Category: Contest

A reader writes:

Based on the type and amount of erosion on those very green mountains in the background, I’d guess Hawaii. I’m also guessing Oahu because of the development in the foreground. This is truly a gut reaction; because the picture makes me homesick, I think it’s Hawaii. Go Bows!

Another:

When I enlarge the photo, the characters on the binder just on our side of the window are still illegible; however, their spacing makes me think of an east Asian script. The flags in the foreground and on top of the tower appear to be Malaysian. Maybe the Taiwanese flag, but I think I see bits of white under the red, which would probably mean Malaysia's flag (the one that looks like a rip-off of ours but is actually apparently a rip-off of the British East India Company's flag – thanks, Internet!). Beyond that, I got nothing. Johor, Malaysia?

Another:

The outskirts of Taipei, Taiwan? That's a complete guess, as I haven't been there.  But the geography seems to fit Taiwan better than Haiti, Samoa, or Liechtenstein, which are also countries that have a flag with blue and red borders and something white in the middle, as the flag in the center of the photo seems to have.

Another:

The flags in the middle and on top of the building suggest either Myanmar, Samoa, or Taiwan.  My first thought was that someone in the diplomatic corps sent you this from Myanmar's new capital of Napyidaw. But it appears to be on the same giant delta that cuts through most of Myanmar. Taiwan, on the other hand, is covered with hills like this, including most of Taipei.  After a couple hours on Google Maps, I can't pinpoint the location, but I'm sure it's somewhere in Taiwan.  I'll go with Xizhi the hills northeast of Taipei:

Another:

My first hunch: a resource rich country, probably in the tropics, a city with verdant volcanic mountains very close by. I tried Google Images for Caracas, and the mountains looked very similar to your View. Could that be a Venezuelan (or Taiwan?) flag just left and below the center of the picture? And maybe one at the top of the nearest tower? The design of the towers has a Miesian influence, albeit softened by curves, which suggests a place with more affection for Western aesthetic values than say China or Taiwan. I'll go with Caracas.

Another:

I would swear that this view is from a window in the country of my birth, Costa Rica. I would even venture to say it is somewhere in the area of Escazu, because of all the construction. The mountains, the lushness, the colors: they all speak to my childhood. Now watch me be wrong and they'll take away my passport!

Another:

This week's contest is killing me.  

The picture screams inter-mountain western United States, from the high terrain, low foliage, western urban buildings (minus any garish billboards).  If it's the northern hemisphere, I am pretty sure this is facing east or southeast.  The building in the middle screams college theater building, or some such.  I have been through ever major (and minor) metro area in the western US that has controlled access highways running hard against a south facing slope with a large mountain in the background (low angle Google Earth wandering), and come up completely empty.  My best bets were the Salt Lake City area and the far north western parts of the LA valley, but nothing comes close.  I even tried some southern hemisphere locations, but none of the foliage makes sense to me.

I'm stumped, and it's killing me because there are plenty of markers in this picture that should make it solvable by someone who does not have personal knowledge.

Another:

Not much to go by but I'm assuming that is Chile's flag on the pole. From there, my quick review leads me to Concepcion. Let's say near where Avenida Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez intersects Ruta 154, the Paicavi. How'd I do?

Right country. Another gets the right city:

Finally one I can answer. That's Santiago, Chile, taken from the World Trade Center looking due north to the U.S. Embassy (the beige, rectangular building in the center of the image) and the Cerro Manquehue mountain, which I used to climb. The dark building on the right is an office tower known as Torre de la Industria. The under-construction towers on the right are called Parque Titanium – due to be completed in 2014.

Another sends a Google Earth image of the area:

Another reader:

Santiago is at the foot of the Andes.  Flying into Santiago from the East is very dramatic, with your plane almost touching the mountaintops.  Thanks to the copper trade, the capital city has experienced an explosion of construction – of course, all earthquake resistant.

Another:

The mountain in the background is too low to be in the main ranges of the Andes. Flying around on Google Earth reveals it to be Cerro Manquehe.

Another:

I visited Santiago once in September of 2005, at that time none of these office buildings would have existed yet. It was the beginning of an economic boom and they had just completed the Costanera Norte, a private toll highway built partially underground beneath the Mapocho River in some areas, that ushered the wealthy residents of the Las Condes suburbs to their downtown offices. At that time there was strong opposition from Las Condes residents against extending the Red Line of the Santiago Metro further east into their neighborhood, evidence of the enormous wealth/class gap as you cross the capital.

