Category: Contest

A reader writes:

Looks like a dump; Ford Capri on one side; Victorian brickwork, dome, and chimney stacks. Then the Jesus and Mary Chain came on my stereo at random, which I took as a powerful omen.

Another:

Bilious looking weather, the first signs of fall already on the trees, a general air of damp – it’s definitely northern Europe.  But where?  There’s an almost total lack of landmarks in this one. Instead, I’m going with style – the Hanseatic League-ish old architecture, the slightly Germanic style, the Eastern Bloc recent architecture, what I can make of the license plates on the cars, what looks like a Russian-made Lada Samara hatchback parked in the alleyway, the Baltic Sea-like cloud cover, the obviously flat terrain – so I’m going to go with Szczecin, Poland.  I’m open to the idea that it might be a smaller, more farming-oriented town nearby due to the prominently parked tractor, and maybe a bit inland what with the wall-mounted AC units, but Szczecin is my bet for the closest major city.

Another:

Here’s an “above-the-fold” guess for you: Indianapolis. That dome … I swear it’s the Indiana statehouse. Where the rest of the skyline went, I cannot say. Nor can I explain the Lada in Indiana. I’m writing it off as the mother of all red herrings. And those air conditioner units sure look like the ones from the Procredit Bank contest (number 147?). But that dome. Indianapolis.

Another:

The closest I got was Belgrade, Serbia, with the Soviet-style buildings, satellite dishes and split ACs. Could be the Serbian national assembly building with the dome in the background.  Ah this was fun, even though I did not find the location.

Another:

I’ve spent a lot of time in Russia, and a combination of the crumbling plaster, doors, fencing, overcast sky, the red car foreground right, and general look of the interior courtyard (dvor) makes me think Russia. The dome on the horizon looks to me like the dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, and that just might be a Russian flag flying from it.

Another:

It’s City 17. I knew this immediately, having spent hours in this place during the Uprising. Pretty clever of the photographer, though, leaving the Citadel out of the frame. I’ve attached another view from down the block where it’s nice and prominent:

You can also see a Combine police officer in the street.  I don’t think the street has a name.

Another:

That looks like the steeple of an Orthodox church on the skyline, which is all I’m really going on. At first I thought it might be Yerevan, Armenia, but the flora seems too lush and the general apparent level of prosperity seems too high to be Armenia, so I’m going with Georgia. Tblisi?

Another:

The architecture of some of the buildings feels a little 1960s Eastern Bloc. But the industrial smoke stack in the middle of apartment buildings reminds me of places I’ve seen to in China.  So I’ll guess Guangzhou.

I’m speculating that the only possible way to locate the view would be for someone to recognize the dome with the cupola and flag.  But that’s beyond me.  Plus the scene is so depressing it inspires no wanderlust at all or the desire to go Googling.  However, in addition to trying to figure out the view, recently I have started to guess how many people, if any, I think will get the correct window.  This week I say no one gets it.

A reader gets it:

Hi, this is my second entry and the second time I’ve actually solved it! It’s Lviv, Ukraine. The window looks north toward the Lviv railway station tower peeking just over the darker red tile roof in the right-center of the frame.

Our window is on the back side of the gray building whose wing comes into view at the right edge of the frame. The front of our building (facing south) extends along the north side of Fed’kovycha Street, between Smal’-Stots’koho Street to the west and Yaroslava Pasternaka Street (intersecting one block to the east). I couldn’t actually find our building on Street View, but I found that red tile roof building, and its neighboring structure (to the right in our frame) with the yellow and white two-toned exterior. The fronts of both those buildings both face a square (”skver”) with street names that aren’t indicated in Google Maps, but the square is marked. Judging from our view of that yellow and white building, I think our window is on the fifth floor.

I started by looking at Eastern European church towers, first Riga and Vilnius, and then looked at the map of Ukraine and decided to start with Lviv. There is just enough of that dome, showing in our picture, to allow for a match and also a decent guess about our distance. It took several minutes, but I actually found the dumpy, horizontal white building on the left of our frame (behind the smokestack) in Street View.

I can report that I am definitely not yet jaded or blasé about being able to solve these! I am getting better, but still suppose that anything I can solve will be obvious to several hundred others. I will still keep fingers crossed!

Only one other reader correctly answered Lviv, and not only did she get more specific than the previous reader, but she has participated in four times as many contests, so she’s the clear winner this week:

The last few weeks I’d gotten discouraged, and not just because my husband had found the right site for the Portugal one and let me spend several more hours wandering around France in Google Earth.

