Category: Contest

A reader writes:

The presence of the large billboards, bordering this lovely park, Tivoli Gardens, was dismaying to see, when I visited Copenhagen some years ago.  They seem to have proliferated. The juxtaposition is unfortunate. The architectural feature of the building to the right is reminiscent of the ultra-modern museum which was completed less than 10 years ago. The presence of both classical and modern architecture, as can be seen in the photo, is also typical of Copenhagen. The Baltic is in the distance.

Another:

This looks like it was taken from the back of the Prince Hotel & Residence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – quite possibly in one of the restaurants or conference rooms there.  The big clues are (a) the red soil that is so common in SE Asia – especially Malaysia and Thailand; (b) the Japanese SUVs  and (what may be) a few of their drivers hanging out around one of them and (c) the Ferris-wheel with the over the top lighting around it.  I’ve stayed at the Prince before and this looks a lot like it.

Another:

With ten minutes to spare, I’m going to guess Lima, Peru.  The clues I used to make my guess are: primarily Japanese cars, driving on right hand side of road, and coastal billboards appear to have Roman script. I used that to rule out most of Asia, and I thought about countries that have a strong tie to Japan but are not in Asia. I know that there is a strong cultural link between Japan and both Peru and Brazil as many Japanese emigrated to those countries in the 20th century.  I don’t know if a cultural link translates into whether the citizens will buy cars, but I don’t have a lot of time.

Another is on the right track:

Definitely sub Saharan Africa. Cars are driving on the right side of the road, so we can eliminate a lot of the Southeastern countries in Africa. There’s a lot of greenery, so I’ll go with what I imagine is the greenest country in Africa. I’m guessing this is Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The architecture is so distinct that I know someone is going to get the right window, but here’s hoping I’m at least somewhat close.

Another:

I thought this would be an easy one – how many fancy new buildings could there be that look so much like a bath tub? More than one unfortunately, since a very fancy new museum that looks exactly like a bathtub was just built in Amsterdam, and pictures of it filled every Google image search I could think of. Damn you, Stedelijk! The pink ferris wheel was no more help. But the trees in the lower right look like I imagine sub-saharan Africa, so I’ll say Addis Ababa because a friend hails from there, and I’d like to think it’s as nice a place as the photo seems to depict.

Another:

I flailed around a great deal with this one. I couldn’t find any building that matched the weirdly-shaped one to the right, and I’m sure someone has been there before. I was going to settle on Luanda, Angola, based on the traffic (not much) and the climate. But then I remembered Luanda has been an answer in the past, so I decided to go to the other side of Africa. I can’t find a great match for anything, so I’m just going to shoot for Maputo, specifically the Cardoso Hotel. Hopefully I’m not the dreadest “first guesser” who is always the farthest away!

Another nails the right city:

This is my first time to get one of these!

I knew it had to be Africa, with the acacia trees lining the roads, the wall around the parking lot, and, for some reason, the vertical red billboard. I was going to guess Nairobi, Kenya, because of how green it is (and I love Nairobi), but then I noticed the ocean in the background. Accra, Ghana! It’s got to be! I remember the city shocking me with how modern and western it looked compared with Cotonou, Benin and Lomé, Togo, where I had just spent a summer completing an internship in ethnomusicology.

So, it was Accra – I went straight to Osu, which I remember being very built-up, then drifted west toward downtown. Behold, the National Theatre! The shape of that building stood out. The picture is taken from the Mövenpick Hotel, Victoria Borg, Accra, Ghana, looking roughly east-southeast at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Liberia Road. Maybe the 4th floor? The National Theatre is in the right midground of the picture and the Atlantic Ocean is in the background. Woo!

Another sends an aerial view:

Another:

I feel like I am cheating here. This is downtown Accra, Ghana. I recognize it because I am originally from Ghana (presently a graduate student at the University of Virginia).

Another:

The Möevenpick Ambassador Hotel, Accra, Ghana near the corner of Liberia Rd. and Independence Ave. technically, postal address is PMB CT 343, Cantonments Ridge, Accra, Ghana. GPS: 5.554369,-0.202426. Bonus points for using the umlaut, please. Extra bonus points:  my photo of the National Theater, from 7 years ago, whilst visiting my beautiful daughter on her semester abroad from NYU:

Super-bonus points: I lived in Accra as a child, many many moons ago, well before the National Theater was built, as a “gift” from China.

Another:

What a fun feeling to immediately know the view when the picture flashes on the screen! The distinctive building on the right is the National Theatre in Accra (where my wife and I enjoyed a stunning performance by Ismael Lo about 15 years ago); across the way is the new (well, used) Ferris Wheel in the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park (where our daughter had her first ride on a pony even longer ago), and the road in front is Independence Avenue is where we watched armored cars roll in Ghana’s final coup more than 30 years ago.

Thank goodness Ghana is now growing extremely rapidly and is firmly stable (stable enough to have its own controversial supreme court case about the recent presidential election – arguments are being held right now, and everyone is confident that the dispute will be resolved peacefully). The picture is taken from a reasonably high, north-facing room in the gorgeous new Moevenpick Ambassador Hotel (somebody has a nice expense account!). I won’t bother guessing the specific room; I’m sure you’ll get a few who will do the calculation.