This view is facing north from a 6th floor window in the Edificio Costanera in the "new" business district of El Golf (see picture):

The reader with the most accurate guess:

The foliage had me thinking South America immediately, and the red and blue flag quickly ruled out Brazil or Argentina, but it was the combination of mountains and skyscrapers which led me to Santiago, Chile. More specifically, this week's view looks almost due north towards the U.S. Embassy from Santiago's Torre de la Costanera on the Avenida Andres Bello. The nearly complete towers on the left are part of the Parque Titanium development, one of many such projects in Santiago's booming "Sanhattan" district. Finding the exact floor the picture was taken from was more tricky.

My best guess is the 8th floor offices of a Chilean law firm, Bofill Mir & Alvarez Jana, but it might also be the local offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers below. A marked picture of the likely window is attached:

The 8th floor is correct. However, that reader has won a book already, so we will give this week's prize to a previous correct guesser who hasn't won yet and who got closest to the 8th floor:

Back in August, in Contest #115 you published a picture from Pablo Neruda's house on the Chilean coast in Valparaíso.  I was really disappointed that I didn't figure it out because just six weeks earlier I had toured his house in Santiago.  But this Chilean view I know.

The campus in the center of the image is the US Embassy.  The Torre Titanium la Portada, the second tallest building in Chile, is actually directly across the street from the Embassy but it is blocked in the VFYW image by the Torre La Industria which is the building in the immediate right foreground.  The two curved buildings on the left are in Parque Titanium.  Not surprisingly I suppose, the district we are in is referred to as Sanhattan – Santiago's Manhattan.   This week's photo was taken from the Torre de la Costanera which is located at 2711 Avenue Andres Bello.  If the tie breaker is the floor then I'll guess we are on the 6th as shown in this photo:

By the way, my daughter and I are undertaking a project we call Seven Tall Beauties.  It is our quest to climb the stairs of the tallest building on each continent.  We had previously climbed buildings in Chicago, Melbourne, Johannesburg and this past June we were in Santiago to climb to the top of the Gran Torre Costanera – the tallest building in South America.  It is just two blocks south of where this week's VFYW was taken from.   I've attached my photo from the top of the tower:

Details from the submitter:

The picture was taken from the 8th floor of an office building called Torre Costanera on Av. Andrés Bello 2711, in the Las Condes sector of Santiago, Chile. Looking north east. Extra points if someone mentions "Sanhattan" as some call this part of town due to the number of high rise office buildings. I took the shot because often Santiago had a significant amount of of but the on days after it rains, it's a beautiful place – especially in spring.

Update from a reader:

I have sympathy for this week's winner. I am the person who submitted the picture for contest #115 of Valparaiso, but I actually live in Santiago and I had no idea about this week's. Chile didn't even cross my mind. In my defense I never go to that part of town; I live on the west side with the commoners. But goes to show living in the same city as the picture doesn't necessary help!

Thanks for the contest. I recently turned my mom on to your site as she just got highspeed internet access for the first time. She was here in Chile visiting me this past week and I caught her checking it several times.

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

The boxy architecture and the blue mesh-protected construction site remind me of northern Asia, though the house in the center looks more western.  Since the taxi looks kinda like a Russian taxi and the SUV and vans have markings kinda like Russian police vehicles, lets say Russia. The upper flag on the pole appears to have a green triangle on a white field, and the closest match I could find is that of Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian far east. So let's go with its capital: Khabarovsk.

Another:

This is a view of Sochi, Russia, from a Dish reader who is helping get the city ready for the Winter Olympics.  

Another:

Maybe this is in an older section of Hagatna, capital of Guam?  Guam has the same land area as the Alaskan island where I live, but is otherwise a mysterious place that seems to surface only during the 4-year cycles of summer Olympics and political conventions.

Another:

Hi – the geography teacher here again. This week’s guess is the result of input from members of both my class and my department. My initial reaction was that this was somewhere in the Balkans, but one of my students insisted that it resembled parts of Japan that she had seen, while a colleague said it reminded her of her recent trip to Seoul. I am going to go with somewhere in South Korea, for the following reasons: the architecture, specifically the roof tops, the mountains in the background, the vertical sign in the background that looks like it has a cross on top of it, and the cars. The gray vehicle in the foreground looks like a Chevy Beat, which is produced by GM South Korea. One of my students pointed out that it looks like one of the cars is not parked, but is driving – on the left side of the road; that would suggest Japan, but it seems to me that there are too many other indicators of South Korea. But not Seoul. I think somewhere closer to the Chiaksan National Park, so I am going with Wonju. Plus, maybe you posted a photo of South Korea in honor of Psy’s appearance on the American Music Awards on Saturday.

