Category: Contest

by Chris Bodenner

I didn’t realize this window would be as challenging as it was, since the view is from a pretty famous city. But we only received about three dozen entries from readers this week, perhaps the lowest amount ever. One writes:

This reminds me of my pretty-much hometown of Santa Barbara, California. The Spanish-influenced architecture, the greenery-covered hills, all with an underlying American feel. This is nostalgia talking, as I’m four years removed from my Californian home, but I figure it’s as good of a guess as any I could come up with in the 20 seconds of analyzing the picture.

Another:

When I first saw the picture, I instantly thought to myself could this be Berkeley, the greatest town in America, my alma mater. The trees, brick roofs and the majestic bay in the background convinced me that it is.  Go Bears!!!

Another:

I think I’ve already ruled out this as a possibility, but when I first saw the photo, it reminded me of the southeast corner of Buena Vista Park in San Francisco. That large facility in the distance looked like the old St. Joseph’s Hospital, which was featured in Vertigo and eventually converted to condos. I’m all but positive it’s not, but if this were a picture of that building, it would have been taken from the California Pacific Medical Center – Davis Campus building at 632 Duboce. Maybe the 6th floor?

The photo was taken from a hospital, but wrong country. Another:

I almost keep trying the same answer, but is the only place it reminds me of. It looks a lot like the mountain behind my apartment if Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.

Another:

I would rate this week’s contest as nearly impossible.

A distant shot of modern apartment buildings and trees. Not a single street visible, nor a single possible landmark.  Red tile roofs, which could be many places. Perhaps the trees are an odd shade of green, which suggested Australia to me. The buildings on the hillside appear to be facing something scenic, so I’m thinking the ocean. Sydney is my wild, wild guess. It must be very challenging for you to find the perfect degree of difficulty.

More than you know. Another:

Random guess: the bold city on this map:

Another:

I’ve never been remotely close on any of the guesses I’ve made in the past (and haven’t entered, either). But I saw those buildings on a hill and the image stuck with me. Then I saw a documentary on Pablo Escobar a few hours later. I’m sure I’m wrong, but I can’t ignore the cosmic coincidence factor, so I’ll take a stab and say Medellin, Colombia.

Another gets on the right continent:

Heidelberg is my guess because of the lovely rolling green hills, the mix of what looks like old and new Western European housing, and, frankly, because I have a great affection for Heidelberg. As a 10 year old, my family of midwesterners, none of whom had been to Europe before, undertook a Clark Griswold-style adventure, prior to the fall of the iron curtain. One of the strongest memories I have from that trip was the “Student Jail” or Studentenkarzer, of Heidelberg, where naughty university students had been confined for a variety of offenses, including, according to the tour guide, setting the townspeople’s pigs loose in the street. Here’s hoping there’s some free-ranging pigs somewhere out of view.

Another:

The picture had an eastern bloc feel to it with those multiple flat-roofed apartment buildings.   But given the color patterns and subtropical look, I confined my search to mainly Romania and Bulgaria and near the Black Sea.  The closest similar-looking area I could find was about 5 km east of downtown Varna, Bulgaria.  I attached a picture which looks like the area depicted in the contest photo. Specifically, my guess is that the picture was taken from the Teacher Training building of Shumen University in Varna:

Another gets on the right track:

While the photo lacks any identifying landmarks, it does have a Mediterranean look thanks to the red tile roofs.  Dense oak forest could be near my home in California, but the specific landscape is not one with which I am familiar.  That leaves the actual Mediterranean and it seems like the dense forest is most prevalent in the northeast corner of Spain.  Searching for coastal cities with hilly but not rugged terrain and high rise buildings, I settled upon Lloret de Mar, Spain.  Since I can’t find the specific view I don’t think that is quite correct, but it’s as close as I’m going to get while still getting some work done.

Another:

The photo looks Mediterranean, with the reddish orange roofs and what looks like a mix of deciduous and conifer trees. It looks like there may be a bay at the top right corner. Modern building in the foreground with what look like dormitories in the back, as well as older buildings enmeshed in trees. So I am going to take a guess that it is Haifa, looking onto the Carmel forest.

Another:

Nothing much in the picture that can be Googled, but the traditional architecture and hill are reminiscent of Dubrovnik, Croatia, along with the modern building from which the photo was taken. Looks like the Adriatic in the background. Hope that proximity counts.

Proximity is definitely going to win this one:

Hi.  Lyon, France?  Just a hunch.

It’s Cannes, but Lyon is close enough for a win. (In fact, our winner was the only one to guess France.) We’ll get a window book out to you shortly. Easier one next week!

By the way, more details on the view:

We’re American. My husband had an emergency appendectomy, in France, this week. There are a lot of fascinating contrasts in the American and French medical systems, at least as we’ve experienced them.  (I had a baseball-sized brain tumor taken out a few  years ago, so we had some intense medical interactions).  The Centre Hospitalier de Cannes, in the La Croix de Gardes neighborhood, has committed, professional healers and the process is very focused on rest and sleep.  It’s much lower tech, and much more human.  And the quality, based on our anecdotal experience, seems high, at least for our issues.

The view from the window is terrific.  I’m attaching photo with and without the IV pole in the way. It was taken by my husband, from the hospital bed.

(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.

An easy one this week, to spur creative answers and get good stories. One reader writes:

I have not had a clue in a long while regarding this contest (I was close regarding the Norway VFYW). but this one speaks to me as Malaysia … met my wife there and went back there for the birth of both of our kids (in Ampang). Owing to the nature of foliage in the background, it may be near Cheras in Kuala Lumpur.

