Category: Contest

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:

Not much to go on this week. A long stretch of beach and homes that look vaguely Western and a wide road. Trees look rather stunted and the area rather dry, so I'll take a stab and say Perth, Australia. But that's all I got.

Another:

OK, this is just a stab in the dark: The 2nd floor northwest corner room of the Mosselbank Bed & Breakfast in Paternoster, South Africa.  Just because.

Another:

This is my first ever communication with the Dish so here it goes. I have never been there, but in two weeks my family will be vacationing at the Outer Banks, North Carolina. More specifically in Duck, just north of Nags Head. I think this resembles that area very much. Am I in the ballpark?

More so than Paternoster. Another:

Sullivan's Island, South Carolina?

Nice try. Another:

This has to be the Jersey Shore or I'll eat my boot. If this is a larger shore town then it's definitely on the "quiet end of town." Actually, rather looks like it's at the end of the island (most shore towns in SJ are islands). It really seems like Ocean City, NJ to me but it could be one of the smaller towns between OC and Sea Isle City. The dark brown house in the photo looks like an exact replica of a house that you pass by out of town in Strathmere on the way to Sea Isle, though I know that this one is not that one. I'm going to go with Ocean City.

Closer. Another:

Those trees, that sand, the boardwalk, and those houses all suggest a Delaware beach to me. Rehoboth seems like a likely candidate.

Quite close. Another nails it:

Super excited – I never play the contest, but knew this one immediately. 

We are looking at a picture of Bethany Beach, Delaware from just south of the boardwalk.  The water tower in the background is the give away as my family stayed right next to it this spring. The picture was taken from the condo complex in the attached bing maps "bird's eye view" picture.  I tried to estimate the window, but I'm just guessing at that point:

Bethany Beach is a great place to stay.  It's never too crowded.

Another names the right resort:

You guys must have decided to give us lesser lights a break this week. Either that, or I've spent too much time on Atlantic barrier island beaches, which I knew this was instantly from the color of the sand, color of the water, beach-erosion-prevention fencing and just general familiarity. There was not a palm tree in sight, not even a palmetto, so it had to be a barrier beach somewhere north of South Carolina, but still far enough south to attract such a crowd. Once I had that, I just started with the barrier beaches of North Carolina and let my Google Earth glide up the coast on it's own steam till I came to the right configuration of roads and houses next to the beach. The photo was taken from the 7th floor or so, of the taller of two buildings that make up the northernmost part of a complex of resort condos called Sea Colony Resort.

Another angle:

Another reader:

Yeah – I know this. I worked in Bethany Beach Delaware serving breakfast fare to tourists for most of my adolescence. I'd take South Atlantic Avenue Home towards Fenwick after ever shift. South Atlantic dead ends at the Sea Colony condos. The photo was taken from one of the balconies facing north east. These are condos my mother used to rent to out-of-towners from Baltimore, Philly and Washington. Nest week I go home to Fenwick Island and will probably stop by my old haunts in Bethany. I am so excited that this is the view from your window. I can't stop chatting about to my coworkers here in Chicago. On that note I'd better get back to work.

Another:

It seems like every week, at least when the contest is somewhere exotic, that one of the entrants not only gets the answer right but rattles off some amazing story about teaching English to orphans or traveling in the merchant marine, laden with details providing further evidence of their incomparable worldliness or daring. This is not one of those times.

This is taken from a balcony at the Sea Colony resort in Bethany Beach, Delaware, which is where I used to rent cottages and get plastered with my friends in college. There's a photo on Trip Advisor showing the building where it was taken. If I had to guess, I'd say it was the unit second from the left and second from the top. I can tell you literally nothing about the town of Bethany Beach, nor about anything I did on my several trips there except that I'm pretty sure it involved very small wicker couches, a bathroom floor, and lots and lots of sand. 

Another:

As soon as I saw this I recognized it. Not from summers on the beach, but from cold Thanksgivings spent there with my family. Here is a video of us doing the polar bear plunge about ten years ago:

Another:

You have me at a disadvantage here with this contest. I am actually here at this location, but I made a very conscious decision this vacation to unplug, so I did not bring a laptop.  However, I recognized the view immediately, as it is taken from the resort I am currently residing. The photo is taken from the Annapolis House in the Sea Colony resort looking north up Atlantic Avenue into downtown Bethany.  I'd recognize those buildings anywhere, I've been coming here for vacation so long. Here's a photo from my run this morning (the rain that has broken the DC heat is moving through now, unfortunately for those of us at the beach):

Another:

My parents recently sold their home at this massive beach expanse in Delaware, with enormous misgivings. (They're not beachfront but inland about half a mile. Although "inland" is relative, since the entire peninsula is a narrow strip with ocean on one side and a bay on the other.) Although the beach condo was becoming an enormous financial and logistical hassle for them – insuring it has become a nightmare – they enjoyed many years of visiting, at some points almost weekly year-round – from the Washington area. My older child is now just at the age where she can enjoy the beach, and we had a final visit three weeks ago to celebrate my father's 75th birthday, just a couple of days before their home closed. On our last morning there, the rain cleared long enough for my father, my daughter, and I to step into the gray waves, and I hope we all remember her delight for many years to come.