Another gets on the right track:

Oohhhh, I just know this is Japan.

From the scenery it's not the middle of Tokyo, but I can't narrow it down much further than that. (Couldn't there at least have been a convenience store logo?) I'll take a stab at Sapporo because it reminds me of my visit to lovely Hokkaido in 2010 and because that'll keep me away from any of the Tokyo-centric guesses. Thanks for the contest!

Japan it is. Another:

This view is obviously in Japan. The sterile brickwork on the building we are looking from is the first strong clue, followed by the poured concrete construction of some of the buildings in the center and to the right, the squat water tank on one of their roofs, the giant temporary screens around the houses under renovation or construction, and even the abundance of above-ground utility wires – to say nothing of the "traditional" looking roof on the building in the lower foreground, which is probably made of sheet metal. These are things that anyone in Japan sees many times a day.

And that's where things get tricky. Such details are so common that it could be almost anywhere in Japan. The mountains in the background narrow it down a little, but very little. There are some industrial-looking buildings in the distance to the left – if only I could make out what they were.

But since I have to take a stab at the city, I'm going to say Tokyo – specifically its western reaches. Many people associate the word "Tokyo" with gleaming skyscrapers near Tokyo Bay, but the borders of the metropolis extend far west into the moutains, with the buildings getting smaller and smaller (but remaining just as dense) until there is nowhere left to put them. This photo could be from one of the areas where the city finally runs out of flat space.

So that's my guess. Western Tokyo, Japan.

Another:

This photograph is,
Unmistakably Japan;
Could it be Ota?

Another:

A couple of things about this photo give it away as Japan to me, including the shape of the white railings next to the parking spaces (not to mention the car backed into the space – Japanese are very particular about proper parking), the style of the blue sheeting material around the building under construction on the left, and even the tiling of the apartment block from where the photo is taken.

Unfortunately, this photo provides few clues that might help narrow down a specific location. Japan has hundreds of small, nondescript regional cities and is mountainous nearly everywhere, so the hills don't help. Still, based on the cloudy weather and the empty streets I'm going to make the most educated guess I can and go with Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture in the northeastern Tohoku region. I lived there for a week while volunteering in nearby communities hit by the tsunami and the scenery on my walk every evening from the apartment to the public path was very similar to this. This is the first time I've felt I have a short at VFYW so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll at least be close!

Another gets closer:

I've worked in commercial real estate here in Japan for over a decade and I've traveled all over the country inspecting properties even in rural locations.  Depressingly, most Japanese cities look very similar.  So in trying to think of a rural location without recognizable landmarks that might turn up in the VFYW contest, I'm going with Fukushima, somewhere near the station looking East.

Closer still:

I lived in Japan for seven years. I am not 100% positive, but the VFYW picture looks an awful lot like Sendai.

Sendai was the most proximate guess among all the entries, so that reader is the winner this week. Update: Doh – Ichinoseki is actually a tad closer, so the third entry from the end is the winner. The exact location is revealed by the photo's owner:

Yokote is not exactly on the main tourist route.  The photo is from the Hotel Plaza Annex Yokote.  For the life of me I can't remember which room we were in – it might have been 625. On a trip around Töhoku we stopped off for one night in order to visit my husband's best friend from college (Tokyo University of Agriculture, popularly known as "Nodai"), who lives in that general area. Töhoku means literally the "north-east" and is the whole northern section of the Honshu, the main island.  Most people probably heard the term because the earthquake and tsunami affected the east coast part of the region.  But Yokote is inland, in Akita-ken, which is especially known for growing rice and making sake.

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

Manila, Philippines, on the Pasig River? That's my guess, based on the concrete borders, corrugated tin roofs, and palm tree combo. I'm wondering if that's a shot from a train window.

Another:

Concrete embankment, cinderblock wall, palm, flotsam … looks a lot like my commute everyday here in Manila!  But probably further afield in Luzon, given the ring of hills, less density along the riverfront, a quieter street and river.  I'd guess the outskirts of a town large enough to afford solar-powered streetlights. Angeles?