This is Lviv, Ukraine. The picture was definitely taken from this building, listed as Turoperator TATUR ulitsa Fedkovicha, 60, 433 Lviv, Lvovskaya oblast’, Ukraine 79000, but from inside the lot/courtyard area. I haven’t been able to find a picture of that side of the building, but it looks like it was taken on the 3rd floor, ENE side of the building? There are a few businesses with names in English listed on the side of the building, PWC office, Tebodin, and others, which might be good candidates for Dish readers, but I can’t tell which one would be on the right floor and side of the building. Or maybe this is a stairwell? Bathroom?

It felt like Eastern Europe – I spent a lot of time in Poland, then Latvia, then Lithuania. I thought the old factory-type setting would be the key, and figured the dome in the background was too generic. Not so – turns out, that shape is pretty unique and most domes like that are from churches and have crosses on top, not flags. I’d almost given up last night to do my real work when I took one final stab and did a Google image search for Lviv to see if anything stood out, and I yelped when I saw the railway station dome with the flag on it.

Lesson learned: Always avoid your work just a little longer to work on the VFYW contest.

From the submitter:

Imagine my surprise when I saw my window on the weekly contest. I am based in the US and spend 4-6 weeks a year in L’viv. This is the view from my window of the team room I work from, at Fedkovycha Street, 60a. The photo was taken from the third floor, second window from the left, at 7:00pm local time, 9/27/2013. The area is a mix of commercial office buildings and flats with old manufacturing thrown in. The dome in the distance is the train station a little over .5 KM away.

I’ve attached a picture to show the window it was taken from:

Thanks for posting my window!

One more notable entry:

This week’s contest subject was particularly sadistic, but I suppose there have been a few easy contests in a row, so I suppose one like this was due.

The scene has a particular post-industrial ex-Soviet feel to it, with the funky windows on the prefab building in the background, the rusty ex-chemical or gas plant at left with the dilapidated stack, and the dead giveaway … the unofficial national mascot of Russia – a Lada hatchback parked in the foreground!

The only real unique identifier this week was the flagged dome over the top of the buildings. The dome topped with a flag was unique enough – very few domes seem to be adorned with flags – most have statues or religious icons. The flagged domes I could identify that also had a prominent cupola were: The Indiana Statehouse, Munich’s Hofgarten, The Serbian Parliament in Belgrade, and St. Isaac’s Cathedral in Petrograd.

Indianapolis made no sense given the Lada and the shape of the license plate, but the other three weren’t so easy to eliminate. The Hofgarten isn’t very tall and surrounded by other, taller buildings, and the scene seemed too shoddy be in gentrified Munich. The spire wasn’t the right shape to be the Belgrade parliament, so that left the cathedral in St. Petersburg.

Placing the smokestack wasn’t so straightforward. Based on the facing of the satellite dishes we were most likely looking north – as the northern hemisphere must look south to see the Clark belt satellites. This put us in a relatively small cone of St. Petersburg – but based on the attached photo, I couldn’t ascertain where our stack was located:

So, I patrolled the area on Street View, but couldn’t find any matching architecture, so I’m pretty sure this is St. Petersburg/Petrograd, but in a back lot within a 1-2km radius cone south of St. Isaac’s.

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A reader writes:

This photo is from a very lush and slightly tropical place.  The truck driving up the road in the distance on the far right of the photo appears to be driving on the left side of the road.  The buildings appear very British – Scottish actually. There seems to be a flag over the cemetery but the flag looks light blue and white.  Argentina?  That’s not helping. I’m going to guess the north island of New Zealand on the east coast.  Let’s say the Auckland suburbs.

Another:

I know that the palm trees in the picture are yucca trees, which are ingenious to the Americas, the tree version being found closer to water and wet climates while the shrubs are found in dryer climates. Put that with the cliffs and my guess is the coast of California – no idea what city. Also, the road on the left side of the picture along the cliff side looks like Highway 1, which runs along California’s coastline.

Another:

I’m in the midst of moving so I have little time for research, but that view of the breakwater looks very much like the one in Victoria BC, especially with that size lighthouse at the end.  Of course a few of the trees in the photo don’t exactly scream Pacific Northwest, but with the exotic Butchart Gardens nearby I think the locals are inspired to grow non-native flora.

Another:

The vegetation and houses remind me of South Africa’s “Garden Coast” east of Cape Town.  I’m guessing Kynsna, mainly because it’s such a lovely name to say (“NIZE-na”) and such a beautiful place.

