A reader writes:
I knew immediately upon seeing this image that it was not Seattle … that is all I know.
Another:
Reminds me of Taxco, Mexico – a great town with real Old World atmosphere, in the mountains southwest of Mexico City.
Another gets the right continent:
Eleusina, Greece. Shot in the dark, based on the Mediterranean look and Greek letters in the bottom of the picture, but no sleuthing beyond that.
Another:
Ruling out Modica, Sicily because you’ve already done that for the contest (I sent it in), so going with Scicli – but it could be Ragusa, or almost any town in the Val di Noto region.
Another:
The landscape and architecture in the photo looks Sicilian to me, but I can’t nail down the exact combination of mountains, palm trees and buildings in the photo. I hope Palermo, Italy is close.
Another:
This week I’m going with my first reaction, which was “Antonioni, L’Avventura.” Which means Sicily. It reminds me of the town in that movie, Troina. As for the window, I’m going to guess some window in the churchy complex at the Piazza at the end of Via Conte Ruggero, looking at another part of the churchy complex. Somewhere in here maybe:
Another thought Noto, and another the Piazza Spadaro. Another reader:
Wow, this was a toughie and I’m sure I am not even close, but I’d gather that the building are Italian, as is the church (I recognize St. John, Mark (?)) but there’s no other identification other than the granite hillside. I spent some time looking around various places – Cinque Terra, Piemonte, etc. but to no avail. It’s tax-time crunch and I’m close to finishing mine up but instead took a mental health break instead. Did I get close?
Italy is close, but other readers got closer:
This looks a whole hell of a lot like Montenegro. I can’t pinpoint where it is, but I’ll go with Petrovac, based upon nothing more than a hunch.
Another inches north:
OK, it might not be Budva, Montenegro, but I visited Budva & Cotor in 2001 and the architecture and the dry steep hills of this week’s contest really do remind me of the Dalmatian coast. So since Budva is bigger than Cotor, I’m going with Budva.
Another nails the right country:
Looks like somewhere in the Mediterranean. Our SWAG [scientific wild-ass guess] is Split, Croatia.
Another:
I honeymooned through the islands of Croatia (absolutely beautiful). This looks vaguely familiar. I’m going with the island of Hvar.
Almost. The very first entry we received on Saturday got the right city:
The honey colored tiles give it away: Dubrovnik, Croatia.
More than 80 readers correctly guessed Dubrovnik. To put those in context, here is a map – from OpenHeatMap, developed by Dishhead Pete Warden – plotting all of the entries this week (zoom in by double-clicking an area of interest, or drag your cursor up and down the slide):
One reader’s quest for a VFYWC victory:
GODDAMN YOU GOOGLE MAPS FOR PICKING TODAY TO DO SOME ASSHOLE UPGRADE!!
It’s a building facing the St. Blasius Church in Dubrovnik, Croatia. If Google Maps wasn’t being SUCH A DICK I’d have an exact address for you. Please stand by.
@($*&^!%%## GOOGLE MAPS!!
9 minutes later:
Ul. od Pustijerne, second floor with the long shutters, facing Dubrovnik Cathedral, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Google hates this place. That’s as close as I can get.
17 minutes later, the right building:
Based on the reciprocal street view, I think this is the window:
Or maybe the one above it. But I think it’s the one with the blue shutters, based on the photo itself with the edge of blue shutter and the height relative to the building across the street.
Google Maps doesn’t want to give this place an exact street number (thought it best-guesstimates “Ulica od Pustijerne 2,” where there’s apparently a bed-and-breakfasty sort of place called “Bedroom in the Centre of Old Town,” but I don’t think that’s this room. It’s close, but not it. But that’s as close as I can get right now: East-facing window on Ulica od Pustijerne 2, just across the street from Dubrovnik Cathedral.
Oh. And I found it by Googling the ass out of St. Jerome Statues. Because Catholic Saint Fetish. Zing!
Six hours and 46 minutes later, the right address:
Okay, well, I had to actually go outside and breathe some fresh air and not obsess about this any more, but having finally ducked back inside to avoid a calamitous thunderstorm I was able to finally put a name on this place. Old Palace Apartments, Ulica Ilije Sarake 2 20000, Dubrovnik. Here’s a Google Image I’m assuming was taken from the apartment just south of the one the VFYW was taken from. I’m sure I’m way, way too late, but this is the exact spot, huzzah!
Missed the window though. Another had less difficulty:
I just put “european roof statues” in Google and it came up pretty quickly.
A different detail proved important for this reader:
While Dubrovnik is a striking city, what really clued me in was the hills in the background. Nothing else looks quite like them anywhere else I’ve been, and they tower over the town.