By the way, it might seem incongruous to have a garbage-filled river and solar-power streetlights. But the streetlights aren't signs of environmentalism; it's pure economics. The Philippines has the most expensive electricity in Asia, ahead even of Japan.

Another Manila entry:

I can't tell you the exact location, but I went there a couple decades ago on behalf of a Filipina friend to "convince" her gang-affiliated husband to allow her to see her children. Actually, I pretended to be her American husband. It was a reckless thing to do, but all went well in the end. This photo seems entirely like the poor districts along the various estuaries in Manila, although I suppose it could be somewhere elsewhere in the Philippines.

Another:

In honor of a devastating week for Republicans, I am going with my gut, my intuition, my feelings, rather than doing any research and using those silly Google maps. Thus, it's some bridge that I cross from the airport in Sint Maarten to Marigot Bay in St. Martin, whereupon a ferry whisks me away to St. Barthelemy – a rich man's paradise if there ever was one. Amirite, amirite? I can just feel it.

Another:

Whoa – I'm totally going with my gut on this one.  In October 2001, I took a trip to Burma (Myanmar) to visit a friend who was working in Yangon and we went up to Inle Lake for some sightseeing. I recall thinking that this had to be the real Shangri-La; it was SO beautiful and rich in culture and history. By happenstance, we were there during the Phaung Daw U Festival. It was a fascinating experience and it's one place where I hope to return with my family before I die.  I've traveled around the globe and to this day, it's still my favorite destination ever.

So, where on Inle Lake? I can't say because it's been over 11 years since I've seen the villages, and I really don't have the tools at work to scour the region from satellite images, so I'll have to stop there. But it sure looks like every photo I took and have plastered on my walls at home – that sure looks like a leg rower on one of those boats. As a parting gift, I'll leave you with my favorite quote:  "You may know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me." – J. Peterman.

Another:

Looks like a shot of,
Obama's upcoming trip,
To Yangon, Burma

(Bonus points for answering in haiku?)

Another:

The first thing that popped into my head seeing this picture was a rainy bus ride I had through Phnom Penh, Cambodia a few years ago. I remember crossing a bridge over a body of water of about the same width, with some small homes dotting a dirty riverside. We didn't do anything but change busses in this drab capital, but to anyone planning a trip to SE Asia, do not skip Cambodia! The sprawling temple sites of Angkor Wat were probably the coolest thing I saw in Asia. If it's not Phnom Penh, it's got to be SE Asia, right?

Nope. Another:

This is obviously the Cedar River in Renton, Washington, South of Seattle.  The library sits directly over the river as it meanders through the once thriving Boeing building town of Renton, in the year 2100.  Global warming has altered the flora and fauna and the natives, long ago deprived of building airplanes by the worsening economic situation of the 21st century.  American ingenuity has found a way to continue, however, as witnessed by the gleaming metallic rail of the library building balcony, from which this photo will be taken, looking towards the northwest and the Olympic mountains in the background.

Heh. Another reader nails the right country:

I am a geography teacher, and a colleague of mine mentioned this contest to me. I decided to challenge my students with it every week and they love it! For the last several weeks, my students and I begin our week on Monday morning by trying to figure out the view.

Needless to say, we haven’t been successful the last couple of weeks. But we felt we had more to go on this week – obviously this is a tropical or sub-tropical zone, with mountains as well, and clearly this is a less developed country. But that doesn’t narrow it down very much. The smoke suggests something, but we weren’t sure what, and we tried to zoom in to get a closer look at the ethnicity of the people in the photo. We also thought that might be a flag on the left side. Our brainstorming produced Brazil, Panama, Argentina, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. We also considered the Caribbean.

I promised my students that I would make a guess, so here goes. I originally thought somewhere outside of Rio or Sao Paolo, but without a lot of high-rise buildings in the background I wasn’t confident about that choice. Plus, in those areas, the poor often occupy the high ground. So I am going with somewhere in Haiti – specifically, Hinche. The colors of the flags of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are blue and red rather than the green of Brazil, so I thought if it is a flag on the left, those are the closer colors. Plus, whatever that structure is spanning the river/canal, it’s painted red and blue.