Another writes:

We lived in Okinawa from 1969 to 1970 and this street scene is typical of the narrow, paved streets of the business district of any of the cities. The area where we lived was called Kadena Circle because it was near Kadena AFB. I’ll guess that this may be in Naha because that is probably still the largest and best-known city on the island.

Another:

From my Taiwanese partner: Definitely not Taiwan – somewhere in southern China. The exuberant foliage and misty fog in the background indicates the country must be humid. The lack of people on the street indicates it must be in a remote area. This is a very generic southern China country look. Two of the sign boards say ‘hotel’, so it is very likely a tourist place. Fenghuang is very touristic. I want to guess it as “Fenghuang county, Hu-nan province” because I like Fenghuang. Of course, I may be wrong since it does not have the authentic Chinese old look of Fenghuang.

Another:

The guy balancing himself on top of that chair was a wonderful detail of this photo!

Another:

The greenery in the background, the relatively unpolluted air, and the relatively quiet streets says countryside China.  I’ve been there – Yangshuo!

Another:

Ciqikou, Sichuan Province, China? This is my first time submitting a guess … I’m not 100% sure about the city (although the building styles seem to match), but fairly certain about the province. Being able to read the signs helped a little, though not too much, as the smaller characters are a bit blurry.

Another:

The phone number on the awning matches a hotel and restaurant in the ancient town of Shangli, about 26km north of Ya’an, in China’s Sichuan province. The rest is misadventures in Google Translate, which renders the street address as No. 8 Fingers Road – and the hotel, wonderfully, as “Educated youth on the farm in the inn.”

Hundreds of readers correctly answered Shangli. Another:

I’ve read the Dish at least twice a day since 2008 but haven’t ever entered the contest until I saw the phone number on the sign, which probably means it’s too easy…

Another:

Finally, a VFYW that is right up my alley.

Being able to understand Chinese characters is always a big help. Searches on the phone numbers in the photo got me to Ya’an City in Sichuan Province, China, and searches on the street signs eventually led me to the main street of Shangli Old Town, which is under the jurisdiction of Ya’an. (If I’m wrong, please don’t publish this on your website, because I’ll feel like an idiot.)

Another sends an aerial shot:

Another:

I have never entered a VYFW contest before on account of my general geographic ignorance, but, as soon as I saw this one, I knew that I at least had to try. The Chinese characters were a dead giveaway that this picture was taken in China, and the style of the buildings, along with the verdant  mountains in the background, suggested a province in the south.  As I attempted to get a more precise reading on the location, I noticed that the banner on the building in the foreground – and the building was very clearly a hotel, the Zhiqing Inn (????) – had a telephone number on it: (0851) 2316581.

The area code 0851 is associated with the Ya’an (??) metropolitan area in Sichuan Province. Googling the number itself led me to the exact address of the aforementioned inn: 8 Five Fingers Road (???), located in the town of Shangli (??).  It is apparently one of the “ten ancient towns” of Sichuan and was a stop on the Silk Road, which would explain the need for tourist accommodations. Google Maps Street View sadly doesn’t work in these rather remote corners of the world, but, surprisingly, I was able to find Zhiqing Inn when I zoomed in far enough.  I’ve circled it and the neighbouring building, which is also a guesthouse, on the attached screenshot and marked the approximate place where this picture might have been taken.

Another:

If it’s not Shangli, it could be Sanye Ancient Town. My friend Eddie is responsible for this guess and should receive the prize if correct. He called the owner of the hostel across the street from where the picture was taken. Here’s the email conversation:

Me: Know where this picture was taken? It’s a contest so feel free to submit on your own or we can brainstorm. These pictures are frequently misleading, as in I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a Chinatown in another country. That said, the store fronts and the people sitting leisurely in front of them are too Chinese to be anywhere but China. The streets are surprisingly clean, however, and the fresh wood finishing reminds me of a tourist town. I see a phone number on an awning. Recognize the area code? I think those are giant bamboo in the background.

Eddie: Yep I just checked the Area Code, it’s actually in Ya’an Prefecture in Sichuan where I did my fieldwork last year.  I thought I recognized the number.  It’s definitely a tourist town, I’d have to do a little more work to figure it out, but gotta jump in the shower.  That’s kind of fun though!

Eddie:  ^_^ I just called the owner of that hostel, and figured out that it’s Sanye Ancient Town in Ya’an…problem is that it could also be Shangli Ancient Town…hard to pick it out with Skype and the ??? [Sichuan dialect]?There actually is a ??? [Shangli town] so that might be it!  Best of luck!

Another:

I considered calling the hotel and asking them what was directly across the street, but I imagined I wasn’t going to be the only reader to do that and I wondered if I could sort it out just through online research. A similarly named hotel does show up on Google maps, but I thought I might have better luck in Chinese. I found a few rough maps of the area that featured tourist attractions or hotels, but not the detailed street map I was hoping for.

Finally, I resorted to scanning the Google Image hits on Shanglizhen, and came across a photo that looked quite similar from a blog posting that featured travel pics from a visit to Shangli. Placed side-by-side, I could see that it was taken just down the street, and across the river, from this week’s photo. And it featured that huge waterwheel, which I’d seen in other photos while browsing:

I also went back to a tourist map from the Shangli visitors’ website and located the waterwheel on that map, which again confirmed this location but with no further detail:

So, in the end, I’ll resort to a Google-based guess – that the photographer was standing on a floor above the Bencaotang Drug Store that appears across the street from the Zhiqing kezhan in Google Maps. Given all the clues in this photo, I imagine lots of readers will get it spot on, down to the room. But it’s delightful to get close for once. Thanks for all the fun.