Nearly every contestant who’s been to Dubrovnik made note of how much they enjoyed it, including several who honeymooned there. This one savors a memory:
We went last year, after a stressful season when we needed to flee the country and chill out. Amazing place. I’m 99% sure that this was taken inside the Old City near the gate where we entered every day to wander and stare and eventually end up at Cafe Buza. We would prop up our feet on the rails and drink over priced bottles of beer while staring at the Adriatic. That place baked a lot of the anxiety out of both of us. Sadly I could not find any photos from this angle, but here’s a pic (I think) of the building in the left foreground, from another angle:
Thank you for making me review my pics from the trip! It was never a place on my “to do” list, but I left part of my heart there. The people are lovely, the landscape is amazing. Nerdy points of interest: Game of Thrones is partly shot here, as was some Dr Who (11th Dr).
Many readers noted the Game Of Thrones connection:
Ohh, I know this one: King’s Landing, Westeros, the new top destination for weddings! Or maybe just the location that stands for it in filming. The distinctive statues on top the Cathedral, marked in the contest picture as well as in the Dubrovnik panorama attached, give it away.
I do not have the patience to look for the exact window, so I will doubtlessly lose to the hundreds of other Game of Thrones fans who take the trouble to identify it.
Here’s Dubrovnik in its Thrones CGI disguise:
The city has seen real conflict as well:
I have never been Croatia but my parents were there many years ago, just after the war and things had settled down. They have many photos of bombed-out hotels along the waterfront. Thankfully both sides involved in the war were smart enough to spare Dubrovnik. My parents proclaimed it the most beautiful place they had ever visited. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to visit some day myself. Thanks for another great contest.
Another reader, like many this week, nails the right window:
It took me six hours to get this, using old-fashioned cyber elbow grease and shoe leather, and it is only now, as I primp my entry for the judges’ eyes, that I notice the “Konoba Amoret” written on those umbrellas. This means that you’ll again be deluged by typo-ridden winning entries from casual viffywers, and that the most I can reasonably expect to gain from my efforts is to see another bean slide across on The Great Abacus Of Whose Turn It Is To Win.
The Great Doug Chini chimes in:
This 200th view may not be the hardest, but it sure is a pretty one. Based on the Mediterranean architecture and tight field of view I thought that it might produce only a handful of winning entries. But when I found the location I realized that, as with VFYW #170, the town’s fame means that there will be a ton of readers who got there far faster than I did. Serves me right, I suppose, for never hopping across the Adriatic when I lived in Italy.
This week’s view was shot inside the walls of the old city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. More precisely, it was shot from inside a room on the top floor of the Old Palace Apartments adjacent to the Cathedral of the Assumption and looks east, northeast along a heading of 58.60 degrees.
Many first-time contestants guessed the same window, including:
I did it! IdiditIdiditIdidit!
Another first-timer:
I am 100% sure this is from the old city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. The jewel of the Adriatic. My wife and I spent some of our honeymoon to this lovely city, and even named our son after it’s patron saint (Saint Blaise, patron saint of throat maladies and wild animals). Here’s a VFYW from our honeymoon:
The view is looking east, with the Cathedral on the left. I don’t know the name of the building, or what it’s purpose is. I assume it is a sobe, which is a room in a private residence rented out to tourists (this is a far better experience than hotels). My wife and I ate octopus salad under the tents in the square at the bottom center of your picture.
I’m pretty excited. This is the first time I have even guessed the correct area of the world, let alone gotten close. And this is the first time sending anything to you. I have been a reader and subscriber for a couple of months now. Thank you for bringing back some lovely memories.
That reader, along with the many readers represented in this composite image, got the right window:
But how to determine the winner? One contestant stood out this week: a veteran of 17 contests who has correctly guessed multiple times, including some difficult views, without yet winning:
This week’s contest is brought to you by Dubrovnik Croatia. Starting with the satellite dish, we narrowed it down by the Mediterranean setting and the church and eventually ended up with Dubrovnik. From there a quick Google Map search led to the Dubrovnik Cathedral and the correct building:
Thanks for sticking with the contest and congrats! From the photo’s owner, for the record:
Wow that’s so cool, what an honor to be chosen for the contest! I’m a long-time Dishhead, quit my job and moved to Europe last spring. Croatia is beautiful, Dubrovnik especially so. This is from the window of the apartment we were living in at the time in old town Dubrovnik behind the old cathedral. The address is: Ilije Sarake 2, 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia. It was taken on Sunday, September 1st at 12:27 pm.
The apartment is on the second (top) floor of the building, just behind the Old Cathedral which is a big landmark in Dubrovnik. The window faces out toward the East, and the direction of the photo is pointing sort of North East, toward the harbor (which you can’t see in my photo since there’s a building in the way), with the hills in the background. Here’s a marked up screen shot of the Google Maps satellite view:
The Dish 