Haiti it is. Another:

Good morning!  I have been following the VFYW contest for a long while, but this is the first time I have responded.  I am fairly certain that this is Cap Haitien, Haiti, crossing the Pont Neuf (I think its called Pont Neuf…) bridge crossing Riviere Mapou.  See the attached map:

Correct!  But another reader also got Cap Haitien:

The picture was taken from the window of a car/van crossing the HT-3 highway bridge, a bridge I always thought of as linking old and new Cap Haitien.  The picture was taken on the south side of the bridge, looking roughly south/southeast, toward Grand Riviere, Milot, and the Citadel, which I believe is perched atop the rightmost of the twin peaks on the left side of the picture.  I've crossed that bridge several times, and remember the pollution in that estuary river/inlet in the foreground.  It looks like they've shored up the eastern side of the inlet bank near the bridge.  That's nice. 

Both readers were first-time contestants, so there was no way to break the tie. Thus we have to award two book prizes this week.

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

Bars, hills, green leaves: South America.

Another is more specific:

I think this picture was taken in Mexico City, or some other high altitude city in Latin America. First, the big mountain in the background that seems to have densely developed structures on it (this excludes most North American cities). Second, the trees still have green leaves on them in early November (this excludes most cities in the Northen US and Canada). Third, the metals bars on the windows and the steel security fence in the foreground (this excludes most North American cities). The dense smog also makes me think this is Mexico City.

Another:

This looks a lot like Quito, Ecuador, where you can see the mountains from everywhere.  I'm sure several readers are going to nail the exact street, but I've got to go knock on doors for Obama here in Michigan instead!

Another:

Mt Etna, Europe's most active volcano, is in the background. The only major airport in that whole area of Sicily is near Etna and when the volcano gets too active it smokes up the sky and closes the airport and you're stuck.

Another:

My 9-year-old daughter and I picked Florence, Italy.  It was the second place that popped into her mind. Chicago was the first, but I told her that we don't have a lot of mountains around here, so she picked Florence second. By the way, she also thinks that Romney is going to lose.  You heard it here first.

Another:

Tough one this week! Except for the fortunate few who were born in the shade of that mountain in the distance and recognize it on sight. Of course, I'm not one of those people. The cranes suggest a growing economy, though, and the apartment buildings remind me of Taiwan, so I'm going to guess this is somewhere in the Beitou neighborhood of Taipei. This is admittedly a shot in the dark, so here's hoping it's right.

Another:

If I am right it would be the most bizarre thing in my life.

Last week we were in Istanbul with my wife (unlike me, not a Dishhead); when I saw the previous VFYW, it looked exactly like the view from our hotel. I thought of entering the contest, but decided "Naah"… It turned out that it was indeed from a hotel next to our hotel on Marmara. Got so excited that I tweeted about it and shared with my wife, explaining to her the VFYW contests.

Here's where it gets interesting: we're back to our apartment in Sofia and wife says, why don't you send the view from our own window, with Vitosha in the background. So, I am thinking about it, and then – boom!  I see this new entry today, that looks exactly like a Sofia landscape with Vitosha in the background. In fact, it looks like a view from Ivan Vazov, which is the closest neighborhood to ours, Lozenets. So if I'm correct, then that is the most bizarre series of coincidences that have ever happened to me. If I am wrong, then it is a perfect illustration of the biases that our brains play on us.

Biases this time around. Another reader gets close:

The ziggurat-like building in the background immediately reminded me of Mosul, which has Saddam-era hotels built like that.  I knew from everything else in the photo that it wasn't Mosul, but boy do I wish it was plausible for Mosul to be doing so well.  It brought tears to my eyes to think about the tragedy of it all, something hasn't happened in a couple years now.

Another:

I'm going to say this is in Tehran, Iran, just because that is how it feels. Never been there, but I've seen it in movies. Some enterprising person will probably get this with pinpoint accuracy using Google Earth, but I don't have that kind of patience or obsession. So I'll just go with my gut.

Good gut – Tehran it is. Another is more certain:

I immediately recognize this view as the northern "suburbs" (not nearly as suburban as it once was) of Tehran, Iran. The white tile buildings, tall iron fences, telephone poles, and the view of the Alborz mountains in the background were a dead giveaway. Finding the exact location is quite tough because we don't have Google Street Views for Tehran, but I believe the highrises in the background are that of the posh Elahiyeh neighborhood. The view is looking northwest from an apartment off of Shariati street between Qeytarieh and Elahiyeh neighborhoods.