Another:

I do not have the strong skills of deduction that your more talented VFYW readers have, although I know that just listing the city isn’t going to cut it. I am up against pros here. I do, however, speak Chinese, so I decided to just call the restaurant/hotel underneath the big red sign on the far right (the Zhi Qing Ke Zhan) and ask for the address of the building across the street from them. They were not happy to give this to me (maybe some other VFYW people were bothering them?), but I successfully gathered more information about the area. I am not sure my Chinese is good enough to explain your game to them, so I didn’t try when I called them. Also it was during lunchtime, so maybe they were busy.

I wonder if the humble shop owners shown in this picture are aware that their small shop has now been seen by millions of people around the world.

Another:

I cannot believe I spent a good two hours trying to figure this out on a lovely Saturday afternoon. Being mentioned as “another” in the last VFYW contest, I was determined! I used every tool that Google has ever created, but needless to say I started off with the phone number on the sign that is visible across the street (which I think is a youth hostel called Zhiqing Nongjiale). And after all that, I have no idea if this is even close but I believe this photo is taken from the 3rd Floor of Hanjia Guesthouse on Yashang Road, Yucheng, Ya’an, Sichuan, China. If I managed to guess this correctly, I am pretty sure lots of Dish readers will get it right, but I will keep my fingers crossed!

Another:

I guess you heeded all the requests for an easier one, the legible phone number across the street was a huge boost. Here is a view from street level about halfway between the above and where the contest photo was taken from (photo credit to David and Jessie of Chengdu.) I can’t believe I spent two hours looking for the exact street on a map, since I have already won a window book.

Another:

Here are some photos from inside one of the rooms. The pattern on the window seems to match the pattern on the hotel’s third floor window, but it’s such a common design in China that the window design doesn’t tell us much. Here‘s another photo, from down the street, looking toward the same hotel, up the street on the left. That’s about it – the Google Earth resolution isn’t good enough to track down the building, and I can’t find a photo from the hotel across the street, so I’ll leave it there.

More Flickr photos here.  A view from inside the inn:

Another

Here‘s a website to a patron’s review of the establishment. According to the linked review, Shangliguzhen is a town of cultural significance known for its enchanting vistas, including old-fashioned bridges and groves of ancient trees and pruned bamboo. Once an important remounting station, Shangli cultivates the image of being a gathering place for merchants, similar to how it was in the Ming and Qing dynasties – it was, after all, known as “The Silk Road of the South” (??????).

Another:

One of the reasons I love this game is for the “armchair travel” experiences.  I’d never heard of Shangli, but it’s now on my bucket list.

Another provides plentiful detail:

NPR covered the ancient city’s attraction to urban Chinese tourists. Intriguingly, across the river, there is a “Fairy Cave” – not the only place in Sichuan so marked. The ancient town Shangli (fortunately preserved from damage in the Sichuan earthquake) seems to be, by far, the bigger local tourist attraction, in the immediate vicinity of this spot. People love to photograph the Two Immortals or Double Immortals bridge, a Qing Dynasty construction of the same age as our nation (1776). The ancient city’s Noodleman is celebrated in HTML and YouTube:

Another:

“Zhiqing Nongjia” refers to the sending of youth to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. According to the “Moral Landscape in a Sichuan Mountain Village,” a digital ethnography project at UNC Charlotte:

The city of Ya’an was the scene of most of the stories told about the factionalism and armed struggle of the Cultural Revolution– colorful stories of bank robberies, pistol packing motorcycle gangs, snipers, barricades, and home-made artillery– and it apparently attracted a number of adventurous men from the countryside like Wu Wenzhong. But although some factions were nominally based in the countryside (e.g. the “Red Peasant Army”), Xiakou, like most other villages, remained relatively quiet. In fact, the countryside became a kind of safe haven for some city dwellers. While locals claim that only those who participated became targets, and average people were generally able to avoid the shooting and violence, they also say that the factionalism had its way of entangling even those who wished to stay out. If someone was accosted on the road and asked which faction he was in, claiming to be of no faction was considered an indication of intolerable political apathy. Everybody was pressured to become a member of a faction.

Of all the hundreds of entries, the following reader had the most accurate answer combined with most previous correct guesses, so he wins this week:

This week’s contest was kind of like a tractor pull.  It started out easy with the phone number then got harder and harder with the poor resolution of Google Maps and Earth, no detailed maps anywhere, and ultimately a failure to find a photo of the building from which the contest picture was taken.  But we soldiered on with a diverse team stretching from Texas, to Washington, D.C., to Buffalo, New York, and ultimately to China (the home of one of our top agents who once won 2nd place in an English speaking contest in college).

This is a scene on Yashang Rd. (Ya‘an>Shangli), or Old North Road, in Shangli, Sichuan, China.  It is the newer part of Shangli, across the river from the ancient Shangli Old Town.  The photo was probably taken from the 3rd floor of the “Han Jia Ying Bin Kezhan” (Han Family Guest Welcoming Guesthouse).  The first sign across the street to the right says Ziquing Kezhan (Guesthouse.)  Ziquing literally means “educated youth” but it refers to the “sent down youth”, like the ones sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution.  In this particular case, I have been told it is probably just being used as a name.  The Red Army came up this road in 1934-1935 on their Long March.

The next sign to the left, or north, is another Han Jia Kezhan, or Han Family Guesthouse.  And I understand there are more in the area.  This is not a Han family franchise however but rather refers to a very old and influential family in the area dating back to the Qing Dynasty, 1644-1912.  There are a number of Han family mansions that have been converted into museums as well as one local government building.

