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:

The soil is red, the land is flat, and there is sprawl everywhere.  This is the Deccan Plateau, near Bangalore, India.  The people are brown and dressed in the style of Bangaloreans.  The black-and-white painted stones forming the road edge are found throughout Bangalore. In the picture, it looks like everyone is driving on the right side of the road, but presumably the picture has been flipped to make things harder.

This is not the center of Bangalore.  There would be many more buildings and they would be a lot taller.  Also, traffic is pretty light (must be early morning).  As the picture shows, development is underway now. I am going to guess that this photo was taken by a Westerner from his hotel.  The likeliest spot for such a Westerner this far outside of Bangalore is around Devanahalli International Airport.

Another writes:

A search for “black and white curbs” and “red clay” brought up Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. No google street views, so that’s as close as I can get.  (One of the people in the photo is probably a Dish reader!)

Another:

I think the picture is of Doha, Qatar. I’ve spent a day there on a layover and Doha is what immediately struck me. It has development typical of those newly affluent Gulf State cities: there is a dense, poorer looking old town in the background, with modern, sprawling, non-dense development in the rest of the picture, with wide lanes for cars. The stripes on the road are prevalent are in that part of the world, and Doha was the only city we found where the stripes are black and white, rather than red and white or some other combination.

Another:

At first glance, this photo seems remarkably familiar to me. Although it’s been years, and my memory could be failing me, I believe I used to ride past this place on a bus nearly every week while living as a Mormon missionary in Brazil, specifically Rio de Janeiro. More specifically, I’m guessing this is taken from an apartment building off of the Avenida da Americas.

(I hope I’m right. Seeing photos of Rio always brings back fond memories because it was during my time there, while preaching Mormonism, that I finally came to terms with my homosexuality and was able to decide to leave the church that had taught me to suppress my sexuality.)

Another:

This one screams of my homeland, Syria. The black-and-white striped curb is very typical in Damascus and surrounding villages. The smaller buildings in the background also look very much like buildings I’ve seen in and around Damascus. I’m going to say either Duma or Homs. I think you already did a VFYW from Damascus, so you probably wouldn’t go there again. If not Syria, then almost very certainly somewhere close by in the Arab world, maybe Lebanon or Egypt.

Another gets on the right track:

Definitely screams Africa.

Initially I guessed somewhere in the Sahel, perhaps maybe Khartoum. The lettering on the signs isn’t really decipherable, but it isn’t Arabic, so Khartoum is eliminated.  The flat topography could be a suburb of Johannesburg in the southern part of the continent, but they drive on the left in South Africa. Other possible cities in the Sahel vicinity are Niamey, N’Djamena, Bamako and Ouagadougou. The roads, however, are too well developed to be any of those cities. Not to mention the development of high-rise buildings.

Now what African countries have black-and-white street curbs? Close inspection of the Egyptian revolution reveals such curbs, but the people in the photograph aren’t Arab-looking, so this isn’t Egypt.

That leaves Nigeria. And the country’s largest city is Lagos. Of course this can be another city, but the topography partially flattens out in the country’s commercial capital. The airplane in the background is a rather big jet, leading one to conclude that the city in question must have a large airport. Murtala Muhammed is the seventh busiest in Africa, so this fits the criteria.

The only dilemma is the absence of water; Lagos is encapsulated by the Niger Delta. The haziness in the weather may be precluding visibility. The runway of the airport in Lagos runs north-south, so this photo is either northeast or southwest of the airport given the descending direction of the aircraft.

As the development is just being constructed, Google Earth isn’t likely to have any updated pictures that would help in pinpointing the exact window. So just going to venture a guess and say the fifth floor of the Hillcrest Hotel, northeast of the airport. Here’s hoping proximity counts.

Another gets closer:

I’m definitely not certain about this one (of course I never am about any of them), but  something about this reminds me of Equatorial Guinea.  It looks like a poor sub-Saharan country undergoing development and EG certainly fits that bill, so I am going to guess Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.  I found this picture that could be the same complex at an earlier point in construction, but again I am not 100% sure.  I think it is a possibility as it this complex is near one of the major roads in Malabo, which is one of the few places in Malabo you would possibly find yourself.  Also attached is a Google Earth image with a box around where the photo was possibly taken from.

Another:

I thought Ethiopia at first, because I thought the script on the signs was Amharic, but after subsequent review I decided it looked more like Arabic.  Also, it looks like a fairly large city and so I would have guessed Addis Ababa, but the background looks far too flat for it to be there, and there don’t appear to be any cities large enough in the flat portions of Ethiopia. This may be unfair, but I ruled out Somalia because the development under construction on the left seemed unlikely in a place as unstable as say, Mogadishu, but I could be underestimating the place.