Another aims for accuracy:

It's been a year and a half since I've entered a VFYW contest – it seems, life's responsibilities and pursuits (like a new baby and a major home remodel) take precedence over my online treasure hunting. But this week's view was right up my alley, so I couldn't pass up the chance to enter. I suspect mine will be one of many correct answers. (For what it's worth, I got four views correct so far but I'm too lazy to look up links now.)

I immediately recognized the view as being somewhere along the Mid-Atlantic coast. The color of the sand and water, the houses, and the trees are all very familiar to me – they've been a playground for me for most of my life. I spent a lot of my childhood visiting my grandparents in Rehoboth, and now after taking up surfing as an adult, I regularly search these shores for a rideable wave within three hours of my house outside of Washington.

Since "a beach in the Mid-Atlantic" certainly won't win this week, here are the clues I used to pinpoint the precise location: High rise building overlooking single family homes. There are only a handful of beach communities where you see this mix of housing types. This clue ruled out Ocean City, MD; Rehoboth/Dewey, DE; and a few towns in New Jersey. Lack of visible jetties on the beach ruled out most of the New Jersey towns I've visited. The kickers were the dunes – which look new and manmade, just like those in Bethany – and the familiar shade of brown on the roof of the building in the foreground. The large, brown high rises of Sea Colony certainly stands out along that stretch of Rt. 1 in Delaware.

Pinpointing the exact building was easy – clearly the northern most high rise of the entire complex – but the unit number, 703, required a bit of triangulation and guesswork using satellite and overhead images and videos from a local realty company. Here's the promotional video for unit 703:

As I said, given Bethany's popularity among the DC/MD/VA crowd, I expect you'll receive many correct answers this week. Interestingly, I also expect that one of the correct guesses will be from my brother, a fellow Dish junkie and map nerd, and my surfing companion. This might be the first time two brothers answered correctly in one week, so that's got to count for something, right? As his older brother, however, I'm compelled to point out that he has fewer correct VFYW guesses than I do. Anyway, thanks for picking a such a great view of a stretch of sand I love so much.

The brother indeed got the right town but didn't go for the room number. The visual portion of his entry:

Of the hundred or so readers who answered Bethany Beach, a handful of those correctly guessed #703. But only two of them have gotten a difficult view in the past without winning, so we have two readers this week who will receive the book prize. The first one is the older brother above. The other winner:

After a long string of windows where I had NO idea where to begin, I'm pretty excited to have guessed 2 in three weeks. This week's view is from Bethany Beach, DE, more specifically, Condo #703 in Annapolis House at the Sea Colony Resort. At first glance, it was clear that this shot was taken at a beach somewhere on the northeast Atlantic coast (the lack of palm trees made that pretty obvious). I did some searching for water towers, like the one in the distance, and beaches with blue umbrellas. Both searches led me to Rehobeth Beach, DE, which I was convinced it had to be for a wasted hour. When I gave up and scrolled to the next beach south on the map, I finally found a satellite view that matched. I'm crossing my fingers that the correct window is #703, and not #704, because the views are pretty similar. (Here's #703's listing, I think the second picture is closest.) My fiance and I just moved to a new apartment (we met while in law school at #27 – Washington University in St. Louis) and the VFYW book would look pretty awesome on our coffee table!

Details from the submitter:

The photo was taken from the balcony of Sea Colony, Annapolis House, Unit #703. My new wife and I had actually rented the unit for our honeymoon. We left for Bethany the morning after the derecho struck the DC area, and living in our downtown apartment with buried lines we hadn't realized anything close to the level of devastation that actually happened. It was only when we arrived and began to unpack and listen to the news on the radio that we realized that we had just left quite the mess. So you can imagine that we were even more grateful to be in such a beautiful, peaceful place at that particular moment than we could have even predicted, as I'm sure many of the beach-goers, largely Washingtonians as well, also felt. I believe I followed taking and sending that picture by opening a bottle of wine.

One more email:

As you probably can figure out from my email address, I was the person lucky enough to have one of his VFYW submissions selected for contest #100 (Liege, Belgium). I am on the left of the attached picture (Andrew might remember me from my introducing myself to him while he was at a Starbucks in Tenleytown – I offered him a coffee and petite vanilla scone, I am such a groupie). I recently introduced my younger colleague (on the right in the picture) to the Dish. (He sits next to me in the office, so he could see me reading the Dish at lunch time).

Well, he and his girlfriend were the winner of the VFYW #105. I thought you'd be as amazed as I am about the coincidence.

Okay, one more: a follow-up email from a reader who guessed room #604:

My twelve year old has written an ode to 604 in the hope of improving our chances.  She is quite insistent that I include it in my entry. She titled it "Ode to 604 Annapolis House":

We moved in one day
Because we decided our kids
Needed more room to play.

At Bethany Beach we have it all
And everybody swims
Until they’re ready to fall

I suppose we could have chosen 603 or 605
But everyone found number 604 best kept the story alive.

The kids got through elementary and middle
Then they needed extra study space
To learn and to try their hardest to whittle.

All their friends came to 604 to play
Though they could have gone to someone else’s house any day.

The people next door in 603
Let the kids come over
And help trim their bonsai trees.