Next to that is the Chen Yiquan Health Station, most likely a health clinic for local people. Further up the street in the blue building is the Sichuan Salt Chain Store.  According to a blogger I found, there are a lot of stores like this in China and they really do sell salt.  I’m not sure if the salt panic in China reached this far after the Japanese earthquake but this is the type of store that would have had their shelves cleared due to the false rumor that iodized salt could protect one from the feared radioactive clouds.  Perhaps that is why the door is closed.  Everyone is stocked up on salt. But perhaps as important as any of the local attractions to a day tourist is the public toilet, the path to which is located just a few steps south down Yashang road from the Ziquing Guesthouse.

From the reader who submitted the photo:

It was taken from the third floor (room 214, if I recall) of a hostel with no English name in the cute little village of Shangli in Sichuan, China. Because there are probably a fair number of places called “Shangli” (or perhaps zero places), it’s the next town after the Bifengxia Panda Reserve – if you take the road from Ya’an (two hours south of Chengdu) to the Reserve but instead of turning left at Bifeng Gorge you go straight, you’ll hit Shangli in about half an hour. This hostel would be the first building in town on your left using those directions. The village is best known for a very inauthentic “ancient marketplace” on an island in the middle of the village’s river, but if you cross the river, walk down the road, and then hike the corn fields past the pagoda for about ten minutes, you’ll come across a fascinating and vibrant modern village, complete with its own poultry market.

(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 never play unless I think I’ve been there, and this place looks really familiar.  But it looks like a lot of places: Krakow?  Wiesbaden? Munich?  Bucharest?  Probably not, because those places don’t have healthy looking palm trees.  They do, however, have exactly the same architecture as this picture.  The shutters are functional, not decorative, and the awnings offer protection from the sun, but there are no AC boxes in any of the windows.  Either there is a historical society that’s active enough to prevent the installation of AC boxes, or this place doesn’t get so hot that it needs them. For no other reason than other than that I’ve been there, I’m going with Mallorca.

Another writes:

My friend, a tango nut, recently went to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He’s also a fantastic photographer and returned with pictures of spectacular pink and yellow buildings. Due to the pink buildings, the ornate architecture, and the variety of trees (not just the palm trees), I’m guessing Buenos Aires. Other than that, I have no idea where this is.

Another:

The San Telmo neighborhood in Buenos Aires? Last week my brother and I came within eight feet of guessing the right window.  This week I’m hoping to have guessed the right hemisphere.

Another:

The architecture is reminiscent of Imperial Russian cities, and the flora suggests somewhere along the Black Sea or perhaps the Caspian. I’m going to go with Odessa, Ukraine, only because I love the city so much. Could be anywhere from the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast to Baku, Azerbaijan.

Another:

Macau, China? Been there.  High density. European style buildings. Fingers crossed.

Another:

I’m guessing that this window is somewhere in the Castelo parish in Lisbon.  The photo shows us colorful buildings with balconies, wrought-iron railings, ‘quoins’ used as architectural details on a couple of buildings, rooftop gardens, mediterranean plants and many TV antennas. And a glimpse of some black-and-white tiles in a patio below our window. These are all features of the old neighborhoods in Lisbon, and I could find evidence of them when scanning around Castelo, but I couldn’t find any building that matched one in our view, so I’ll have to leave it at that.  (My brother thinks the location is in the southern hemisphere – you should see his guess arriving in your in-box soon.)

Another:

I have now guessed Lisbon in this contest three separate times (each more wrong than the last). I wanted to guess it again, because the architecture and coloring of the buildings is exactly the same. Of course those styles aren’t even remotely uncommon across all of Mediterranean Europe and Latin America. In fact, the trees in the frame and the rooftop patios suggest somewhere warmer to me. So Rio De Janeiro it is! I’ll guess the Leblon neighborhood, even though I think most of the buildings there are newer.

Another:

OK, so this VFYW is so generic that, despite Google Maps’ 45 degree up-close satellite view, I’m unable to pinpoint an exact location.

The architecture has me certain it’s Rome and the linear positioning of the buildings indicates a grid pattern.  The neighborhood looks quite well-to-do and you can see a hill in the background, so my educated guess is that the window is in the neighborhood fanning out from the foot of the Piazza di Spagna, perhaps along the via dei Condotti or the Via del Corso.  There are lots of upscale B&Bs and hotels around there so I wouldn’t be shocked.  No certainty here, but worth a try.

Another:

Somebody is going to get the exact address on this one, but the picture just screamed “Rome, Italy” to me so I decided to write in. The hills, the architecture, the roof terraces … I can’t honestly remember if there are any/many palm trees in Rome, but there’s no climate reason that they couldn’t be grown there. (The only other time I’ve written in was when you had the view from my neighbor’s window in Amsterdam! Too bad that was not a contest; I’d have won hands-down.)

Another:

The fact that I am actually able to send this email makes me happy! My boyfriend is Genovese and I’ve been there twice (we live in NY). I was just trying to figure out whether to use the yellow or the pink/peachy color for the living room wall when I saw this week’s VFYW contest. I feel pretty sure that it’s Genova, Italy, especially because of the slight elevation in the back. My boyfriend refuses to looks for clues to figure out the exact location and says that it could be anywhere. So I am left only with Genova.

Another:

I’m almost certain it’s Italy. The architecture (windows, stone work, etc.) and color pallet is undoubtedly Italian – I’ve lived in buildings just like these while there both as a student and English teacher. But where in my family’s homeland? Well, there’s the palm tree, indicating something coastal, and the seemingly non-flat topography, which indicates northern, on the west side of the boot in particular where there are some jagged rocky plateaus. The tight clustering of the buildings indicates an older, bigger city, so probably not San Remo or other vacation town. If I can come up with something more specific, I’ll follow up. Until then, it’s Genoa (or Genova!).