Another:

First time player. For the past two weeks, my VFYW instincts have been spot on (quite to my utter surprise). I have a pretty strong hunch this week as well, so I'm going to give it a go. Sprawling city, nestled right up against a starkly elevated mountain chain. Neither First- nor Third-world, but squarely in between. Yellowing trees seem to indicate that it's early autumn, so Northern Hemisphere (but not too far north, or otherwise the leaves would have already fallen). Doesn't look like Bogota (the mountains in the background are too high and appear too arid), nor does it look like Caracas (for the same reasons).

The next city that comes to mind is Tehran. This high-res (zoomable) photo from Wikipedia looks fairly encouraging (is that the same distinctively shaped building from a different angle?):

And this amateur video tour of Northern Tehran, although not particularly helpful, does at least contain a multitude of cranes (as in the View). Off to Google Earth. (My first time using it as well.) I'd like to be able to identify that distinctively shaped building, and then hopefully start zeroing in on the general vicinity from which the View was shot. 

[Three hours later]

So much easier said that done! It doesn't help that I entirely lack spatial reasoning skills. Since I'm not getting any further traction (but am getting a massive headache), I think it's time to throw in the towel.  I'm sticking with Tehran, and will even say somewhere from the fashionable and affluent Elahiyah district, since this appears to be where many of the Western embassies are located (not that your Iranian readership is restricted to embassy workers).

About a dozen people went with the Iranian capital city, but the winner this week was the only Tehran guesser to have correctly answered a difficult view from a prior contest (several, actually):

I'm not going to win this time, as I've been too busy with work and election stuff, but I'll at least put my hat in the ring and note that this is clearly somewhere in Tehran. I got there almost immediately in a weird way. I looked at the fence, figured it looked like it was trying to keep people out. And having just seen Argo, I took a flyer and googled "US Embassy Tehran", and, amazingly, bingo on the fence:

Looking around at photos, this seems like a pretty common fence design for Tehran, and I don't think it's anywhere in the embassy compound. From the angle of downtown and the mountains, the shot looks like it's taken from a private residence or small hotel, from the SE part of the city where all the embassies are. But that's as far as I've had time to get.

Congrats, we will send out a book right away. From the submitter of this week's view:

I've been a long time Dish fan. I divide my time between San Francisco and Doha. I just spent a month in Tehran, my hometown, and here's a picture from my apartment in Tehran. Our apartment in Northern Tehran, near Nobonyad Circle, once surrounded by trees is now smack in the middle of the headquarters of various military branches! Even though Tehran has a terrible problem with air quality, I found the pollution to be slightly less than it was seven years ago, much of it due to the little parks that have been created in every available street corner. In the month that I was in Iran the value of the Rial dropped as if in free fall but contrary to reports in the media, there was no shortage of food, chicken in particular! The stores were very well stocked but it seemed that all the prices doubled overnight.

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

Now with two bingos under my name, but having lost the tie-breaker on numbers of guesses, I've resolved to enter every week, even for the more difficult guesses, such as this week. With the minaret, the mountains, and the sea, I bet you'll get two concentrations of guesses, one around Turkey, and one in Indonesia. Count me in the latter. I'm hopeful that the looming mountains on the horizon are the island of Java, and we're looking out from a small port town on the southeastern side of Sumatra – Bakauheni. I don't have a good guess on the location (ferry terminal?) but I'm hopeful that this is obscure enough that getting the town will be right.

Another:

Anacortes, Washington? If not, I'm guessing somewhere along the Puget Sound, looking towards the Olympic Peninsula. Also, I could be totally off base.

Another:

I somehow feel like I've seen this exact view on my various trips to Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. As you head out of Port of Spain on Western Main Road toward the town of Chaguaramas, you see tankers heading into the Gulf of Paria to on- or off-load oil into the main port in downtown Port of Spain.

Another:

This picture is taken in summer from Vladivostok on the far eastern shore of Russia. Vladivostok is located on a thin peninsula and has an extremely busy port.  It is also home to one of Russia's largest Coca-Cola plants and has several kiosks like the one seen from the window.

Another gets closer:

Based on the clouds, shadows, and the direction of the TV satellite dishes, it's facing SSE. Based on the standing seam roof, the Coca-Cola machine, and the smattering of ferries, this is a reasonably developed and fairly westernized place, and the moderately onion dome-shaped steeple says somewhere with Orthodox churches. The best match I can find for a sizable mountain range across a navigable but not very wide straight over a SSE heading is the Sea of Corinth. I can't quite match up the two nearer islands or knobs, but street view is apparently pretty limited in Greece.