A closer look at the hotel:

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Another nails the right floor:

This week’s photo is from the either the 6th or 7th Floor of the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Agra, Ghana. If I had to guess it would be the 6th floor, Room 637. This photo is from an odd numbered room, likely one of the ambassador suites (since those are on the upper floors) looking out towards the intersection of Liberia Rd and Independence Avenue. The taller building on the left side of the photo is part of the World Trace Center Complex and the white building on the right side of the image is the National Theatre.

But the winner this week is the most detailed entry among the three readers who correctly guessed the 6th floor:

Bam.  This photo was taken from the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra, Ghana looking south of east. Based on dead eyeball reckoning it was taken from one of the three indicated windows on the 6th floor:

Undoubtedly, others making correct guesses will have recognized the oddly shaped building on the right to be the National Theater of Ghana, stayed at that very (swanky) hotel, or somehow read one of the unreadable advertisements next to the Coke billboard (I Googled ‘comb’ before figuring it out). My clue, however, was the dark green van with a yellow stripe in the road just below that Coke billboard.  It is probably a tro-tro, which are basically large taxis that serve as a bus system in Ghana. The tro-tros, especially how they were always packed and had religious slogans prominently displayed, were among the many things that fascinated me during my recent visit to Ghana:

My brother interns for Global Brigades in Ghana coordinating groups of undergrads that come in to staff medical clinics.  Since he wasn’t going to make it home for either holiday for the first time in our lives, my aunt, a family friend, and I brought the family to him for Thanksgiving.  It was quite an experience seeing him in his element, and also because it was my first time in a developing country.  Thus, the country roads, and I mean country roads, were mortifying, but seeing an elephant take a relaxing dip (in poem form) made the trek worth it.

And to think, the other day I contemplated skipping over the VFYW contests for good.  I shall travel more so that won’t happen again.

From the submitter:

As a previous winner (contest #55 – Luanda, Angola) and a weekly follower of the VFYW contest, I would like to submit this view from my hotel room in Accra, Ghana. The photo was taken from the 6th floor, room 641 of the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel facing east.  This week in Ghana marks the beginning of the Supreme Court hearing in their version of the 2000 U.S. Presidential election dispute. Everywhere I went, the public was glued to their TVs as the case of the disputed Ghanaian presidential election of 2012 was being aired. Ghana is a model for other African countries in terms of respect for democracy and rule of law on one hand, and entrepreneurship and progress on the other hand.

(Archive)

A reader writes:

The city in the picture has a very East-African vibe to it. My first thought was Khartoum but the greenery is generally lacking in Khartoum’s city center. I also noticed the traffic was left-sided. My gut tells me this is Kampala, Uganda.

Another:

The buildings and the advertising look very familiar (we like to backpack often, usually in Asia) and so I have decided to go with my gut and say Malaysia.  A look online for stadiums suggests a likely candidate is Stadium Merdeka, right in Kuala Lumpur.  While I cannot suggest what window this shot is taken from, my guess is somewhere like the Swiss Inn, on Jalan Sultan.

Another:

Not too much to go on this week. It’s warm, wherever we are, and there’s a language that uses the Roman alphabet, from what I can tell by squinting, and cars are on the “British” side of the road. I’m guessing Indonesia, not Malaysia, because the abundance of flat land reminds me of the east coast of Sumatra, and the haziness in the air reminds me of the smoke that used to blow across the Melaka Straits to Singapore when I lived there. Both Indonesia and Malaysia have a ton of those ads for skin-lightening creams, which is what the sign looks like (a terrible industry that too many Western cosmetic companies get away with participating in). So here’s a vote for Medan, Indonesia. I’m going to throw a dart and say the Tiara Medan Hotel. Someone with more time and better Google-mapping skills will probably beat me, but here’s hoping I’m on the right side of the world.

Another:

My guess this week, with no fancy computer analysis: Cairo, Egypt.

Another:

My initial reaction was that this was somewhere is Asia, but upon further inspection, I think it is southern Europe somewhere. People will undoubtedly try to decipher the ad on the building, but the best clues are beyond the buildings. One of my colleagues noticed that one of the buildings in the background looks like a castle, and off to the left it seems that there are stadium lights and stadium seating. There is also one palm tree that is visible. The air quality looks somewhat like it does here in southern California, and I think it is a fairly large city. But since we discovered these background buildings only a few minutes ago and time is running out, I am going to have to take a wild guess rather than an educated one: Seville, Spain.

Another:

I suspect there is zero chance I’ll get this right, but it looks very much like a town in Russia I visited once on the Black Sea called “Anapa”:

However, most Eastern Bloc architecture looks like this.

Another:

Finally!!!  A place I recognize. This has to be India – that is an advert for Dettol soap. The image of a woman, with much lighter skin than the rest of the populace – where else but India!