Another:

I recently visited Old San Juan for the first time, and when I saw this photo, with its colorful buildings and shuttered windows, I was instantly transported back to my Caribbean idyll. But this is not Old San Juan.  For one thing, while the city is hilly, it doesn’t have such prominent heights with buildings so elevated above others around them.  Instead I’ll go out on a limb and say Naples, Italy.

A handful of readers correctly guessed Naples, but none of them could get very specific based on the generic nature of the photo. One writes:

Judging by the style of the buildings, I am convinced that we are somewhere in Italy. Beyond that, the closeness of the structures makes it look like we are in an urban area, toward the south, as the plants attest. It can’t be Rome because none of the hills rise quite like that with apartments along the top, which makes me think Naples. (Alas, there’s no view of the street and the telltale piles of trash!)

Another:

Clearly Italy.  A large city with an old, wealthy district built on steep hills; garden vegetation more characteristic of the central and southern regions.  The apartment buildings in the far background, with newer ones peering over what looks to be an older construction possibly built above an old city wall or fortification (or cliff-hill), suggest Rome, and that glimpse of old wall seems to be the strongest precise location hint.  But Naples has similar new-upon-old layers, and the deep reddish stucco of the large building in the center midfield is far more characteristic of Naples, as are the still-predominant TV antennas.

Our best guess, using my father’s professional opinion: Pizzofalcone viewed from the Chiaia neighborhood, possibly taken near Via F. Crispi, near the French Institute, not far from Piazza Amedeo.

Another:

A quiet side street somewhere near the Piazza Medaglia D’Oro. I had instant recognition. I know only one city with that shade of red on it’s buildings. It looks like the view from my late Uncle Vito’s house – of course I’ve lost the address. His son is a journalist who probably reads your blog. Maybe he sent it in.

The following Naples guesser is the only one to have gotten a difficult window in the past, so he is this week’s winner:

I’m going with Naples based on the familiar architecture and hilly terrain featured in the background.  The buildings are definitively Italian in style.  The vibrant pastels are reminiscent of everything I remember about the Amalfi Coast.

We’ll get a book out to you soon.

(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.

The reader who submitted the photo for this week's contest wrote back after we posted the results:

Thanks for running my photo as the contest! It was a lot of fun to read the responses. By the way, the reader who sent a "closer view of the building" NAILED IT. That. Exact. Window. I added to the photo a blue circle marking where I sat eating a decadent pastry called Opera Cake about an hour before the picture was taken. I looked up at the window of the dorm room I was staying in and thought "I should submit to VFYW." And then I imagined that it just might end up in the contest and that, just maybe, someone From The Internet just might circle a picture of that window in red. So it was pretty incredible when that happened.

We already awarded the prize to the mother-and-son team, but we will ship another window book to the reader with the remarkable guess.

A reader writes:

Enough with the clues! Dish hunters are smart enough not to need clues.

The clues are for readers such this one:

Victoria, British Columbia?  Is Victoria a common name for women anywhere these days?  No idea.  But I liked the hint aspect this week.  It got me to guess!

Another writes:

Ok a wild guess… The location looks like the Pacific Northwest or Australia or New Zealand to me. I then looked up the most common 1000 English female names. Victoria is #116 on the list.

Another:

Konstanz, Germany. Why? Well, there’s the name hint. Konstanz is the first city matching the hint that I could find in a Google Maps flyover of Central-ish Europe. An image search for Konstanz turns up some similar hills, but mostly it’s a stab in the dark.

Another:

The name clue leads me to “Alice,” but I’m not sure about the color of the mountain range – made greener by cloud cover?  And a deodar cedar in the foreground?  Hm… Alice Springs, Australia?

Another:

Helena, Montana? All I’ve got going are mountains, the hint, and blind ambition.

Another:

Boy, it’s hard to find place names that double as English-speaking woman names in Europe.  I decided it couldn’t be North America, the British Isles, Australia/NZ or any other English-speaking territory so I simply scanned northern Europe (large conifer tree) until my eye settled on a city or town with a suitable name.  I was excited about Sofia, Bulgaria at first, but then realized “Sofia” doesn’t fit the English-speaking qualifier.  Then I came to Jena, Germany, which looks plausible, and decided I’m done with this puzzle.

Another:

OK, I’m too lazy to look. But your clue “The city name is also a fairly common name for an English-speaking woman”, and the fact that I’ve been there, and that I’m listening to the group Florence and the Machine while I type, I’m going to guess Florence, Italy. I’ll let someone else win the exact building and window.

Another:

Bristol, England? It is only in the SSA’s list of women’s names for 2009 and 2010.

Another:

I’m going to go ahead and take a guess based on the clue: Kimberley, South Africa? For no other reason than it is also my name! And I have often wondered about that city in South Africa which made Kimberly a popular first name. Although, being American, I drop the “e” from the last syllable. Oh well, what can you do!

A reader whose first name is the name of the correct city writes:

Can I get any kind of credit for Victoria, Romania, a totally-wild guess based on a vague sense I have that this looks Eastern European and a quick Google looking for good British names?

Another:

Do you guys have any idea how much I had to get done this weekend?  I thought this would be easier given the clue, but I’ve spent hours now and still have no definitive location. I’m guessing Sofia, Bulgaria, based on the clue, the topography, and the prominent red roofs.  The roof of the building in the foreground looks very similar to the roof of the Neo-Baroque National Arts Gallery.  And the buildings in the background look like examples of Socialist Classicism or Stalinist Architecture.  But I’ve looked at the only aerial photos of Sofia I can find (no Google Street View) and I still can’t find that white building with the red shutters.  My dog is really mad at me right now for spending so much of this gorgeous weekend inside.