The tenants of 605 were old
And had wonderful stories,
Or so I was told

Later, when Billy Joe left
College was easy for a Delaware gent
But always he returned
We’d camp in a red and white tent

We’d roast marshmallows
With Billy Joe’s oldest friends,
Five or six mighty fine fellows

But by and by, the demands of age took a toll
And we were forced to leave the home of old.

Mary Lee left and we tried to sell
But we just couldn’t tell

Where we were going to go,
What we’d do after we left
The homeland true

Would we go to a nursing home?
Would we run away
To someplace like Rome?

So we had Billy Joe move in
And we could keep the beautiful condo
To stay forever
Or at least until it was our time to go
And all our friends still laugh and dance
And twirl around and sometimes even prance.
This condo saw two children grow up
And two adults grow wiser
And several evenings
Of sitting by a fire.

To this I say thank you, number 604
For being a gateway
To opportunity’s door.

(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:

My first thought was California, a military or student housing facility within view of the scrubby hillsides. The signage at the end of the of the long low-slung buildings indicates an institution, and the skimpy back "patios" indicate a temporary workmanlike housing situation. There also appears to be nobody but young men in the picture.

But the lawns are too well-kempt for students, and image searches of military housing (even temporary) seems to be multi-story and somewhat more tacked on to the scenery. I'm looking half-assedly at military bases and other candidate locations in Colorado, Arizona, California, Utah, New Mexico, Hawaii (for some reason), Nevada and not finding any other clues. I'm hesitant to even peek into the rabbit holes of lands abroad – Israel? Spain? The colorful building in the background isn't turning up in any image searches, either, so I'm pretty low on clues.

I throw up my hands! Based solely on the fact that the hill in the background looks kind of like a hill in an Albuquerque real estate photo that popped up in my search, I'm gonna go with the Duke City on this one.

Another writes:

The low-slung hills and hazy sky suggest Korea in late Spring or early Summer, just before the rainy season.  The buildings in the background also look like the kind of architecture that proliferated in the country during the rebuilding phase following the Korean War.  The buildings in the foreground look like barracks, but I don't believe that it could be a base belonging to the Korean military, as Korean bases are typically treeless expanses of dirt and the space in the photo has clearly been heavily landscaped.  As such, I'm going to guess that this is an American base in the Republic of Korea, though never having had base access during my time in the country, I couldn't say which base in particular. I'm going to guess Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do, ROK. Am I close?

Closer than Albuquerque. Another:

This is a bit of a guess, but I’m going to take a stab at Isfahan in Iran. First, he mountains around the city look a lot like those around Palm Springs, in fact there are more than a few similarities between the two places. Secondly, that structure top right could be one of the many bridges across the river, maybe Allahverdi Khan bridge. Thirdly, there looks to be a blue dome, top left in the distance, there are bunch of these all over the city, as you can see from the picture below also. In addition, the radiotower is consistent (although not exclusive to Iran), the only people to be seen are dressed in trousers and shirts as opposed to shorts and t-shirts (again consistent but not exclusive) and appear to be dark haired men. Not sure what the building is, maybe a school or some kind of dormitory.

Getting warm. Another from Iran:

At first glance I thought this would be an easy one, but upon closer look it's one of the toughest yet!  My guess is Tehran.  The mountains look similar, it may be some type of boarding school or a residential part of a military base.  What throws me off is whatever is on the distant mountain on the left – I thought it was some type of oil field but it almost looks like a windfarm up there with a bunch of towers, so I think it could just as easily see it be in the American West or Mexico.  I'm just hoping all my Google searches for "oil field installations on a mountain near Tehran" didn't put me on the No-Fly list!

Another:

Islamabad, Pakistan?

Warmer:

It is testament to the Dish’s diverse readership that you can find someone to give us a view of what might be a minimum security prison in the Americas.  Or is this a university on the outskirts of a formerly troubled district in the Middle East?   How about a hotel complex in Morocco?  That’s how befuddled I am this week.  I like when a View initially appears as if it could be on any of three or more continents.  I hate it when I can’t narrow it down – even 20  minutes into sleuthing around.  I’m going with Iraqi Kurdistan because it’s a place with increasing press about new development, the colorful modern buildings in the background fits a little, and the sparsely forested foothills topography could work.  But I’d only give myself a 10% chance of being within 1,000 miles of the actual location.  Looking forward to the reveal.     

It's right after the jump:

That's Kabul, Afghanistan. Judging by the two mountains, I would say it is SW Kabul, off Darulaman Blvd.

Another gets the right part of town:

Buildings of the American University of Afghanistan, formerly the American International School of Kabul (K thru 12). Looking NNW towards the city center. I went to school there 1969 to 1973.

Another zooms in further:

The answer is Kabul, Afghanistan.  34°28'30.71"N   69° 7'32.07"E  Looking more or less north from the third floor center window of the building located over the entryway. To the East is Darulaman Road. If you traveled southwest on Darulaman Road you would arrive at the dilapidated palaces. If you traveled Northeast it would take you to the center of Kabul. This image from Google Earth and shows where the picture was taken from:

Another:

This photo is without a doubt taken from the admin building of the American University of Kabul (probably the second or third floor), looking down on campus. That building straight ahead is the cafeteria. I taught legal-English to employees of Afghanistan's justice ministry in the building on the right (that third set of windows from the front door was my classroom). Students would often play cricket on the larger green space.