Another gets on the right continent:

“Oh wow,” I thought to myself, “that looks just like the Irish coast. The random tropical plants, the blocky stucco houses, the steel-gray skies. I’ll just pop over to Google maps and trace the coastline until I find a breakwater and some rocky coves! Easy!”

Oh, except Ireland has about four billion miles of rocky coastline, and I’m supposed to be working. So I’m going to guess Dun Laoghaire, because who are we kidding with that spelling? Plus it’s the first place I thought of, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not correct.

Another is also frustrated:

I just can’t get this one. It screams southwest Ireland to me – we do actually have palm trees there – but I can’t identify the place.  To solve the Cork VFYW contest I went all around the coast of Ireland on Google maps until I found the right port.  But here I’ve gone back and forth from Cork to Waterford and on to Wicklow and Wexford and I can’t find the river (or inlet) that’s going into the sea.  But a guess is better than no guess, so I’m going to say it’s County Cork, somewhere near Schull.  Even if I’m not close it’s a very beautiful part of the country and it’s nice to remember my trips there.

Another gets on the right island:

I think this is near a small resort town called Largs on the west coast of Scotland. The tropical looking trees might have thrown me off but I was there a little over a week ago and was surprised that they were growing there. Also, the buildings look like what you would find in that area.

Another gets closer:

I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in Britain. The cars are driving on the left and the boxy white house on the left is very typical British residential architecture. I first thought it might be Torquay, England, where I visited many years ago and recalling how surprised I was to see palm trees there. But checking Google street view, it looked like Torquay was too built up. So I thought of Penzance, further down the coast. I couldn’t find the view in the photo, so I’m really just guessing.  (Alternative guess: Hamilton, Bermuda)

Another:

Oh, those little palm trees don’t fool me. Those windows! The chimneys! The roan sky! Definitely England. Got to be the southwest coast, a place with a quay. How about Falmouth? Is it Falmouth then?

Nope. Another:

My first entry ever and I wouldn’t know how to begin doing it properly, but I think it’s the south coast of Cornwall. Even if it isn’t, it reminded me of home, so thanks.

Very close. Another nails the right town:

This week’s VFYW contest is in Fishguard, Wales. Palm tree was a bit of a red herring. Having visited Ireland, Wales, and England last month for the first time, I immediately recognized this scene as in that general area (rocky coast, palm trees, that glass enclosed room in the foreground). After Google Maps-ing around the circumference of Ireland without much luck, I went to Wales, where I found the view pretty quickly. The image is from Fishguard, Wales. I don’t have the exact window but my guess is that the image was taken from the back of The Manor Town House, on Main St./A487.

An aerial view of Fishguard:

Another nails the right window:

There is a car on the road driving on the left side of the road and I immediately thought Australia. They apparently have some pine trees as seen in the picture, but after an hour I figured out that there are no inhabitants in the northern coast of Australia.

Enter the girlfriend. One look and she says “Cornwall UK!” – they have warm weather, so an hour or two searching for a pier on Cornwall and Truro and islands off the coast … nothing. Then she emails me this morning – “Fishguard!” – gloating because I nailed Sintra in under 30 seconds three weeks ago. I don’t know yet how she did it.

Anyway, I looked around Fishguard for a white canopy/gazebo thing … nothing. That was hard, so I went for a drive on Google maps, focused on the main street area and then I get email #3 from the GF: Manor Town Hotel on Main street (it has great reviews btw). She was on fire.

The pic was likely taken from the second floor window. I’ve attached an almost identical picture taken from the room #1:

Room #1 it is. Another reader:

As it happens, this is the town in which my mother was born, though I’ve never been. Fishguard (in Welsh, “Abergwaun”) is where you get the ferry from the UK to Ireland. It was where the film Under Milk Wood (with that great Welsh actor Richard Burton) chose to portray Dylan Thomas’ fictional town “Llareggub”.

A good hour on Google Maps tells me this window belongs to the back (north-side) of the Manor Town House, 11 Main Street, Fishguard, SA65 9HG, which is now a guesthouse. You can just about make out the circular gazebo on the satellite view. The houses you can see on the hill opposite are on a street called Penslade (which has Streetview, so you can tick off the houses by colour).

A visual entry from a reader:

You know you’re a little too into the VFYW contest when you find it while furiously searching for clues over Amtrak’s spotty wi-fi on the train down from Albany.