Another:

The “roladen” on the window are the type used in Germany, a window device I wish were as common here in Georgia  as there.  When it’s cold and dark, roll them down and voila, instant insulation; no more cold coming in through the glass.  While the hill in the background reminds me of the hillls above Heidelberg, Heidleberg, or even Heidi, is not a common famale’s name in the English speaking world.  Sofia is somewhat common, perhaps Sophie more so, and the hill backdropping the city looks like the one in Sofia.  As I only play when I think I’ve been there, and refuse to spend hours googling, I’ll say it’s two blocks below the U.S. Embassy in Sofia.

(Travel tip for Bulgaria:  they have the best variety of salads in Europe, with the standard shopska being outstanding.  Cannot find the white cheese they put on it outside of the country.)

Another gets on the right track:

OK. I’m writing from Paris (where I’m visiting family), so this week’s picture really looks and feel like home – that is, France. The few tells are: the slate roof, the conical orange chimney vents, the 1960s somewhat upscale social housing mixed in with the older 19th century buildings. The green hills in the distance really looks like the Ile de France cuesta. I say Ile de France because this is very dense urban settings, maybe Meaux, or Reims? – but honestly, the color of the roofs suggest it could be the outskirts of Lyon, or even somewhere in Burgundy (Macon?). I know I’m hedging. It just feels like home, anyways.

Another gets the right French city:

Shannon, Ireland, and Jena, Germany, immediately come to mind with the clue given, but the topographies of the two cities look nothing like the window. Not to mention that Shannon is often a men’s name especially in Ireland. Although the English pronunciation of Nancy is different from that of the French, the window is nonetheless that of the city in northeast France. The hill in the background looks similar as do the red roofs. Once administered by Germany, the German architectural influence is evident.

Another who correctly answered Nancy, France:

Ah, yes, who could miss that pine tree, a variant of conifer seen exclusively in eastern France. Yeah, all right, so I’m lying. The truth is that I decided this was sort of French-looking, so I scanned a list of French towns looking for women’s names, and found Nancy. I’m probably off by a continent or two, but I also decided this could be a college, and there are several such schools in or near the hills to the west of town. Otherwise, just not a heck of a lot of clues here.

Another:

Oh my god!  I finally got one! (I’m sure hundreds of others did, too, given the hint.) First, the buildings clearly scream “Europe.”  As far as cities with female names, my first thoughts (Sofia, for instance) I tossed out because they weren’t really English-speaking first names.  I looked at Shannon, briefly, but the topography wasn’t right.  And then, a quick glance over a map of France lead me to Nancy – an English-speaking first name if there ever was one.  Google Maps confirmed the topography was correct and I searched the hills of Nancy for a landmark resembling the radio towers in the picture.  I found it and then moved back some and happened to find the exact building in the foreground.  And then I found that the photo was taken from the Cite Universitaire Monbois at 2, rue Ludovic Beauchet in Nancy.  I can’t tell what “floor” the picture was taken from, since the building is on a hillside and what is ground floor at the corner of rue Bleicher and rue Beauchet is a few storeys up down the hill.  I’m going to guess it was taken from the (European) 3rd floor on the northerly side of the building; see the attached picture.

I’m guessing I’ll be beaten by someone with a floor plan of the building who once lived there while studying abroad years ago and can tell the exact apartment number, but this is as close as I’m gonna get.

Another submits a closer view of the building:

Another at street level:

Choosing this week’s winner was really difficult, since there were about ten readers who nailed the university building in Nancy with great detail. And not a single one of them has gotten a difficult window in the past, so we can’t break the tie in that fashion. We decided to go with the submission that involved two players instead of just one:

My 12-year-old son was feeling a little under the weather yesterday evening, so rather than buggering off to sit in from of his Xbox, he decided to join me in the big bed where I was trying to figure out this week’s contest. With a little orientation, he got right into it, and we spent the rest of the evening, at least until the last of wakefulness, searching the streets of Nancy, France (I’m sure you’ll be perusing thousands of entries with the help of your clue, we could tell right away this vista could not be found in Mary, Turkmenistan…) We had found a few of the landmarks – the location of the antenna on the hill, the high-ish rise set of apartments by the river – but couldn’t quite locate the view.

Perhaps the night’s sleep did us well, because this morning we picked up where we left off, and with just a little bit of Google strolling, we happened upon the low block with the assymetric window pattern (on the campus of Universite Nancy), and from there, the Cite Universite was quickly discovered, on Rue Ludovic Beauchet 2. Guessing by the positioning of the coniferous tree out the window, we thing we’re looking out of the third floor window, fourth apartment from the north side, facing just north of east.

Anyways, even if we don’t get the book this time, thanks to you and the VFYW contest for the lovely evening together.

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Clue: The city name is also a fairly common name for an English-speaking woman.

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:

O.K., I know I won’t win with this, but it has got to be South Island, New Zealand. Cars identical to Australia, a nice marina with deep sea fishing access (boat out in the water with lots of rods), modern electric car park lighting, modern building using Besser Block (concrete block) & Hardiplank, but the giveaway is those steep, steep mountains tumbling into the bay with what looks like remnant touches of snow high up.

Another writes:

I am not particularly good at these, but the license plates appear to be the new New York state ones, and the mountains look like the Adirondacks. So Lake Placid sounds good to me. Wish I knew where those blue and white vans are from!