Another:

Oh now you are just torturing me. Just like that bank branch near the Albania window gave me hope, I was psyched to figure out after a few false starts that the big ad on the side of the building is for Dettol Re-energize soap (“skin so healthy it glows!”). Turns out Dettol soap is sold all over the world, but the particular brand seems to be an Indian thing. So there we have it: India. How hard can that be? Not much help beyond that. There seems to be a stadium in the distance between the buildings with large light stanchions. I can’t spend too much of my like searching for Indian stadiums, and hotels nearby (that building in the foreground sure looks like a hotel). After a desultory look at New Delhi, Mumbai, and just for fun Karachi, I say forget it. I’m sure a Dishhead from India knows it on sight, but let’s just say New Delhi, near Delhi Gate. I look forward to finding out how far off I am.

Another gets the right country:

You must be flooded with Pakistan guesses.  Mine is the equivalent of a dart thrown from across the room. The Ashoka trees (those pointed leafy trees that grow so easily in the tropics) and the architecture all suggested South Asia. And the ad for Dettol soap on the building on the left looks like this one. Lahore is a wild guess. Road, building, etc: no freaking clue, really.

Another gets the right city:

Hmm, looks tropical, Middle-Eastern architecture, perhaps. Yellow plates with black lettering is a good clue … I’d guess this is Karachi, Pakistan.

Another goes into great detail:

At first glance, this week’s view looked promising – a large city, distinguishable buildings, tree lined boulevard, and a stadium in the background. The landscape alone was not enough to determine the region. It looks like places I’ve been in Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. The one signage that was clear (but may not be familiar to your American viewers) is the Dettol soap advertisement on the side of the office building. Searching Google for Dettol soap ads, I was able to determine the exact country where this advertisement runs.

Using the stadium as a landmark, the view was found to be from the Avari Towers Hotel in Karachi, Pakistan. The building on the right side of the view is the Hotel Mehran and the taller commercial building on its left is the Kashif Center. The landmark stadium in the background belongs to the Hockey Complex of Pakistan. My guess is that the view is from the 7th floor, as seen in the photo. Hope I’m right! (or closest).

Another adds:

A Google search of “Skin So Healthy It Glows” leads me to this Tweet by a Pakistani advertising agency identifying the lady in the billboard as actress Sonya Jehan.  A Google image search of “Sonya Jehan billboard” fortuitously – because Google mislabeled the image – leads me to this photo of the Kashif Center in Karachi, the building on which the billboard appears.  Google Satellite view tells me that the VFYW photo was likely taken from the Avari Towers building, 242 Fatima Jinnah Rd, Karachi, Pakistan.  I’ll take a wild guess and say the photo was taken from the 14th floor.

A previous winner writes:

Some contests, like last week’s, are difficult because they provide you with few distinct clues. Contests like this one, however, are challenging because the abundance of small clues means that a few will be red herrings. Whether you won or lost this week therefore turned on whether you chose the right clues to focus on. Some readers, for example, will have found the region’s architecture via Google and located the city almost immediately. But for those lured in by, say the row of cypress trees, it might have been a long weekend wandering through that tree’s native habitat in the eastern Mediterranean.

In any case, this week’s view comes from the heart of Karachi, Pakistan. The picture was taken just after dawn by a reader staying on roughly the 9th floor of the Avari Towers located at 242 Fatima Jinnah Road. The photo looks east, southeast towards the balconies of the Hotel Mehran at center frame. Just behind that building and to its left are the light towers of the Karachi Hockey Club’s stadium, whose grandstands are also partially visible. As for that giant billboard with the woman holding her hands to her neck, it’s an ad for an Indian hand soap called Dettol.

Another:

Woohoo! After years of being amazed at the folks who research the Internet to determine the location of your windows, I finally got one using that most wonderful sense – gut instinct!

Saw the picture and immediately got the vibe of Karachi, where I lived in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The Suzuki Carry in the image cinched it for me. Showed the picture to my dad who confirmed the building on the right was the Mehran hotel. Google told me the rest! The picture has been taken from the Avari Towers hotel, I’m guessing 10th floor, eastern-most room. I’m attaching a Google map picture:

Karachi is a vibrant city that sadly is being torn apart by violence against religious minorities.

I’ve not submitted an entry in the past, so I probably won’t win, but I’ve been meaning to write in for so long this just seemed like a sign too blatant to avoid! My excuse for not writing earlier is that if I wait a day someone almost always says what I want to say before I say it. Anyway, good luck with the subscription model; you had my money on Day 1.

From the submitter:

Delighted again to be part of the contest. Sorry to be late; just back late last night from another trip, this time to exotic Columbus, Ohio.

The room number was 816, obviously facing southeast. Looking at the Bing maps view, if you think of the swimming pool as being south of the tower, the 816 window is the easternmost of five vertical bands of windows, approximately aligned with the east edge of the pool.

Normally I’d make a joke about my two recent submissions – Iran and Pakistan – something about Petraeus having been unavailable … but events today and yesterday lead to other associations: The major earthquake this morning in an area that Pakistan maps as a low seismic risk, felt about 800 miles away in Karachi. And the Boston bombing yesterday – just the sort of nonsense Karachiites have been living with for years.

Btw, I’m just finishing Steve Inskeep’s very good book, Instant City, about the impact of Islamism and ethnic factionalism in general on the development of Karachi as a megacity.