Of the dozen or so readers who correctly answered Room #1 at the Manor Town House, only one of them has correctly guessed a challenging window in the past without yet winning. The tie-breaking entry:

It’s raining. So we must be in the UK. In the background, we see the end of what is either a pier or a breakwater, a pretty big one it seems. Does that point to Plymouth, and its enormous breakwater in the Plymouth Sound? It doesn’t. This picture was taken from what I believe is Room 1 at the Manor Town House Bed & Breakfast on 11 Main Street in Fishguard in lovely Pembrokeshire on the west coast of Wales. (Fun fact: not too far away was the site of the last successful French military invasion of Britain during the War of the First Coalition in 1797.)

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A reader writes:

It looks to me like the view of Holy Cross in Worchester, MA. I’ve never been to the campus, but the picture reminds me of what I’ve seen from the MA Pike when driving by.

Another:

I can’t fine the exact location, but this looks a lot like Charlottesville, Virginia. Tons of red brick.

Another:

Kansas City, MO? Took my first trip to Missouri this past June. The foliage and rolling hills sure bring that to mind.

Another:

Seattle, Washington? My guess is based on the Four Seasons Cleaners, with the coastline nearby.

Another:

It’s obviously the US, thanks to the RVs. All the Four Seasons Cleaners that came up on Bing were on the West Coast, except for one in Pittsburgh, so Pittsburgh it is.

Another:

Looking at the picture, I was immediately struck by how much it reminded me of the view from the hospital window when my twins were born 13 years ago. From there it was a simple matter of Googling “Four Seasons Cleaners” in the general vicinity.  That was two hours wasted. Turns out I wasn’t even close.

By then I was invested, so I peered at the picture. I could make out that the “For Lease” sign on one of the buildings said “Martens Real Estate.” A quick Google search told me that Martens is a commercial real estate firm operating in Topeka and Wichita Kansas. They have their listings online, so it was a simple matter to go through their listings looking for a building that matched the one with the for lease sign. Finding nothing, I Googled “Four Seasons Cleaners” in Topeka and Wichita. Another two hours wasted.

However, for reasons that are known only to Google, searching for “four seasons dry cleaning Topeka” returned Four Seasons Dry Cleaning of Northwest Arkansas. They have three locations, and the first one is the one shown in this picture of Fayetteville.  Google Street View showed me the Arvest sign on the building across the street, the Arvest website gave me the address: 75 N East Street. (Google Street View also told me it’s Mathias Real Estate, not Martens!)

Very close, but another reader gets the exact location:

Wow! I thought you guys were giving us an easy one this week with the name of a Four Seasons Cleaners in clear text. But do you know how many freaking Four Seasons Cleaners there are?

Lots! I tried all sorts of Google searches – cleaners near bakeries, near a “Bob’s Photography” (another clear text that resulted in NOTHING! (thanks a lot!)). Nada, zilch, zero, time wasted, etc.

Finally, I tried to see if there was a web site for the cleaners and sure enough, I found the store in Fayetteville! Yippee! The shot was from the Chancellor Hotel on 70 North East Ave in Fayetteville, Arkansas. A place I’ve never been to. The shot is from – and I’m sure it will be the tie breaker – the third or fourth floor. Well, if I don’t win this time, at least it counts as a close and correct entry for me, no?

Actually a correct entry is only counted towards future tiebreakers if the contest is difficult – specifically, a contest with 10 or fewer correct answers. This week there were hundreds of entries for The Chancellor. A reader send a view of the hotel:

Another reader:

The Chancellor Hotel has quite the history! Construction began in 1978, originally a Hilton Inn when construction was completed in 1981, and renamed as a Radison in 2001. The hotel has a long standing association with the University of Arkansas. It shares access with a pair of University facilities and is popular with visitors to the University. The Chancellor has survived several now failed hotel development projects in the area. The most recent renovation was in 2011, a massive update of the landmark building.

Another sends an aerial view of the area:

Another reader:

This view was taken from the 9th floor of The Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville, AR, from a window facing north. I think this is my second time guessing but it’s the first time I’m really certain about the city and the hotel. Thank you to the source who gave us so generously The Four Seasons Cleaners. I came to the contest late this time because of Yom Kippur. Maybe you made it easier this week because you knew your Jewish readers would need a break. I appreciate it.

Another:

I can’t believe I almost missed this one because of a three-day weekend!  I saw it when I got up this morning but forgot that today is Tuesday and was almost too late!