Another:

Ah, fiddlesticks! I really thought I'd be able to pinpoint this one …

but my obnoxious two-year old is demanding sustenance and although I would like it very much if she would use this opportunity to develop some self-reliance, I feel guilt beginning to awaken. Guess I will have to abort the search and start rounding up some grub. ANYWAY, I believe this is somewhere around Aqaba, Jordan, looking southwest across the gulf toward Taba, Egypt. I believe the island in the background on the right is Pharoah's Island, with a crusader castle built on it. Larger ships are heading to and from Aqaba's commercial port, smaller boats are near the municipal marina. The photo, I will guess, was shot from somewhere right around the marina. Can't find confirmation on Google maps, but I'd be willing to wager my daughter's trust that if this isn't Aqaba; it is somewhere on the northern Red Sea.

Another:

I think that is the Odessa dock, and I suspect many more people would know it if the photographer had a few hundred feet to his right, and shown us that the brick path leads down to the broad steps made famous by Sergei Eisenstein in "Battleship Potemkin". Before my wife and I had our sons we used to roam pretty widely, but the standout trip was three weeks of roaming in Ukraine. We had playing-card size chunks of salted fat wrapped around garlic, cleaned a grave of one of her ancestors, scampered up and down Crimean hill, but nothing topped Odessa. Few cities on the planet do.

Another:

I was kicking myself last week for not entering after I thought "gosh, that looks like Queenstown" and it turned out to be the exact hotel I stayed in there.  So here's my stab today.  The only place I've seen the horizon of the sea match the color of the sky, with darker mountains higher up, is along the coast of Turkey looking out over the Greek islands.  No minarets in the picture, though, so I bet it's looking the other way. I'm guessing Chios, Greece, looking towards Cesme, Turkey. It could be any of those islands, though.

Another:

I haven't tried these in ages, once the fanatics came out of the woodworks and took away the pleasure in totally random fucking guesses. I'll try for one of those "at least someone got the country right" things. This feels like Turkey to me. I can't say why, because the mountains aren't actually the ones you see from Antalya or Side or Alanya, but what the hell, I'm thinking of the southern coast. I bet it's actually Malaysia or some place on the other side of the world, instead.

No it's Turkey, so good random fucking guess. Another:

Yenikoy, Turkey? But it was the best I could do, from what seemed like very very little information in the picture (I am sure there are things I am not seeing).  It seemed like the country must be Islamic (or recently influenced, including Spain). Based on the tree to the right, Islamic influence, and other clues I am guessing it must be in the Mediterranean somewhere, and the northern hemisphere, which would mean the shot was taken facing the northwest.  I have spent some time now in Google Earth looking at coastlines that are near to major shipping lanes (cargo vessels), and have two small rocky islands in front of a mostly straight and hilly far coast.  Yenikoy on the western coast of Turkey was my best guess, though the angles and town don't really seem to match. 

Another nails the right city:

This view from Istanbul is unmistakable, looking out into the sea of Marmara toward the Princes Islands. Kinaliada is on the left and Burgaz is on the right. I'm sure there will be people who get it more precisely but I'll guess that it's looking out over the minaret of Mehmed the Conqueror's mosque at Kazlicesme in the Zeytinburnu neighborhood. Although on second thought the ornamentation on the minaret is too late, so perhaps it is another.

Another:

This picture was taken just to the south and east of the Sultan Ahmet Mosque (aka the Blue Mosque) in Istanbul Turkey, pointing south to the Marmara Sea.  The island in the center of the picture is Yassiada, and the minaret in just to the left of it is from the Akbiyik Mosque.  As for the exact location, there are several possibilities.  The area is saturated with hostels, hotels, and bed and breakfast boutiques.  Looking at Google Maps I'll venture a guess it was taken from the top of the Nobel Hostel.