The following entry was the closest to room 816:

Wow, that was almost too easy. I’m a bit giddy at how things just fell into place. The name on the hotel is visible, but not sharp enough to properly read (HOTEL _ _ _RA…?). After a few wild guesses, I decided to just do an image search for “Pakistan hotel” and just scan the results. I knew it was a silly stab in the dark, but unbelievably, it took no more than two minutes to come across this image of the hotel in question, Hotel Mehran. Then identifying the submitter’s location as Avari Towers was a simple matter of checking the area on Google Maps and a quick image search to confirm the building on the left is indeed Kashif Center.  No doubt this will will come down to the floor and perhaps even room number, so let’s say 8th floor and … room 807?

This is my first VFYW contest submission, as I usually don’t have much patience, but I might just be hooked now. I’m a Dish subscriber who splits his time between Hong Kong and Taipei. Keep up the great work!

Congrats to our reader on the tough win.  See everyone else on Saturday for the next contest.

(Archive)

A reader writes:

Now that’s an awesome view! It certainly looks like it could be in the Alps somewhere, but I am going with the U.S. because I think we have more of a fondness for fences than Europeans, though I could be wrong about that. The mountains look more like the Rockies than the Sierra Nevada, and a couple of my students mentioned Telluride but then said no to that because the town is more self-contained than what we’re seeing. However, I did notice that on the outskirts of Telluride there is an area called Mountain Village, which is more residential and would have this view overlooking Telluride, which would be just off to the northeast. Sunset in beautiful Mountain Village, CO?

Another looks west:

I’m sure someone will be able to pinpoint the exact hotel, room, and, based on the angle, the probable height, weight, and dietary preferences of the photographer, but it looks a lot like Jackson Hole, Wyoming to me. I’ll go ahead and guess the Grand View Lodge.

Another jumps to Europe:

This looks to me very much like the Alps based on the landscape and chalet style houses; the modern square building in front makes Italy and France less likely, leaving Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. I imagine some readers will spend hours figuring this out – I’ll just guess the western outskirts of Vaduz, Liechtenstein since the mountain range across the valley looks like the one you see from Vaduz.

Another:

Swiss Alps! French Alps! German Alps! Austrian Alps! I have no idea which Alps this view belongs to, but lovely it is.  An hour browsing through pictures of the Alps is not an unpleasant hour at all. But I’m reduced to a wild guess: Engelberg, Switzerland. And just for fun, here’s one of the many beautiful Alpine views I came across in my searching. Okay, one more.

Another:

Verbier, Switzerland? I am sure that is not correct. I am not a geolocation wonk but enjoy VFYW for the memories and other connections evoked by the photographs. I spent my 20th birthday in Verbier, over 30 years ago. The view from my window that morning was as peaceful and full of promise as this week’s shot.

Another adds his own view:

Wow, this week’s contest brought back a strong memory of a conference I went to five years ago in the French Alps. Here’s a picture I took at the time, from the Centre Paul Langevin looking into the village of Aussois:

What a gorgeous location. Pretty similar, huh?

But not quite the same. In the contest photo, there’s no church, and the mountain looks different and more distant. So you’re not going to get the level of detail from me that usually wins these contests, as in “the photo was taken at 7:23 pm from the east-facing window of suite 327 in the Smith building, and assuming the photo was taken by someone standing with the camera at eye level, the photographer was 6 ft. 2 in. tall, with a slight limp and probably dark brown hair and moderate acne.”  Heck, I may not even be in the right country. But thanks for the excuse to reminisce and go thru some old pix of mine!

Another gets the right country:

Clearly in the alps, and likely Austria, eastern Switzerland, or perhaps even Lichtenstein if I remember my rooflines right.  No time for a search – have to go shovel an half-foot of snow off the driveway for the second time today – so I’m going with a town I visited on a high school ski trip and had some fine fondue chinoise: Lech, Austria.

A previous contest winner nails the exact location:

A few months ago you had a great contest, #139, which featured a German schloss that no one actually found. As time ran out, my failed search for it ended just 40 miles to the south in the vineyards of the Rheingau. When I realized this week’s view was nearby, in the Alps, I saw a chance for redemption. But with weak clues, such as the sun’s angle or the ski tips at lower right, and having never skied in Europe, my only option was to start “trekking” through the mountains. And trek I did. Hour after hour, through every snow peaked massif and ski resort the Alps have to offer. Finally, late on Sunday night, pay-dirt:

This week’s view comes from the village of Rohrmoos-Untertal, Austria, in the Schladming ski region. The photo was taken by a Dish fan who rented an apartment in a private ski-haus named for its owner, Christine Milalkovits. The house is located at 104 Untertal Strasse, altitude 2,961 feet above sea level, latitude 47.22.04.91 N, longitude 13.40.44.91 E. The view was taken from the first floor and looks nearly due north along a heading of 353.33 degrees towards the Dachstein massif.

Ironically, I thought the orange plastic tips in the lower right of the photo were skis, so I emphasized ski resorts while searching. Turns out, they’re actually the handrails for a child’s slide/swing. So it goes.