SO that leaves me with an Eastern African city of substantial population, in a flat place, that drives on the right and speaks Arabic.  Khartoum, Sudan seems most likely (though I really wish I could have identified that brightly colored plume logo on the store in the middle).

Another:

Is that a glowing UFO or a big cruise missile-shaped airliner coming in for a landing? (If it were actually a radioactive cruise missile, I trust we would have heard about it by now.)  Or could that be a tear in the screen or window film?  I’m going with the tinted window, which means this landscape is much brighter and the colors more vivid than the image implies.  I’ve only seen building colors that bright and soil that red in Africa near the Equator.   Beyond that I can only go with unsubstantiated hunches. (Googling the only other visible clue, “Black and White Street Curbs” only brings up various limitations on public racial protests.)  Big city, some new generic taller buildings, endless low-rise suburbs.  Why not Kampala, Uganda?

Another:

I’m not entirely sure how people manage to pick out tiny little details from these photos and discern from them exactly where it was taken.  If I did, maybe I’d be able to make out the name of the store in the forefront.  Maybe it would help if I knew the type of trees growing alongside the road.  But I don’t.  What I do know is that I see red earth, a sprawling city, lots of low-level construction, and three black guys.  Based upon that scant evidence, I’m going with Luanda, Angola.

Correct! Seven readers guessed Luanda. One of them – and one of our most impressive VFYW followers – sends another of her composite images:

Welcome to the most expensive city in the world! While most residents live hand to mouth, Luanda is flush with oil and diamond money and growing fast, especially Luanda Sul (South). If you are an expat working there, you might score a condo rental for $10,000 a month. But if you’re visiting, you should stay on the upper floors of the Hotel de Convenções de Talatona, Rua Luanda Sul. There you can gaze at the construction of the posh condominios of the Atelier dos Sonhos (Studio of Dreams):

The thread that got us there?  The people in the street looked African. Probably right-hand traffic, if the street isn’t one way. The text on the condo ads and real estate office, Latin.  We could only make out “Moderno” on the condo billboard. Obviously a country with some money coming in to construct high end condos. Climate, sun angle, language, red earth, sparse vegetation. Angola looked very suspect, and we learned the south side or Luanda Sul is where it is happening. So a Google search in Portugese immediately returned a pic of our condo real estate office. Photo taken from the top floor of the hotel, probably the fifth room from the left side of the hotel facing the street.

Another great guess:

Felicidade!  It means happiness in Portuguese, and I’m feeling it.  After a long time squinting at the photo, this word on a billboard made it clear we were someplace where Portuguese is spoken (again!). The trees, the people, the affluence suggested Angola. After looking through many Luandan real-estate listings, I had a rough sense of where around the city you would find luxury apartment blocks. Property sure is expensive there! An image search for Talatona apartment yielded images of  the Talatona Hotel.  A hotel seemed like a possible vantage point, and their website included a helpful link to an aerial view:

The contest photo was taken from a guestroom, as the light fixture reflected in the window can be seen in pictures of the rooms on their site.  This is my best guess as to the exact window. Thanks for all the great puzzles!

And thanks for all the great submissions. But we have to award the prize to someone, and the following reader was the only one this week to have correctly guessed a difficult view in the past:

At first glance, this view tells me that it is a wealthier, rapidly developing, fairly dry, sub-Saharan African country, where people drive on the right side of the road. That eliminates almost all countries in the commodity-rich southern region, but leaves us with a clear answer: Angola. Specifically this is a view from the Hotel de Convenções de Talatona in Luanda Sul (south), the newer satellite city that has been built during the economic boom of the past decade. The picture is taken from the 2nd room from the end on the top floor of the hotel, as seen in the picture:

(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 decided to give Google’s new “Search by Image” a try and ended up being pretty underwhelmed, though quite amused, by the results. While Google correctly identified iconic, famous places such as the Duomo as seen from the Uffizi, the colorful houses on the hills of Positano and the palazzo publico of Siena, it failed miserably (and sometimes hilariously) with some less famous locales. For example, a shot from the Hotel Agave on the cliffs of Positano was deemed very similar to a photo of a large German man in a keg-throwing contest.  A pic of a flag-lined side street of Siena resulted in a photo of a leggy lingerie model.  And the beautiful buildings on the hills of Montalcino at sunset apparently look very similar to a swamp in the Everglades.

Another writes:

I actually recently tried out TinEye to try to find an image’s original source.  I figured it was a matter of time before Google harnessed this.

I also thought about the VFYW contest, but quickly realized it’s not a game killer.  First, you can run any potential image through the reverse search before choosing it for the contest.  Given the short window between image presentation and submission deadline, if it’s not finding anything on Saturday, it’s probably not going to before Tuesday, either.