My students were legal professionals, both men and women. The other students were basically rich kids, the children of powerful men, usually close to the Karzai government or military. I was living there as a journalist. It was one of the best times of my life.

Another:

First, this is the second time I've guessed and the first time I am sure that I am 100% right about this.  The reason? I work for the government and just saw a presentation from one of our special agents in the Inspector General who spent a year in Afghanistan. One of the stories he presented included an arrest he made on the steps of the building that photo is taken from (the view is from a window just over the gable I circled in the attached photo).

He walked in to arrest a suspect in an investigation, and the reason I recognized it is this hilarious series of photos in which the translator, his one method of communicating with the local law enforcement, is progressively moving toward the steps under this view, to stay in the shade. Needless to say, they made the arrest and the suspect was prosecuted for defrauding the government.

Anyways, I know I'm a long shot, and having been one of the reader photos featured in Why You're Different, two lucky moments with the Dish in one week would be pretty rare.

And it's not the reader photo you would probably guess of the three. Another:

I was born in Kabul and lived there as a child, and the mountains in the View instantly brought me back. You're going to have a lot of US servicemen writing in on this one.

The grounds in view reminded me of the American International School of Kabul, which I attended as a kid in the 1970s. (Go Scorpions!) They also reminded me of the Kabul University campus, where my father taught. But they are neither of these.

Knowing that there is an American University of Afghanistan, I surmised that this might be the View; a feeling reinforced by the guard towers surrounding the campus (what other sort of school campus needs such protection? A look at Google Maps' satellite view, which shows buildings and paths laid out as in the View confirms that this is the place.  We can see the building at the origin of the View on this blog, from a librarian who works there. It must be the AUAF main building. The grass on the campus is greener now, the trees have grown, the benches have been repainted, since that photo was taken in 2010. I'm guessing the View is from the top floor of the AUAF main building, slightly off center. My guess for the exact window is marked in red on the left:

I'm probably no longer eligible for the Contest, as a past winner, but I could not resist submitting for my home town.

The reader follows up:

Correction! My father informs me that the AUAF is located on the former campus of AISK, my old school. So no wonder I recognized it.

Another former local:

2nd floor of the main building, directly over the entrance. I immediately recognized the hill in the distance – TV Hill – from my time in Afghanistan years ago. The hill is where all of the radio and TV antenna are, and is inconveniently placed in the middle of the city. I have many memories of being stuck in traffic trying to get around the damned thing. After recognizing that, it was just a matter of searching for greenery to the south of the city – there isn't too much to find.

Our winner this week was the most accurate and thorough of the bunch:

I look at your contest photo every week and generally have not the slightest clue as to where to begin.  I am a reasonably well-travelled person so I have always been able to comfort myself by telling myself that one day, there will be a start point that I recognize.  Today, it finally happened.

The hill in the left background is the giveaway.  Colloquially know as TV Hill, it is located in the middle of Kabul, Afghanistan.  I am a member of the Canadian Forces and for seven months in 2007, while I was deployed there, the view from my window was of the other side of TV Hill. 

The photo is taken from the third floor of the Saleha Bayat Building at the American University of Afghanistan, which is located in District 6, south of the central core of the city, just off Darulaman Road and just to the north of the King's Palace which, at least when I visited it, remained a ruin.  

I have done some additional work in attempting to narrow down the precise location from which the photograph was taken.  I attached a Powerpoint presentation that summarizes my efforts and provides a few extras.  (I apologize for the size of the file, but think that it is smaller than if I had embedded all of the graphics in the e-mail text.) A few brief explanations of the slides:

Slide 1.  Your photo.

Slide 2.  A very similar photo from the University's website.

Slide 3.  A screen capture from Google Earth, showing the relative positions of the King's Palace (yellow circle) and the AUAF compound (red circle) with the distinctive layout of the paths and buildings shown in your photo.

Slide 4.  An additional capture, zoomed in, with the Saleha Bayat building identified by the red circle.  As an interesting extra, note the aircraft in the top left corner of the screen.  It must have been passing over at the time the Google Earth image was being taken.  I have not had a chance to do any additional research into the origin of the aircraft but it looks like a 747 to me, possibly from Lufthansa.  I have flown Frankfurt-Delhi and return a couple of times now and on both occasions have flown over Kabul (that said, all of my flights passed over the area during hours of darkness).

Slide 5.  A further zoom of the Bayat building, along with a crude attempt to triangulate the precise location of the window at the apex of the angle formed by the two paths.

Slide 6.  A photo of the front of the building, courtesy of the USAID Flickr stream, with a red circle depicting my guess as to the window from which the photograph was taken).  Third floor, the second window to the left of the centre-line (looking outward):

And some extras, in the form of photos taken by me:

Slide 7.  The view from my window (actually the door to my office at Camp Eggers), 5 November 2007.

Slide 8.  The view in the direction opposite to your photo.  Taken from the top of TV Hill, showing the length of Darulaman Road, heading south.  My guess is that the AUAF compound is slightly to the south of the location of the smoke that is crossing the road (and, obviously, on the other side of the road from the source of the smoke).