Attached is a bird’s eye view which simulates the lighting on February 28, 2013 at 5:07 PM local time (my best of four estimates for time and date):

Lastly, in recent weeks readers have been sending in some pretty nice visuals, so I created something new to try and keep up. Assuming it can be transcoded and uploaded, it’s a video which might as well be titled “The View From (an F-16 doing 400 mph above) Your Window”:

The only other reader to answer the correct village writes:

This view reminded me of Flachau, Austria, where spent some vacations as a child. So I started looking in the right general area right away. Google maps Austria doesn’t have street view, but I think I found the flat-roofed building in the aerial photograph:

My guess is that the view is from Haus Christine, Untertalstraße 104, 8971 Rohrmoos-Untertal, Austria, looking north over the village of Rohrmoss-Untertal towards the Dachstein mountains from a room in the north-west corner of the house.

Congrats to our reader on the tough win. Details from the submitter:

This picture is taken from one of the first floor bedrooms of the Apartment Christine II in Schladming-Rohrmoos, Austria. The mountains to the north are the Dachstein mountains, a spectacular range covering the Austrian regions of Upper Austria, Styria and Salzburg. There is actually a ski resort at the top (nearly 3000 meters high), accessible only via a Gondola. On our side of the valley you have the ski resorts Fageralm, Reiteralm, Hochwurzen, Planai, and Hauser Kaibling; Rohrmoos is in the valley between Hochwurzen and Planai.

We were here for a week to ski and watch the second half of the FIS World Cup Alpine Championships, held at Planai (Schladming), where the USA did remarkably well despite the early injury of Linsey Vonn. Austrians are bat-shit crazy about skiing; while they were gracious hosts to all racers, they would certainly cheer the 6th place Austrian well above the first place foreigner. We are certainly skiers but not really ski spectators, but it was easy to get caught up in the emotions when you are surrounded by thousands (upwards to 40,000 near the end ofthe week we are told) of fanatical fans.

By the way, you have posted in the past our VFYW shot in Lake Tahoe. At the time I commented that none of the Views ever have children compositions obstructing the otherwise interesting perspectives. In our case it was these same kids (9 and 5-year-old twins, all girls) who brought us to Europe (Salzburg) for a year: my wife is German and our kids were not making as much progress in their command of the German mother tongue as we had hoped, so we have taken the immersion (otherwise known as throwing your kids to the wolves) route. It was in Salzburg that we were introduced to Krampus‘, which I emailed you all about early in December [see photo to the right]. Weird shit.

As with the thousands of others I too am a Dish subscriber and wish you all continued success. I am not gay; not conservative; not Catholic (or religious); and clean shaved, which is why I enjoy the perspectives and am willing to pay them, unreserved.

(Archive)

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

The leafless trees and an evergreen in the background made me think of a northern climate, but since my guesses are rarely even in the correct hemisphere, I’m going to go out on a limb:  The orange tree, yellow house, and white-washed garden walls point to Athens, Greece.  The red-tile roofs visible in the photo make me think its in the Old Town area of Athens below the Acropolis.

Another reader:

This is my first time guessing a VFYW.  I am not using any investigative tools for this guess; I just have a hunch. The orange tree reminds me of the kind I used to see and pick oranges from walking through Damascus, but the roof shingles on the yellow building and lack of satellite dishes tells me this can’t be an Arab country. However, it does have a Mediterranean feel, just emerging out of winter.  Letters on the building could be Greek? It’s be in the news lately. But let’s go with Cyprus. To be more specific: Limassol, Cyprus.

Another:

The first step was to identify the logo in the lower-right corner. It’s ProCredit, and a quick search online reveals that they only operate in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. You’d think after cross-referencing the specific countries where they operate with orange-producing countries you could cross off Eastern Europe and Africa, but that’s not quite true. Since ProCredit’s website doesn’t offer an easy way to display all of their locations in any given country, I’m going to stop here and just guess Guadalajara, Mexico, since Mexico is the #1 orange producing country among countries where ProCredit operates.

Another:

Through a combination of Wikipedia and luck, I identified that building on the right as a ProCredit bank within a ten minutes. But it’s 60 degrees and sunny in New York today, so I’m not going to spend much of it indoors trudging through Google Maps. Time for educated guessing:

Given the week’s news, I suspected Cyprus, but ProCredit lists no branches there. The oranges made me think Mediterranean, where it has branches in Albania and many of the former Yugoslav Republic countries. Then again, Cyprus involves Russia, and Georgia is in the Russian sphere, grows wonderful citrus, and has ProCredit banks. So now I’m leaning Georgia. But hang on — the people who live where the picture was taken are clearly concerned with heavy rain: The drainpipes and gutters are prominent and well-tended. So, a tropical country? I’ll say Nicaragua, because Dish-heads seem to travel off the beaten path, although ProCredit also operates in El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia and I think it could just as easily be one of those.

Now I’m going out for some sun.

Another:

I’m going to go with Italy, and I’m going to go with a post-WWII neighborhood of Florence since the orange tree was a symbol of the Medici.