Any student from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville will instantly recognize the uneven towers of Old Main, the original building of the University.  The easily recognizable buildings from campus easily put us East of the University.  My first instinct was nearby Mount Sequoyah, but when I googled Four Seasons Cleaners or bob’s photography, I realized it was too far.  Fortunately, street view made this one pretty easy once I got that far.

As a Fayetteville native, I’ve never stayed at the Chancellor Hotel (or in its former incarnations as the Radisson Hotel or the Cosmopolitan Hotel), but I’ve had to go for a few meetings in the past.  I have no idea how other people can tell which floor or window, but I’ll guess it has to be one of the north-facing windows on about the 6th floor, probably the westernmost one.

It’s also worth noting that, luckily for everyone looking for this window, Google updated their images for Fayetteville in May this year.  It might have been a bit trickier with the old images, which were more than a couple of years old.

Another:

The VFYW contest has been eerie in that a number of recent views have been of places where I misspent various parts of my youth. On the chance that the contest is a front for a round-up of miscreants with dubious travel patterns, I’ve dialed back participation. But since this view actually includes a former abode, hidden there among the trees just below the window, I felt compelled to at least throw in a howdy-do:

I doubt I have enough difficult solves to my credit to give me a win. And that cleaners sign will make this an easy one, beyond all the Arkies who’ll recognize the view immediately. For tie-breaking precision, I’ll take a guess and say this is the corner room on the fifth floor.

It’s actually the seventh floor – room 708 to be exact. No one guessed the correct room, but many guessed the correct floor. Only two of those readers have correctly gotten a view in the past without yet winning. One of those Correct Guessers has participated in eight total contests, but the following reader edges him out with ten:

You’ll probably receive a lot of correct guesses this week because the “Four Seasons Cleaners” is such an easy landmark for a Google search. Or perhaps your readership includes quite a few fans or alumni of the University of Arkansas. I have no local knowledge, so count me in the Google column.

The photo was taken from The Chancellor Hotel at 70 North East Avenue, Fayetteville Arkansas, looking northwest towards the University of Arkansas. I believe the photo was taken from westernmost window on the north side of the seventh floor. (The westernmost window would be farthest to the right as you look at the north face of the hotel.) I don’t know the room numbering system in the hotel, so I cannot guess the exact room.

I’ve had several correct guesses in the past, but have yet to win. Hope springs eternal that all of the better (or more prolific) guessers will eventually win their books and finally clear the way for me.

Wait no longer!

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A reader writes:

Surely this week’s charming view has delighted and engaged many people. Who would not want to spend time in a place where the sun is shining, people are enjoying themselves, and even the dogs know they’re in the right place! This is one of the most beguiling scenes you have ever shown.

I think this is a picture from Portofino, Italy. The blue cross is typical of certain pharmacies in Europe. The mixture of old and new in the architecture of the buildings, the stone terrace wall, the cobblestone streets, and the delightful color schemes, led me to think Italy would be a reasonable choice. How I narrowed it down to Portofino: Sheer dumb luck. Elsewhere on the net this weekend was a feature showing wonderful hotel getaways. Among them was a picture of Portofino that was so reminiscent, in so many respects, of your contest photo this week that I could not resist sending in an entry.

Another:

Probably wrong, but I’m going with Prague, Czech Republic. That’s what it reminds me of, but I was there long ago, and pretty drunk most of the time.

Another:

Looks like Karst formations to me. Minor googling got me to somewhere between Trieste and eastern Slovenia. I’ll go for Trieste and leave the exact location to those with better google skills or more local knowledge.

Another:

Split, Croatia. End of guess.

Another:

This is my very first entry. The view is suspiciously evocative of Heidelberg, Germany, with the photo having likely been taken from one of the arches at the Old Bridge Gate over the Neckar River. I returned to the city earlier this summer, having first spent a few short hours there several years ago, and confirmed my belief that Old Town Heidelberg is one of the most beautifully lush, quaint, and dare I say dreamy locations I have personally visited. The view from atop the hill at the end of Philosophers’ Way is especially spectacular. Even if my answer is wrong – which I hope it isn’t – the thrill of recognition when I first saw the photo on your blog has already made my morning.

Another is less delighted:

OK, this is infuriating. I was initially positive that this was Petřin Hill, Prague, Czech Republic. What else could it be? I reasoned. The Habsburg yellow building in the foreground. The tourists blocking the street in standard clueless fashion. (Mostly kidding, tourists! Don’t stop going to Prague! The economy needs you and the Praguers would be left with nothing to complain about!) the Malá Strana cobblestones. Had to be.