Slide 9.  A photo of the King's Palace taken while approaching it from the north along Darulaman Road (taken the same day as the photo from the top of TV Hill).  I think that this would have been taken while passing just about abeam the AUAF compound:

Congratulations on the continued relevance and success of the site and thank you for the chance to reminisce a bit.

Congratulations on the new book. The submitter comments on his photo:

I think its an interesting juxtaposition to what one typically thinks of when they hear the words Kabul or Afghanistan.

One more excellent email:

I got a real kick out of seeing this photo! As I former US Peace Corp volunteer (1970-73) I happily recognize the mountains and area. I walked all over. The view is from the north looking southward towards the older parts of Kabul. The mountain to the left begins at the ancient fortress of Bala Hissar (possibly mentioned in ancient Hindu scripture, Rig Veda as the Emerald Isle) There is a wall built on the crest to defend the then-Hindu city from Muslim attacks. The ruthless king-builder had slow workers killed and their bodies added to the wall (bones are visible). It was a woman who led the people to revolt. The old city, mostly wiped out by Hitmatyar's bombardments in the 1990s, is at its base. The Tourquise Foundation and the Agha Khan Trust have restored some buildings there.

The mountain to the right separates Kabul into two parts. In the foreground is Share Nau and more modern neighborhood additions such as Akbar Khan etc. On the other side is Carte Char and other sections. The University is just over the saddle. Poor people live in the mountain sides and the views are spectacular. The rich live in the flats. The wealthiest areas are near where this photo was taken.

The US embassy and other embassies are traditionally located right in the area of the foreground. Further, behind the photographer is the airport. Perhaps surprisingly to many of your readers, most of my fellow PCVs and I had a very rewarding, educational, and wonderful experience working with our Afghan colleagues then. Kabul then was much smaller and full of the diversity of Afghanistan , 30-40 ethnic groups, etc, many foreigners passing through, called WTs (World Travelers) all headed to Hind, and the foreigners who worked there. It was also a very active center for espionage, a vital listening post to the then USSR and China!

Thank you for posting this, I hope a human reads this and enjoys the comments.

No androids here at the Dish – not yet at least.

(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:

I see yellow number plates and the special kind of blue that indicates the Med. I also see a beach in the middle of a town on a peninsula. I may be crazy but I also see a bit of land on the other side so I am going with the southern tip of Gibraltar, just south of the rock on Mount Rd. looking south across to Africa.

Another:

Malibu, California? I drove along this part of the West Coast last year, and those houses right along the beach look familiar.  It doesn't get much better than Highway 1.

Another:

This looks like a view of Barcelona from the Collserola hills.  From the angle it needs to be a tallish building, which suggests La Florida, the only ritzy hotel on the hillside.  I spent a lot of time at the nearby Tibidabo amusement park when we lived in Barcelona seven years ago and my kids were little, but we never visited La Florida, so even if this happens to be right can’t suggest a floor, let alone a room number.

Another:

The yellow, Euro-shaped license plates rule out the Americas and most of the coastal countries in Europe.  Nothing about the terrain says England, and everyone in Australia and New Zealand uses white plates except Western Australia and New South Wales, where there are tons of possibilities that match the terrain.  That small beach at the bottom of the hill with a park on the shoreline behind it suggest Tamarama, just south of Sydney.  I'm guessing that the park is Marks Park and the beach is the Gaerloch Reserve.  The attached picture is a closeup of the beach from Tamarama Marine Drive:

Another:

Just taking a stab in the dark at one of these contests for once because there was at least the clue of the cars going on the left side of the road. Based on the vegetation in the picture I decided it was a Caribbean territory of British heritage (screw you U.S. Virgin Islands). Based on the topography of the picture I decided it was more on the hilly side than the mountainous side and this pointed me toward Barbados and Bridgetown seemed like it had some hills overlooking more developed parts. And to pin down my guess with a little more specificity I'm going with Government Hill, Bridgetown, Barbados.

Another gets on the right island:

I’m gonna guess New Quay, Wales.  The rooftops are right.  The license plates are right.  The photo would have been taken from on top of the bluffs looking out over the Irish sea:

Another:

Last summer around this same time I had a chance to hike for about three days along England's Jurassic Coast, which runs along England's Southwestern coastline, primarily within the county of Devon(shire). This area is absolutely stunning (it's a World Heritage Site) and is definitely worth the time and effort to get there and see it. As to this week's photo, it really reminds me of the area I hiked between Exmouth and Seaton. Based on the geography and the size of the town in the photo, I think the two likeliest options are either Sidmouth or Budleigh Salterton (what a rediculously British name!). However, given the size of the town I'll go with the larger of the two, Sidmouth.

Another zeroes in on the right town:

With cars parked on the left hand side, and having yellow license plates, it strongly suggests that this week’s view is somewhere in the UK. There are probably not that many locations in the UK that have a modest sized town on a small peninsula. So, I started in Cornwall and first had a look at Penzance. Then I noticed the small town of St Ives, just to the north, and everything fell into place. This week’s view is from the Tregenna Castle Hotel in St Ives, Cornwall. The view is looking north from the hotel towards the town and its harbor.