Another:

The picture this week was pretty difficult to due to the lack of coverage in Serbia of Google Street View, but thankfully the photo has a clear view of a Pro Credit Bank branch, and apparently they are pretty common throughout Serbia.  The photo also offers other clues such as the “aesthetics be damned, we are putting a Mitsubishi a/c unit in this place, and are going to plop the brilliant white condenser outside the window”, a common practice throughout the city of Vranja, where the citizens, like the rest of the country, prefer to grow apricots  on any available area of their back yard to help block out these eyesores.

I doubt I have much of a chance this week, as I am sure somebody’s ex-girlfriend’s cousin happens to be banker’s associate for Pro Credit Bank in Vranja, and has already sent them exact coordinates of the location to send in to The Dish and claim the prize. Nevertheless, if I win, I promise to send in my subscription.

Don’t let a loss stop you! Another reader:

Well, I started in Serbia and ended up in Macedonia. I was able to identify ProCredit Bank on the corner and I figured orange trees grow far enough south in Macedonia that it just might be the place. That’s as far as I can get without some decent software so this is where I have to stop. Prilep, Macedonia:

Another Eastern European country:

I recognized ProCredit bank instantly from my time spent in Moldova doing development work. Problem is, it’s a huge bank, and branches could be anywhere in the developing world. The combination of the fir tree in the back and the unique roof shingles narrow this location down to Eastern Europe (no major Asian countries have ProCredit banks, and those shingles are only found in a handful of countries outside of Asia). It looks like Romanian graffiti on the top of the white brick building, so we could be in Romania or Moldova (Moldovan is essentially Romanian). I’ll limit my Google Maps search to what I know: Moldova.

It doesn’t look like any of the major branches in Moldova (many of which are located in more urban housing than this). From the satellite, I’m guessing it’s possibly this branch: Ştefan cel Mare şi Sfânt 33, Soroca, Moldova.

Yet another:

You sent me on my first ever VFYW witch hunt, searching for ProCredit banks in Kosovo.  I could probably spend several more hours trying to pinpoint the locations, but I’m not sure I have the time or the energy (although it is kind of fun to see all the streets named after American politicians, like Eliot L. Engel St in Peja!).

Why my sudden VFYW participation?

A couple years ago, you had a picture of Cartagena, Colombia. I swore it looked familiar as I was planning a trip there for my friend’s wedding.  Of course I thought my hunch would have been thousands of miles off.  (During my trip, I actually took a picture of the window it was taken from). Then, a few months later, you had an entry from Mozambique.  This failure to go with my gut cut much deeper.  Not only was my friend the one who had submitted the picture, but I was the one who had advised him to submit something while he was working overseas.  After not entering my guesses those two times, I vowed to pursue any future leads.

Now, here I am with no confidence whatsoever in my guess fully aware that some other Dishhead will have pinpointed the exact home from which the picture was taken.  It kind of looks like it could have been taken from Haxhi Zeka, in Prizren Kosovo, but I really have no idea.

More coincidences from our contest here and here. Another Kosovo guesser:

Another gets the right country:

I noticed the graffiti on the apartment wall that says “Para Laci”. This appears to be a reference perhaps to the European football team from Laç, Albania. Laç is near an ancient church that is a destination of pilgrimage dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua. There is a dearth of photos and map details of the town. I can’t say for sure the photo is not from somewhere else such as Tirana, but I am going with Laç.

Another gets closer:

Going on the Laçi graffiti, I’m guessing it’s in Albania. There are two ProCredit Bank locations that Google Maps finds there, and one is next to the Hotel Lisus in Lezhe. So perhaps it’s a first or second story hotel window facing north.

Another nails the right city:

What a frustrating contest this week!  The more of these I do, I notice how we VFYWers have assembled a collective toolbox, and in this regard narrowing down to the country was mostly an act of standing on the shoulders of giants.  Those window units point me to eastern Europe and the geographically limiting orange tree pushes me south.  I figured out the commercial bank sign and went to its website to learn the scope of its worldwide footprint.  Grafitti confirms the usage of the Latin alphabet.  Google “Para Laci”, and the wisdow of crowds points you to … Albania, via links about fooball clubs and rappers, amongst others.  Less than an hour to confirm the country, and with the requisite shot of luck we have the city of Tirana, Albania inside another thirty minutes.

From there the toolbox disintegrates.  We look at every storefront photo of a ProCredit Bank, but none quite fit right.  Albania’s capital has not yet succumbed to the intrusiveness of Street View.  Aerial shots are as inscrutable as I wish my own home were.  But we’ve found that tallish brick building in a photo, we know we have.  But it’s across the street from a different ProCredit branch.  We think perhaps there’s another branch, or possibly an abandoned one across the street, but we can’t get behind the brick building to confirm.  After nailing the neighborhood in 1.5 hours, we spend 3 more trying to find the window.

Then despair – a mile down the road, another similar brick building, adjacent to another ProCredit branch.  It all crumbles.  I still believe in Tirana, but I have no confidence in my specifics.

Another Tirana guesser:

A lot of the aerial views of Albanian towns show red-tiled roofs like the one in the photo. And when you go on ProCredit’s Albanian website – whose webmaster is probably wondering why they’ve been getting so many hits this past weekend – you see a lovely picture of this smiling man in a blue shirt:

This is exactly the same image that you see hanging in the window of the ProCredit bank in the VFYW.

