the panes of the window (not the window itself, because that’s obvious). Ground floor, west wing, south side, second and third pair of panes up from the bottom, on the right half of the window when viewed from the garden.

A reader living in Paris:

I bet this one will get plenty of correct answers. Or, at least I hope so! The tiny bronze forms on the horizon are unmistakeable: Rodin. I recognized them at first sight.

Six months out of every year, I teach drawing from 16th – 18th c. sculpture at the Musee du Louvre, to art students from all over the world, in a private program that I founded myself. I’m American but have lived in France for the last 13 years, and in Paris for the last 4.5 years. My wife and I are both artists, and the gardens of the Musee Rodin are a favorite place to visit. The museum has been in renovations for years, and the last time I visited there was last winter. The first time I went was as a student, in 1994 as seen in this embarrassingly earnest pic:

They are currently hosting a fine exhibition on the influence of Rodin’s sculpture on the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe. I hope to go this weekend.

Another:

How I WISH I could be one of the Dishheads who goes scouting the location of the VFYW this week. This is not just a sculpture garden, it is the sculpture garden. (If you want to mess with all the NSFW-phobic folks, you can post this image, which the museum is using to promote the current Mappelthorpe/Rodin exhibit. It’s effing culture, people!)

Personal story? I first visited the Rodin Garden in 1998 after a term studying in England; my mother and I spent a week touring Paris and climbing all the stairs we could find in the city. Not too many stairs in the Musée Rodin, but I thought it was the most romantic place I’d ever been and dreamed of proposing to a girl there one day. Fast forward fifteen years and … my brother proposed to his girlfriend there. Younger brothers always steal your best ideas.

Another:

As an architect I’ve taken my kids – they would say dragged – to many of the worlds great museums and buildings. Since I never got a chance to go anywhere when I was a kid, I hoped they would appreciate it and enjoy learning about Art & Architecture as I did during my studies.

More often than than not, though, they would just melt down. We visited the Musee Rodin over the holiday break in 2005. To express their displeasure with having to walk through another museum in Paris they decided to reenact the pained pose of Andrieus d’Andre Vetu, one of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais. Oh well, what’s a dad to do?

Another learns to never doubt the spouse when it comes to Paris:

I spent several hours yesterday sifting through approximately one jillion pictures of formal gardens. No luck, although I did learn some gardening jargon (have you ever wondered what a parterre or a pelouse is?).  Just when I was losing all hope, my wife walked over and said “Hey, isn’t that a Rodin?”  I took a closer look at the sculpture near the left side of the circular walkway, but it just looked like a little gray smudge.  I told her she was crazy, we could barely tell that it was a sculpture, let alone who the artist was. Oops.

Chini yawns:

Some of these VFYW searches would take forever to explain, but my thought process this week was pretty short: “Hmm, hedges, looks like it’s gonna be a garden hunt … hey, that statue looks like a Rodin … kinda like The Burghers at the Met, but in a garden … oh wait, it can’t be … <google searches> … oh darnit, it is. And I didn’t even get started on my latte … ”

Another reader owes Rodin a beer:

I’ve never visited here, nor do I have any particular interest in gardens or sculpture. BUT I did once have a framed print of Rodin’s The Kiss in my apartment when I was in college, and the air of worldly sophistication that it afforded me certainly helped with the ladies. Maybe. But it definitely helped tonight, when I realized that those fuzzy globs sort of looked Rodin-esque.

A former winner shows how it’s done:

Attempts to identify the window panes in the photograph assumed that they were above the decorative wrought iron window grill (because it is not in the photograph) and at the height of someone standing. The window hardware barely visible in the darkened left side of the contest photograph places the panes on the western casement of the double casement window (actually two double casement inswing windows as found throughout the museum). The visible hardware includes components of the vertical rod and locking device that hold the two casements shut and is therefore located where the two join when closed. The round component is probably the handle connected to the locking device and vertical rod. Attached is a collage comparing hardware found on other museum windows with that visible in the contest window.

Speaking of collages, here’s another Dish original:

This week’s tiebreaker goes to a reader on our list of previous contestants who have correctly guessed difficult contests but never won. A process walkthrough:

No buildings? No skyline? You’ve got to be kidding me. Google Earth isn’t going to be a help on this one. So what do we know? Looks like it could be the gardens at Versailles, couple of sculptures can be seen but its hard to make out what they are. Since there doesn’t seem to be a lot of other clues, what the heck, let’s just Google: “Sculpture Garden”. For some reason, when you do, you come up with an inordinate number of images for this Spoon with a Cherry in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden:

But the window really doesn’t look like it is in Minneapolis, so what else do I know? There really isn’t a lot there. I guess there are a bunch of hedges. So why not, I’m feeling lucky, let’s unleash the power of Google: “Sculpture Garden Hedge”. And Boom! Just like that. By the magic of the internet there it is. On the first page of image results … it’s the hedge with three arches from the from the back of the photo along with a caption specifying Gardens of Rodin! And so, the Musée Rodin in Paris.

With a three-word Google search, this week’s window goes from completely impossible to getting my weekend back in the span of just 10 minutes! My guess:

Congrats, and with a cherry on top! From the submitter of the window view, an artist:

It’s one of my favorite places in Paris, though nothing like it was in Rodin’s time, when it was more of a pastural paradise in the city. What an amazing place it must have been to have had a studio.

(Archive: Text|Gallery)