Another sends an aerial shot of St Ives:

In the distance you can see the chapel of St Nicholas on the Island; to the left, the breakers at Porthmeor Beach. In front of the chapel is another sandy beach and St Ives Harbor at what looks like low tide.

Another's memory is jogged:

Ten years old, the infamous hot, dry summer of '76, down-market bed-and-breakfast in St. Ives, and a nasty case of chickenpox. The stuff of unforgettable family vacations.

Another:

Way back in 1990, my wife and I (living in New Jersey) visited a friend who was working near London. He mentioned we might enjoy a driving trip out of the city and suggested St Ives. We thought it was a good idea, and ventured out for our first big stretch of driving on the "wrong side" of the road. We made it, but by the time we pulled into St Ives we were totally frazzled from the experience, and didn't drive again until we left two days later. But our stay was fantastic. We dipped our toes into the Atlantic Ocean from the other side, and shopped by the beach (wonderful art shops). We returned in 1993, with our 1-year-old son, and in 2000, with our then 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Particularly, our daughter remembers a seagull stealing her Cornish ice cream right off the cone in her hand as we walked along the beach shops.

Another:

There is an absolutely wonderful Barbara Hepworth museum there and the Tate St Ives is awesome. I've only been once and it was when I was performing at the Minack theatre in nearby Penzance with the Cambridge University G&S society … it's a dreamy part of England. The Minack is especially fantastic. It's on the cliff side and as the first half of a show ends (as far as I remember), the sun sets and as the second half starts the moon rises. It was built by one woman and continues her legacy of allowing largely amateur theatrical performances at what must be one of the most unique and inspring performance spaces in the world. I live in DC now, so thanks for making a fellow British expat extremely nostalgic for home!

Another gets back to the sleuthing:

I'm pretty sure this week's VFYW is taken from the Tregenna Hotel, St. Ives, Cornwall, UK. I've never been there, and the hotel's web site is not giving me that detailed a map, so although I can tell physically, what part of the hotel it seems to be in, I couldn't say what room number. It appears to be either the Bay View self-catering apartment, or one of the two "single room sea view" rooms. I think it's about here on the map:

Another:

I recently spent a summer living in the UK, and started searching there based on the combination of the architecture and mix of cars shown in the picture. From there, it was fairly easy to recognize the distinctive promontory shown in the picture, and then to narrow down the view as from Tregenna Castle in St. Ives. No Google Streetview in front of the hotel though!  So now I have to guess.  Based on the tops of the palm trees at the very bottom of the picture, it looks like the view is from the second floor (or first floor, as this is in UK), and based on the angle of the view, maybe the second window from the left, circled in the picture:

Another:

The headland in the distance is quite distinctive – it's known as The Island, although it's connected to the mainland. The building on the top is a chapel. Following the angle of the terraced houses in the centre of the photo you soon arrive at the Treganna Castle Hotel. A quick search through Tripadvisor produced quite a similar photo taken from Room 120. I think the window we're looking for must be near that room, on the (UK) 1st floor, judging the view of the parked cars and the treetops in the immediate foreground. It looks like the room may be just in the West Wing of the building but maybe one or two rooms closer to the main part of the building than Room 120.

So very close. Our winner nails the exact room:

Having looked plaintively at the VFYW pictures for the past year at last one I can identify! The view is of St Ives, a fantastic town in Cornwall in the very south west of the UK. A bit of research shows that the picture has been taken from the Tregenna Castle Hotel which overlooks the town. I am sure that an exact window is going to be needed here – a bit of interpolation suggests Room 118 as the most likely candidate.

St Ives is a wonderful place and includes possibly my favourite spot in the world – the Barbara Hepworth sculpture gardens which includes a large number of her fantastic sculptures in the tranquil back garden of what was her home/studio.

From the submitter:

The exact location is Tregenna Castle (now a hotel) which overlooks St Ives, Cornwall (which I think is the least English looking seaside village in the country) and postcode here TR26 2DE. The room number was 118.

I was there because my best friend is Cornish and we were visiting his family for the annual "feast" day in his ancient and tiny home village of St Day. It's a centuries-old Cornish carnival type affair, very surreal and English which brings the whole community together in a day of parades and marching bands and folk dancing. It was great fun and a reminder of an older and often forgotten England.

We couldn’t stay at his parent’s house, so we stayed in this hotel for a couple of days, as it’s a half-hour drive from his parents. The hotel has a fantastic location in great grounds, with the amazing view you can see above, and we spent a lot of time exploring all the arts galleries of St Ives, and the Barbara Hepworth museum (for my money one of the greatest single locations in the world, a fantastic and beautiful garden filled with her extraordinary sculptures – it was actually her working space, and where she tragically died in a fire). One day we came back to the hotel to find that a seagull had somehow sneaked under a tiny gap in the window shown in the picture, and pecked its way through all our free biscuits, leaving a hell of a mess!

One more email:

As you do with these things, once I worked out the answer (which felt pretty cool when you’re sat 5000 miles away) I started googling St. Ives, and found the famous riddle:

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Every wife had seven sacks
Every sack had seven cats
Every cat had seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks, wives.
How many were going to St Ives?