But that wall, dammit. It’s not the Hunger Wall, and i don’t remember other walls up on Petřin. Could be a shot of the Dripping Garden wall in the Valdštejnský palac, but from where, I have no idea. And I don’t think that tram stop sign is the right shape, either. I suspect this is going to keep me awake at night and I may need to write you again to dispel the angst.

Another gets on the right track:

This image reminds me a lot of the Offshore Portugal areas of Madeira and Azores. I am going to go ahead and guess that this picture was taken in Funchal in Madeira.

Another nails the right location – but with some real effort:

This one was brutal.

At first sight, there wasn’t anything to give it away. The mixed architecture didn’t offer any obvious clues and pointed in all sorts of directions. All that was certain was that this is Europe. But then what?

The somewhat weathered state of some walls and roofs suggested a warmer, more humid climate – but apparently not warm enough for people to shed their coats. Altitude, perhaps? I spent a good amount of time looking at obscure medieval towns nestled on hillsides in Slovenia, Northern Italy and Hungary. To no avail. It also didn’t help that what looked like a blue cross in the photo is actually a green one – either way, pharmacies are a dime a dozen.

Looking up added to the confusion. Half of Europe sits at the foot of some form of castle, fortress or palace. This was getting more difficult by the minute. And then there was that van. That flashy green-red van. Red-green. Red-green? RED-GREEN! Exactly. But I didn’t get it either.

What set me on the right path was good old Google (in German). Old town. Hillside. Merlons. In that order. Three pages into results, I found nearly the same view. This photo shows part of the old town of Sintra, Portugal. The picture was taken from inside the eastern end of the entrance arcade to the Palácio Nacional de Sintra, which served as one of Portugal’s royal palaces from the 15th through the 19th century. Here’s a Wikipedia picture with the photographer’s location in the red circle:

The whole town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Situated less then 20 miles west of Lisbon, this looks like a lovely place to visit.

Another agrees:

If you’ve never been to Sintra, it is well worth a visit. Once you get away from the crowded, narrow streets in the town itself, the Pena Park is incredibly peaceful.  My only tip is that you avoid the humidity of late August – trekking up the hills to the Pena National Palace, which nestles in the mountains overlooking the town, becomes pretty unpleasant in 100 degree weather!

Another points to another palace:

I think this is the first VFYW where I’ve actually been to, so I recognized it immediately.  The view is taken from the Palacio Nacional de Sintra in Portugal. To be honest, where this photo was taken was pretty much as far as I got into the palace; we ended up skipping past the bus tours of people and heading up the hill to the other castles and palaces in the area.  The most memorable was the Quinta da Regaleira, with its gothic architecture and network of tunnels extending below the property:

It’s hard to overstate the excess.

Another reader:

I grew up not too far and went to visit the town and its palaces many times with my parents, but I still find new things when I go visit. If anyone goes there, go see the toy museum around the corner from where the photo was taken, go have a travesseiro (a particular pastry) at the Periquita café, go up the mountain to the Disney-like Palácio da Pena or go explore the terraces and caves of the Quinta da Regaleira, full of Romantic symbolisms. Or just wander around through the town and the mountain and enjoy the splendid views.

A word of warning, though: the area between the town of Sintra and Lisbon is heavily overbuilt, so if you take the train directly from Lisbon, close your eyes until you get to the last stop.

Another:

The closest we have ever come to death was walking along the side walls of nearby Castelo dos Mouros (blasting wind, thick fog, no guardrails). I went there in 2006 with my best friend.  I can guarantee you will have at least 30 winning entries with this one (too easy).

Actually closer to 100 readers correctly answered Sintra. Five of them have correctly guessed difficult views in the past without yet winning, but one of them clearly stands out as having participated in a whopping 55 contests over the years, so he breaks the tie this week:

This week’s contest only took a few minutes to solve once I noticed a tiny detail:

That’s no moon, it’s a spa … I mean, that’s no mountaintop, it’s a castle. Crank up the trusty search engines, and after a handful of misfires, “mountain top castle” did it. The title of one photo I found is “Moorish Castle-Sintra”:

So we’re looking at a castle above Sintra, Portugal, meaning we are IN Sintra. Given the layout of the foreground of the contest photo, there’s only one option for the location, and that’s the Sintra National Palace. There are four large arches on the front of the palace, but given the location of the little fence in front, we are looking out of the left-most arch, or the right-most if you’re facing the building.

That was a particularly fun one. See you next week.

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