Not the Nobel. Another sends a photo of the Akb?y?k Mosque seen below. Another writes:

This is clearly a view of the Sea of Marmara taken from the Old City of Constantinople, most likely on the slopes that formerly contained the Byzantine Great Palace. One can see the outlying Princes Islands in the distance, Sivr?ada to the r?ght and Yass?ada to the left, the mountains at Yavlova on the other side of the Sea of Marmara loom in the distance. The area is now known at Sultanahmet, after the mosque built by the sultan of that name (known to tourists as the Blue Mosque). My guess is that the minaret seen in the scene belongs to the Ayb?l?k Cami (Aybilik Mosque) and that the photo is probably taken from the Hotel Sultanahmet Palace, Torun Sokak 19, Sultanahmet, Istanbul.

Not the Sultanahmet Palace either. Another:

Water + minaret + cedar tree = Eastern Mediterranean region.  Plus the architecture is vaguely touristy-looking, with the rooftop terraces. Eventually I started looking at the Sea of Marmara, which contains several islands and would be a major shipping route. A Google image search on "Sea of Marmara Islands" quickly identified the island on the right as Sivriada Island.  Looking for views of the island with the correct perspective led to Istanbul.  I was able to find the buildings in the photograph (the green awning with the white stripe along the top) in the neighborhood of the Sultanahmet Camii (Blue Mosque), but since Istanbul is not covered by Google Street View (devious!), and because the photograph might be zoomed or cropped, I found it difficult to pin down which building the photo was taken from.  The attached image shows the area in question:

The arrow passes over the roof of the building in the foreground of the photo, and points toward the islands; I believe the photo was taken from the rooftop terrace of one of the tourist hotels within the red circle. Somewhere near 41°00'18.84" N latitude and 28°58'44.42" E longitude.  I am not sure how much to trust the hotel annotations on Google Earth, but those combined with a perusal of the photos on the various hotel websites leads me to guess either the Blue House hotel or the Hotel Askin.  Also attached is a screen shot from the virtual tour of the Blue House:

You can see the cedar tree and the light pole or whatever it is, but the angle is not quite right maybe. Askin hotel is next door and a bit lower, so If I must narrow it down, I will say: rooftop terrace of the Askin Hotel, Dalbasti Sokak, No.16 Sultanahmet 34400 Istanbul TURKEY.

So close – the correct answer is the Blue House. Another sends a view from the front of the hotel:

That reader also correctly guessed the third floor, but another reader who did so also answered a difficult window in the past without yet winning, so the prize goes to him this week:

This week's picture is heaven for me. Istanbul is with out a doubt my favorite place in the world. This contest has been painful because half of my searches have turned up pictures of awesome Turkish food. I've been hungry for the last 24 hours. The best way to find a view of Istanbul is to search for restaurants/hotels/etc. Most restaurants/bars/hotels in Istanbul have terraces on the roof of the building, and they love sharing pictures of their views on their websites (and pictures of their food, dammit). I'm embarrassed to say that the islands, which are part of the Princes' Islands archipelago, were the last part I recognized.

The ancient nature of the Sultan Ahmet district makes of the patchwork of roofs and buildings we see in this picture. You don't necessarily see that everywhere in Istanbul.  But man was this a tricky one.  Good thing for the distinctive minaret on the Akbiyik Cami/Mosque. Most minarets have sharp, straight edges, in my experience. The metal chimney on the right was difficult to find, but finally using a Turkish version of street views I was able to find it on Akbiyik Caddesi/Street. Which finally led me to the Blue House Hotel. Luckily for me, they have a 360 guided tour of the hotel, and a southern view from the 4th floor where you can see the chimney, minaret and islands:

I believe the photo was taken from the 3rd floor though, because the 4th floor is looking down more than the contest picture. You also see too much of the minaret. The photographer must have zoomed in though. I don't see any other building in the area that can capture all of the noticeable monuments in the picture (including the red house in the foreground; the one with the green canvas for part of the roof, though it's not extended in the view offered by Blue House Hotel).

Istanbul, for me, is about the Princes' Islands. I love the city, but life is slower on the islands and absolutely ideal. No cars, less noise, beautiful (though polluted) water, and the same great food. No trip to Istanbul is complete without visiting one of them. I recommend Buyukada, despite it being the most touristy of the bunch. It has one of the best hole-in-the-wall koftesi (meatball restaurant) in Turkey. I'm really hungry now. I'm going to go cook some Turkish food.

Afiyet olsun.

Details from the submitter:

We have just returned from a holiday in Turkey and took this photo while we were there. Location: Room 35, Mavi Ev Hotel ("Blue House"), Istanbul, Turkey looking out over the Marmara Sea.

An aerial view from another close entry:

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.