A group effort:

So here’s how my weekend went: I had all these plans to catch up on homework for my master’s program. Then the weekly VFYW contest started on Saturday, and my entire afternoon and night were completely shot. Here’s what I did: my girlfriend, a mutual friend, and I all scoured the photo for any evidence. I was the first to realize that the bank was a ProCredit Bank (I googled “ProC” and saw what came up in the AutoComplete box). Then we went to the bank’s web site and started eliminating countries. My girlfriend noticed that the guy on the advertisement on the window of the bank was the same guy that appeared on ProCredit Albania’s web site, so we had a country match.

Since that time, we spent hours and hours on Google Maps and Street View (turns out, satellite imagery of Albania is not quite what it is in, say, New York). We especially focused on Lac, since graffiti on the building on upper left says “para laçi.” Anyway, the point to all this is: we still don’t know which branch it is. Damn ProCredit and its all-too-convenient branches.

So I’m guessing Tirana. Because it seems like the kind of place that might have both a ProCredit Bank branch AND a backyard orange tree. So there.

Another nails the right building:

This week’s “View From Your Window” is located in Tirana, Albania. Of this I am 100% positive. I am also about 99.5% sure that this picture has been taken from the City Hotel Tirana on Rruga Ismail Qemali. If I had to be more specific, I’d say it was taken from the second floor window next to the “E L” in “hotel” on the southern side of the building, facing the alley.

In the event of multiple correct guesses (as is likely; I’m guessing 50-60 correct hotel-level guesses), this is my fifth correct guess. Previous correct guesses include Queenstown, New Zealand; Sausalito, California; Anchorage, Alaska and Kagoshima, Japan.

The number of correct hotel guessers was actually ten (all of whom will now be on the “Correct Guessers” list, which will give them an edge in future contests). But only one of them has guessed more prior views than the above reader without yet winning.  That reader’s entry:

That persimmon tree initially had me thinking Asia. But the sign for ProCredit Bank – a surprisingly large network of microloan and retail banking establishments through Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa – quickly redirected me toward SE Europe.

Let this be said: While there may be more Rodeway Inns and local police stations in North America than ProCredit branches in the Balkans, there are still plenty of the latter. What’s more, they’re represented pretty spottily in Google Maps. Most of Serbia’s and Kosovo’s show up in map view, for instance, but you won’t find any in, say, Bosnia-Herzegovina that way.

I had a good feeling about Albania (Wikipedia singles the country out as a regional leader in persimmon cultivation, for whatever that’s worth), but even on ProCredit’s Albanian website, a lot of the branches had no photos available. Google apparently has no Albanian Street View database, and its grasp of exact addresses there is a little shaky. Thank goodness some kind folks took photos in the vicinity of one of the several Tirana branches, this one on Ismail Qemali St.:

The colored outlines correspond to the same on the original VFYW and the Google map view:

The first floor seems the most likely, given the position of the stone wall (light blue) and gate (yellow). And as this image shows, there’s a ventilation unit (in pink!) by the first floor window, southwest corner, matching the one in the original image:

From the photo’s owner:

On a recent trip to Albania for work, I stayed an extra few days to check out Tirana and the surrounding areas. I stayed at a small hotel on a side street that was recommended by a friend called City Hotel on Rruga Ismail Qemali, Nr 8/1. It was taken from the first floor, room #2. I quite liked the orange tree in the yard outside my window and thought I’d share it.

Congrats to that colorful reader on the tough win. This was truly one of the most impressive contests yet. I had picked what I thought would be a really tough photo because I knew I would be especially busy this week with Andrew on vacation and I wanted to cut down on the submissions. Silly me: there were close to 150 entries, half of which were of Albania. Readers still continue to amaze me when it comes to this contest, after nearly three years of running it. As one reader puts it:

The VFYW contest is creepy. Seriously.  How can these people – from just ONE random photograph – pinpoint the EXACT location down to the apartment unit it was taken from?!  It’s creepy.

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As all of you contest fanatics noticed, we didn’t post the results yesterday at the normally scheduled time, due to the nonstop coverage of the SCOTUS hearings. But wait no longer:

I thought this one was going to be easy – just match up the design on the police cars and voila! After plumbing the endless world of local patrol car detailing, I still got nothin’. Champion, who manufactured the window through which the photo was taken, apparently distibutes only within the US, east of the Mississippi. Based on the landscape, my heart cries mid-Atlantic states. It’s a sizable river, so let’s say it’s the Susquehanna. It’s a small town, so let’s say, at random, Nescopek, PA.

Another reader:

I know I am probably thousands of miles off, but this looks like Atchison, Kansas, birthplace of Amelia Earhart. Atchison sits on the banks of the Missouri River.  The police cars look familiar, the last remnants of shoveled snow from a recent snow storm remain and, well, it just looks like the place I am desperately trying to recall from memory.  I figured why not guess?