Another:

These pictures where you can almost make out the license plates kill me.  The plates are very yellow, maybe with red writing.  That’s New Mexico.  Unfortunately, I discovered that the state’s North Central transit authority runs blue bus vans like those in the picture (though I can’t make out the transit logo on the side).  The obvious problem is the lake and greenery in New Mexico, which make no sense. So I looked up lakes within the transit authority’s territory.  Sadly, Google pictures of these areas are much too barren to match the picture.  Still, I’m saying Elephant Butte Lake before moving on to a more plausible answer.

Another:

I’ve never been to this particular part of Hawaii, but it doesn’t look like Oahu. Either way it looks like those beautiful volcanoes that rise out of the ocean floor. Also, like Jurassic Park.

Another:

I think it’s Flathead Lake and Polson Montana, just because you bungled Polson as “Poison” in a VFYW recently, and you’re doing penance.

Another:

This must be your easiest one yet, since I made this much progress in ten minutes (I’m absolutely terrible at this). Oregon license plates; person dressed in clothing suggesting unseasonably COOL weather currently occurring in Pacific Northwest.  Water; prettyprettypretty mountains.  Building has words ending in “th” and “y”.  I’m thinking Klamath County Library main branch in Klamath Falls, but I’m sure a better guess will be made by dozens with superior Google-fu.

Another:

Since no one was close last week, I thought I’d jump in with my wife’s suggestion: Lake Tahoe. Probably the Nevada side. My guess, though, is Homer, Alaska. Might as well mix it up …

It’s Alaska. Another:

This is my first time entering, and there are lots of clues:

1. The cars indicate a North American setting, either in Canada or the US.
2. Yellow license plates narrows it down to either Alaska, New York, or possibly New Mexico. However, since New Mexico is too dry, and New York only recently switched to yellow plates, it is clearly in Alaska.
3. There appears to be a breakwater on the far side of the boat. The boat is also fairly big, indicating that it is on the coast, not inland.
4. Two blue tour buses.
5. A pavilion, which indicates a park of some sort.
6. No snow in the background, meaning that it would either be near Juneau, or somewhere on the Inside Passage.
7. The white pickup has a yellow sticker in it, which I would guess is some sort of unit emblem for the military.

Anyways, after doing some searching, it seems that the most likely places are either Wrangell, Petersberg, or possibly Kodiak. Because I don’t really have a complete idea, I go with Petersberg.

Another:

I sincerely hope it’s not Wasilla.

Another:

This screams Alaska, probably the panhandle. I’m doing this exercise from a backcountry hut five miles from the road, so I can’t get to streetview on my iPhone, but I think this is Ketchikan. It’s pretty obviously one of the larger towns, and, well, mainly I’m guessing. But do I get points for doing this with added degrees of difficulty? (If it is Ketchikan, then the other side of the inlet would be the destination of Palin’s Bridge to Nowhere … $800 million to avoid a 10 minute ferry ride to the airport.)

Another:

I’ve never entered any of your contests, but this was too easy.  It’s a picture taken from the Best Western Landing Hotel in Ketchikan.  The road you see there is essentially the only main road in town.  I say it was too easy because my wife and her family are from Ketchikan and still reside there. The Landing Hotel is a big spot for breakfast (though the food stinks – literally).  Anyway, my guess is that this picture was taken from the 3rd floor.  Send me my book!!!!

Another:

Three days until the bar exam – I certainly picked a bad time to take on my first VFYW contest.  The high number of large vehicles and excessively large parking lot makes the US or Canada seem likely, while the yellow license plates and imposing wilderness suggest Alaska.  I’ve spent too much time on this already so I’ll just cut my losses and go with Juneau.  Besides, where else in North America would someone be wearing a black sweater right now?

On that note, another sends a more fitting version of the mystery town:

Another:

Can’t guarantee that it’s Juneau, but it certainly looks like a parking lot by an Alaska ferry terminal. I’d love to be there instead of melting in the East Coast heat right now.

Another:

I’m guessing that this is a picture of the SeaLife Center parking lot taken from the building at the corner of Railway and Washington Street in Seward, Alaska. That would be Resurrection Bay in the background, which is part of the 580,000-acre Kenai Fjords National Park known for its abundant marine wildlife, tidewater glaciers and, of course, the coastal fjords: long and steep-sided glacially carved valleys now filled with seawater. I haven’t been to Seward in a couple of years so I couldn’t figure out the name of the building (or business) where the picture was taken from, but thanks for featuring one of Alaska’s most beautiful towns.

Another nails the correct town:

I thought Juneau or Ketchikan at first. But, the closer I looked, I realized I have been in this parking lot before because this is the parking area for the adjacent small boat harbor. It is definitely Sitka. The location is Lincoln Street. The lettering on the building is for Goldsmith Gallery, which is located at 407 Lincoln Street. This gallery is one of more than a half dozen businesses located in this building known as the Bay View Trading Company. It’s obvious the photo was taken from the second story. What’s not clear is whether it was taken in the adjacent building, 401 Lincoln Street, which houses the Colliver Shoes and Bear Country Gifts.

Another sent the above photo. Another:

Goldsmith Gallery in Sitka. The …th and …y gave it away.

Another sends an aerial shot of the harbor:

Another:

Wow! That’s my hometown. The photo is taken from an office above Colliver Shoes & Bear Country Gifts.  (I delivered newspapers to someone who worked up there when I was a kid, in the early ’80s.) The windows look out over the Crescent Harbor parking lot.  Those two blue buses off to the left, by the harbor, are part of the Sitka Community Ride fleet.  The structure just behind them – my brother and I waited in line there many a cold winter evening to see Santa Claus, and we spent a fair amount of time there trying to sell handmade stuff to tourists coming in from the cruise ships! Farthest right, you can see the corner of the Bayview Restaurant … I realize this is a totally excessive amount of information, but it’s hard to write about Sitka without reminiscing!