The answer is of course 1. Unless you are Wikipedia, in which case the answer is either 0, 1, 2, 7, 9, 2752, 2800 or 2802. But not 2753, even though that makes as much sense.

Update from a reader:

It’s a fun riddle, but it’s not about the St. Ives in Cornwall. Rather, it relates to the somewhat less picturesque town I grew up in, St. Ives in Cambridgeshire. The person going to St. Ives was probably on his way to the weekly market or to the annual Michaelmas Fair, which have been held every week for the last 902 years. Or he may have simply stopped off at the Severn Wives pub on Ramsey Road (though, for any intrepid Dishers heading that way, I’d recommend the Nelson’s Head on Maryland instead).

My favourite quote about St. Ives (Cambs.) comes from a more recent source: Rupert Brooke, who wrote in his 1912 poem, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester,

"Strong men have blanched, and shot their wives,
Rather than send them to St Ives"

Says it all really.

(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:

Are you freakin’ kidding us?  Since there isn't a single distinctive feature in this View, my only guess is St. Somewhere.

Another writes:

I'd recognize this view anywhere.  Based on the concrete gutter, the style of the railing, and the chamfered corners on the column I would say we are looking at the Atlantic Ocean.  But technically speaking we're not looking through a window; we seem to be on a balcony.  Therefore, I think we need a do over.

Nice try. Another:

This could be any tropical place with white sand, a quonset hut and a left-hand break. So I'm just going to randomly say New Zealand.

Another:

Tropical, coastal plain quickly giving way to elevated terrain, and dirt roads in an area that obviously has some money. Could be any number of places, but I'm going to go with Bain Boeuf, Mauritius.  (It sounds somewhat connected to the presidential election, at the very least.)

Another:

Given this week's news about the unrest in Myanmar and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's European travels, Myanmar seems to be a likely candidate for a VFYW. It's been many years since I've been there, but this looks somewhat like Ngapali, Thandwe in Rakkhine State on the west coast of Myanmar on the Andaman Sea.

Another:

Coming up with a reason for this one (beyond intuition) is hard.

It feels like a temperate climate looking due south with vegetation and buildings that seem South African. Cape Town itself is a bit built up and a bit to the west. Knysna looks south toward the ocean and has a some hillsides that could pose this view.

Another gets on the right track:

The color of the sea, the vegetation, and vacation villas set among more modest red-roofed homes all suggest the Caribbean.  But I'm not seeing any features distinctive enough to narrow this down!  I'll take a wild guess that it's on the island of St. Martin, and leave this one to someone who spent their honeymoon in that exact spot!

Another:

Plymouth, Montserrat? Inside the exclusion zone looking toward the pier. Here's a similar one from the abandoned Air Studios:

Another:

Looks to me like Guanabo, or maybe Tarará, neighboring districts on the eastern outskirts of Havana, about 15 miles east of the city center. Am I close?

Yep. Another:

Not much to go on here. The vegetation and soil look Carribbean. The colored rooftops suggest recent construction and tourism – and it looks like a fair-sized town. The elevated vantage point facing the sea suggests hilly terrain. So my wild guess is somewhere on the eastern outskirts of Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Correct!  But another reader gets more specific:

I happened to have been there in March, so I was lucky and "Montego Bay" came to mind quickly. The photo was taken from this porch, looking north. I would guess that it's the 2nd or 3rd bay of the porch. The house, as you can see, was owned by the Barretts, one of whom, Edward, was father to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here is some of her verse (the first sonnet of Sonnets from the Portuguese) that you might appreciate:

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me.  Straightway I was ’ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
“Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,
The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”

We'll get a VFYW book to you shortly. From the submitter:

While on our vacation last week to Montego Bay, Jamaica, we toured the Greenwood Great House near Falmouth. The estate was built in 1800 by the Barrett family (family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning), who owned a vast 15-square-mile sugar plantation extending from Falmouth to Montego Bay. The photo is taken from the upper veranda on the north side of the house looking to the north. The attached aerial photo shows the location of Greenwood Great House between Falmouth and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The other attached photo shows the exact location of the view:

(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:

A VFYW contest from India that's a bit easier than last week's, perhaps? My guess is the glass house of the Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore.

Another:

Well, once again this week's VFYW is California, my home state (although I now live in Victoria, British Columbia).  The view is of the Golden Gate Park Arboretum, and if I were on my yearly visit I'd go down to the park and find the exact vantage point.  No such luck, so let's say the photo was taken from the second floor balcony of the De Young Museum, or third, or something like that …

Another:

My confidence in my VFYW answers is undermined by how often I'm way off, so I'll just say I THINK I know where that is because I did study abroad in Madrid, Spain for six months and it looks very familiar.  Specifically it's the Palacio de Cristal, located in the Parque del Retiro.  It's a gorgeous glass structure in the heart of the Parque del Retiro that makes Central Park look like a garbage dump.

Another:

I don't have the time to do an extensive search to determine longitude, latitude, forward facing direction and such, but I'm pretty sure this is the Butterfly House at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. Somebody else will get the window book, but I'll just be happy if I'm correct.

Another:

The Gardens of Vatican City? I know this is a long shot, and considering the source I doubt The Dish would be highlighting the Vatican, but it reminds me of a photo I took out the window of the Hall of Maps on my honeymoon. It is a beautiful scene there and something the Vatican should show off more often.