Another:

First time I can at least muster even a half-assed guess. As an Omahan, I think it looks like a shot from somewhere along the Nebraska side of the Missouri River.  Looks like a beautiful gloaming on the Loess Hills of Western Iowa.  Unfortunately, a quick Google Earth trip up the Muddy Mo revealed no such location.  On the bright side, following that great river from satellite photos is fascinating. The Flood of 2011 is evident and, despite its destruction, eerily beautiful.  A hybrid view that includes state lines seems to indicate that some land may have changed hands too! (Though, I suppose these maps are only somewhat accurate.)  At any rate, reading VFYW guesses on Tuesdays is something I always look forward to. I am happy to experience a VFYW from the Saturday end of things for once!

Another:

I think it is a view from the top level of the Livermore Falls, Maine town hall. Either the main lobby or one of offices behind the service counter. I’ve done some business there. The Androscoggin river is in the background.

Another:

Oh the hours I’ve spent Google-map-riverboating down every river in North America. Started up-river from Pittsburgh, headed all the way down the Ohio, then switched over to the Hudson, and then went over to the upper Mississippi … you get the idea. I sure hope someone was able to see the lettering on one of the two cop cars. And they say March Madness wastes valuable work time!

My guess: Second floor room of the No-Tell Motel, facing south, overlooking the Oil City Police Department impound lot, next to the mighty Allegheny River. Wrong, but I have to submit SOMEthing after all those hours!

Another:

This looks like Southeastern Ohio to me and given recent news, I would guess Steubenville. I would look for the exact location, perhaps the Juvenile Court Building, but I have to get my teams ready for the collegiate National Debate Tournament next week. It is sort of like March Madness, but for the cool kids.

Another gets on the right track:

First-timer here. Would do more research but I’m leaving tomorrow on a trip. That is absolutely a picture of the east side of the Hudson, probably somewhere in Westchester County. I’m going to guess it’s Tarrytown, and that the building near the water tower might be part of the abandoned GM plant there. If you were to stand near the police car, you would probably see train tracks – the Hudson Line of Metro-North – running along the river. The amount of snow also maps with what’s been going on in the area lately. It’s the remnants of the snowstorm we had on March 19.

Another:

I’m pretty sure the window is on the western side of the Hudson River. So I will go with Highland Falls, NY, outside of West Point.

Another nearly gets it:

This strongly resembles the Palisades, as seen from the NY side, just north of NYC. The police car’s logo is identical to the ones in my village, across the river. I will take a guess and say it’s Yonkers, since that is where the Palisades are highest – though it could also be Dobbs Ferry or Hastings on Hudson.

Another nails it:

As someone who lived in NYC for 12 years, I instantly recognized the Hudson River and the Jersey cliffs beyond, so I just scrolled up the Hudson until I saw the unmistakable slanted roofs of the factory sitting right on the shore of Hastings-on-Hudson. And while it is fun trying to investigate a VFYW photo clue by clue, scouring Google Maps for hours, I have to admit a certain thrill when you look at a photo (here, of a place I haven’t even visited) and just feel in your gut you know where it is:

Makes me miss New York.

Another:

I know exactly where this is.  The town on the east bank of the Hudson where this must be from is Hastings-On-Hudson. Every time I go hiking upstate, I take the Metro-North Hudson Line from Grand Central. In the last year noticed the remnants of a rock slide on the New Jersey side of the Pallisades, which is described in this article.

Another points to a local news report of the slide on YouTube. Another sends the photo seen to the right. Another writes:

Sometimes you get lucky. On Monday, I took a very scenic train trip along the east bank of the Hudson River from Rhinecliff, NY into New York City. I was looking out the window when I saw the most distinctive feature of this VFYW: the recent scar of a rock slide along the Hudson Palisades. After recognizing that, the rest was easy.

By the way, I would like to share just one fact that my mother told me about the Hudson Palisades: It’s a fjord. How cool is that?

More than 150 readers correctly answered Hastings-on-Hudson, but only three of them have gotten difficult views in the past without yet winning. The most accurate entry of those three is the following:

I’ve spent hours on previous windows without making any progress, and so it was with great satisfaction that I recognized this week’s view the moment I saw it!  I live in California these days, but I grew up in New York, and it’s hard to forget the Palisades.  That light-colored streak in the cliff marks the site of a major rockfall in May of 2012.  The fall liberated roughly 10,000 tons of rock from the cliff, the largest such event in at least the last 25 years.

On to the actual window.  The photograph was taken from the third floor (also the top floor) of the River Edge Apartments, looking south west across the Hudson River.  I’ve attached an aerial view of the apartment complex and circled the correct window in red, but it’s partially obscured by the overhang of the roof and some tree branches.  Sorry, best I could do.  I’ve also attached a street level view of the south-facing side of the building, but the correct window is again largely obscured, this time by the fire escape.  The correct window is visible looking through the bars of the fire escape.  I’ve done my best to circle it in red.

This marks my sixth correct entry in seven weeks.  I’m sure you’ll have many correct entries from New Yorkers (and beyond) this week, but hopefully I’m moving up in the tie-breaker rankings!

And into the winner’s circle. From the submitter, for the record:

3rd floor of the building.  I’m a Hastings resident.  By the way, the Hastings farmer’s market moves back outside to the parking lot shown in my photo on April 13!

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