Sitka is such a tiny town that it’s uncommon, and a lot of fun, to see it featured anywhere, especially in such a wildy popular blog.  Thank you!

Another:

I wasn’t born in Sitka, have never visited, don’t have a relative living within several thousand miles, and didn’t buy an engagement ring at that jewelry store, so I have no “family photos” to add or fancy personal vignettes.  I’m just a dude with an internet connection and a little spare time.  But for bonus points, I attached a pretty screengrab from Google Earth showing the pretty mountain range across the bay, as also seen in the photo:

Another:

I swore I wouldn’t spend any more time searching … how do people do this every week and still get anything else done? My first ever guess is Sitka, Alaska, USA on Lincoln street close to the Goldsmith Gallery. I’m walking away from the computer now.

Another:

The blue buses in the parking lot look like the Sitka Community Ride buses.

Another:

I reached your blog through the Human Transit blog by Jarrett Walker, who to the American Public Transportation Association website to find which cities in Alaska ran bus systems and tried to match the look of the buses. After 15 minutes of geeking out to the picture, I hope I got it right.

Another sent the above photo of the bus. Another:

Sitka has an interesting history.  It was formerly the capital of the Alaska Territory, until it was moved to Juneau in 1906, and it was the site of the official transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States in 1867.  Therefore the choice of the street name, “Lincoln”, has a greater significance than in many American cities.

Another concludes his lengthy description with:

This is probably where I should have left good enough alone, but after another hour of searching, I found this video from some tourist’s vacation there:

The window is the farthest right of those on the second floor of the building next to the Goldsmith Gallery. It’s taken from next to the pavilion, and you can see the streetlight in front of the window. First time player, so probably not a winner, but thanks for a fun search!

Another:

I wish I could visit the Sitka of Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policemen’s Union – a two million strong Jewish metropolis.  That sounded like a pretty interesting place.  I suspect the real Sitka is a bit more sleepy, though still well worth a trip.

One of the most impressive entries we received this week:

Having grown up in Juneau, Alaska, I knew that this week’s VFYW was from coastal Alaska. The first clue was the combination of rugged mountains, temperate rainforests, and fishing boats indicating a Pacific Northwest-like location. The large proportion of American trucks, SUVs, and minivans indicated that this location was in North America – likely Washington State, British Columbia, or Alaska. Of these three locations, the distinctive orange license plates are unique to Alaska. The lack of snow in the mountains indicates that this location is probably not on mainland Alaska, where mountains tend to be higher and have perennial snowfields, and also could suggest a relatively southern latitude. The breakwater barely visible to the left of the structure in the image’s center made for a landmark that I could scan for in Google Earth – a necessary clue because some of the towns I wanted to investigate have not been captured by Google’s Streetview car.

I began looking for towns with breakwaters in coastal Alaskan and quickly ruled out the Aleutian Islands due to the lack of tall, coniferous trees visible in this week’s image. After looking at coastal towns in Southcentral and Southeastern Alaska with populations large enough to support a paved parking lot (there aren’t many towns meeting this criteria), I finally found an image of Crescent Harbor with a mountain range that matched the background of the VFYW image. Searching for additional evidence that Crescent Harbor was the correct location, this image confirmed my guess due to the odd rain shelter structure visible in the VFYW image.

Because the perspective of both these Crescent Harbor photographs were similar to that of the VFYW image, I used Google Earth to navigate to the most likely location of the VFYW: somewhere along Lincoln Street. Google Maps yielded a great clue, because at 407 Lincoln Street the aerial view of Sitka shows a business named “Goldsmith Gallery” in the approximate location that the photograph was taken from – the left of the VFYW image clearly shows two words ending with the letters “TH” and “Y.” Additional inspection of the Google Earth satellite imagery showed that the eastern section of the building at 407 Lincoln Street either had an awning or projected further out toward Lincoln Street than the western section of the building. Because Google Streetview has not yet captured Sitka, it was difficult to find a clear shot of 407 Lincoln Street’s facade, but an image search of the building revealed this photograph of the eastern part of the building’s facade which clearly shows the building’s second story protruding further than its first story.

The paint color and wood pattern of this facade matched that of the protruding area in the VFYW image, so now I just needed to find an image of the western part of 407 Lincoln Street which contains the exact window from which the photograph was taken. Luckily, I stumbled across this image which is a reverse-angle shot of the VFYW image, including the breakwater, the rain shelter, and the two different facades of the 407 Lincoln Street building. The photograph was shot from the building slightly left of center with a horizontal blue band painted above its windows, second floor, window furthest to the right (see attached image “SitkaExactWindow.jpg”).

So, the final location is the second story of 407 Lincoln St., the window just to the west of the protruding facade, Sitka, Alaska, United States. Tracking this window down was way too much fun!

Dozens of readers knew the correct window in Sitka, but the following reader had the best case for a tie breaker:

Okay, so you’ll probably get a ton of correct answers, but this is my fourth (I previously got Paris, Dili, and Tallinn) and I started the VFYW league you posted about (which is still going strong!).

The answer is Sitka, Alaska.  The license plate started my search, but the lettering on the building seals it – the pink building is the “McDonald’s Bayview Trading Company” building that houses on the upper floor “Goldsmith Gallery,” the last letters of each word visible in the lettering.  The window is the first window on the second floor directly to the left of the brick wall.  (Incidentally this lettering used to read Russian American Company instead of Goldsmith Gallery, giving the picture a little “Russia from my doorstep” feel to the contest this week!)  I’ve also included a map:

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