Another gets on the right track:

This looks like Italy, with the cypress trees, pines, tile roofs, and the villa in the distance. However, I have no idea what city.

Another does:

Short and sweet: Giardino dell'Orticultura, Via Vittorio Emanuele II, Florence, Italy. The photo is probably taken from a room on the top floor of the Hotel Relais Amadeus, Via 20 Settembre. Never been there; looks beautiful; should put it on my bucket list.

Another sends an aerial shot:

Another:

Every week, I only give myself five minutes to figure these out. If I get it in five minutes, fine. If not, I move on. I seldom succeed. But this one I found just like that. Searched images for "Stanford University greenhouse." Nope. Searched images for "tuscany greenhouse." Bingo.

A close-up shot from a reader:

Another writes:

It was built by someone by the name of Giacomo Roster in 1879. The glass house (or Tepidario) opened in 1880. The main entrance of the park is located at Via Vittorio Emanuele II, 4. A smaller side entrance next to Via Bolognese, 17, is closer to the glass house and helped me find the window that is my guess this week. It took me a day and a half to find the location searching every "glass house," "greenhouse," "orangery," etc. that could viably be surrounded by cypress trees and terracotta roofs. (I was unaware of the term "tepidario" or "tepidarium" when I began the search.) Thus, after an exhaustive study of glass houses in the U.K., the apparent epicenter of Victorian glass houses, and confirmation that I wouldn't find terracotta roofs of this style there, I limited my search to Italy, Spain, France, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Southern California and Florida.

Thanks to you, I now know more about Victorian (and later) glass houses than I'd ever have expected to know.

Another:

This is my first time writing in for the VFYW contest, but after seeing the photo, I recognized the place immediately, having lived in Florence for a little more than two years. The tepidarium of the Giardino dell'Orticultura is instantly recognizable, and the typical Tuscan buildings in the background help to confirm that. From the perspective, I'm guessing the picture was taken from somewhere near Via Bolognese, 5. I'm sure one of your other readers will come up with the precise address.

There are actually a surprisingly large number of art nouveau (called Stile Liberty in Italy) buildings in that city. One of my blog posts from that time shows some of the highlights. I'm sure most tourists rush by these beautiful buildings on their way between the Renaissance attractions, which is a shame.

Another:

When I studied abroad in Florence during my junior year at Vanderbilt, my back patio looked onto this garden.  The physical location is off of Via Bolognese in northern Florence, which leads up to the Etruscan-turned-Roman town of Fiesole.  While I lived in the apartment, the garden was mainly used by locals (often elderly) who relaxed for hours on the benches.  For what it's worth, I remember a fair number of young children, as well, but a surprising lack of parents.  The greenhouse also hosted a few noisy parties during my stay, but otherwise laid fairly dormant. The building was more of an enigma to me, as it was quite a remarkable building in a pleasant setting.

In any case, my guess as to the physical location that the photo was taken was from the southernmost window/door of the north-side apartment on the third floor of #5 Via Bolognese. The height seems consistent with the trees and the top-right shadow seems consistent with the overhang. More photos of the building can be found here.

So close to the exact address. Another:

So, here's what we're looking at. You can see the house with the two-tone paint job in the foreground in this pic courtesy of Google maps. I think we're looking down from the window/door in the middle of the picture – the one that is perched atop the house, with the teal door that is directly to the left of the trees trunk (it abuts it). You can tell by the slight bit of roof in the right hand side of the pic. This house is one the Via Bolonese, too, and is probably #8, although I'm not certain.

Even closer. Another zooms in further:

This picture was taken from one of the buildings on the Via Bolognese that overlooks the Horticultural Garden (Giardino dell'Orticultura) in Florence. The greenhouse is called the Tepidarium del Roster and is the largest greenhouse in Italy. My best guess as to the specific window – or balcony door – is shown in the attached Word file with a blue arrow:

You should get dozens, if not hundreds, of correct answers.

Forty-one to be exact. About a dozen guessed the correct address – 7 Via Bolognese – but only a few nailed the correct floor as well. One of them is the following reader, who broke the tie by having correctly answered previous views without yet winning:

You are either taking pity and going easy on us lately or I am just lucky.  This is the second time in a month I "knew" where the picture was taken at first glance (Depoe Bay was the other).  Everything in the picture, especially the villa in the distance, screamed Florence.  My wife and I were married there and the architecture of the villa evokes some wonderful memories:

Figuring the exact address was more problematic. Estimating the angles by looking at the position of the trees and the smaller buildings in the foreground, I came to #7 Via Bolognese.  The photo was taken from a window on the third floor in the rear of the building. The third picture is of that beautiful villa on Via Trento from Google street view.  My wife and I have decided we could be very happy there.

And we hope you will both be happy with the window book. Details from the submitter:

Taken today from the rear of our third floor apartment at 7 Via Bolognese, Florence, Italy overlooking the Giardino dell'Orticultura. It is the beginning of the old road to Bologna. Our friend's family has owned this apartment for a very long time.  He is in his 70s now and grew up there. He remembers the nearby Ponto Rosso (bridge), which is less than 100 yards away from the apartment, being blown up in WWII.

(Archive)