Besides, an image search won’t work all that well for most images.  As humans, we have specific comparisons in mind when we search through images, a context that is lacking in reverse image searches.  Sure, the Gustavia harbor picture might work, because many other pictures exist from that vantage point that are pretty similar.  But most of the VFYW shots are unique.  We can imagine a different vantage point because we know what we are looking for.  A computer, not so much.

If anything, the reverse image search will force the contest to skip the more popular views.  The last few images have been really fun, because the clues were more subtle, and weren’t really something that reverse image search (or even browsing through google images) would help with.  That makes for a good contest, methinks.

So asks a reader of an amazing and potentially meddlesome new feature from Google:

A reader writes:

Once again, a window with no real visible landmark hints. Could be several places, but the double parking on the sidewalk is known as Tico-style parking. The architecture is reminiscent of that in Central America. And the tamarind becomes visible on the trees after using the infinite zoom function. Therefore, this is likely Tamarindo, Costa Rica. (Proximity won it last week, so here’s hoping it comes into play again.)

Another writes:

I’m not good at these things, but there seem to be clues:

– Near a beach
– I notice they drive on the left
– The houses look like they’re in South America
– A couple of people whom I think are black

Could it be Georgetown, Guyana? I don’t know where exactly, and I’ll be late for my graduation if I spend a lot of time. But maybe that building is the Russian Embassy. So perhaps it was taken from a house on Kitty Public Rd. & Pere St.

Another:

Driving on the left, the red tile roofs, streetlight design, tropical foliage including coconut palms, Norfolk Island pines and possibly Australian pines all indicate this pic to be of a coastal suburb of a Queensland, Australia city (at sunrise). But I can’t pinpoint exact location.

Another:

The kombi, truck, two other cars, palm trees and buildings are typical of many small condominiums along the Costa Verde (green coast) region of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The traffic light suggests a city, so I will guess Angra dos Reis.

Another:

The photo reminds me of Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where I have visited off and on for 16 years.  The white building in the right is Aparthotel Impala, where the country’s leading novelist is the cook to the Spanish owner.

Another:

Okay, I give up.

There are a few clues here that should make this simple – driving on the left, dark, the nearly square black license plate on the blue car, the sun tells us we’re looking west (assuming that’s a sunset we’re looking at), and the satellite dishes on the house are pointed south – telling us we’re in the Northern Hemisphere.

Put all those things together, and precious few countries make the grade, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Barbados is the only place that comes close – driving on the left, the license plates, the northern hemisphere, but damned if I can find a match. That solution bothers me anyway: the satellite dishes are pointed at a low angle, like they would be if you were pretty far away from the equator, which Barbados isn’t really.

I give up.

The photo was taken at 6.11 am, so it’s actually a sunrise. Another:

Is it Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei?  Attached is a photo I took from my hotel room in Sept 2010 (and meant to e-mail to you for the contest but probably never did):

Another gets on the right track:

This one was a geographer’s dream.  First off, I suppose I could be wrong, but if those aren’t sunrise clouds I’ll be very surprised, which means we have an easterly shore on a very large body of water. While there’s no cars moving in the picture, all the parked ones are on the left side of the street. That means it’s probably a left-hand driving country, which narrows it down pretty well.  There’s absolutely nothing remotely Asian looking about any of the architecture, so I think we can scratch off India, China, and Japan.

This gets it down to Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, and east Africa below the horn.

From there we have fairly Western, industrialized streetlights with buried power lines, relatively lush vegetation (including palms), Spanish Mission architecture, a right-angled street grid, asphalt macadam streets, meaning it has to be at least a somewhat urbanized, developed area with a decent amount of economic prosperity.  The landscape just doesn’t look like an island to me, and there’s nowhere in the Caribbean that has the right look.  The palm trees mean it’s tropical, and it looks too lush for tropical Australia.  (Also, the plants don’t look, well, weird enough for Australia or New Zealand.)

So going around the cape of Africa, it’s going to have to be a reasonably prosperous, developed, coastal city.  The two biggest candidates that jump out are Durban and Dar es Salaam.  I am really torn between those two, but in Google image searches, Durban just looks a lot drier than this picture.  I’m going with Tanzania.  (No, I’ve never been there, I’m just going on geography.)

Another is also in the right territory:

Seventy six jurisdictions drive on the left.  Some of those are tropical enough to have coconut palms.  Only a few of the cities there are facing somewhat east – that is a sunrise isn’t it?   With enough traffic to merit a stoplight, one would expect more of it at sundown.

Mombasa, Kenya has most in common with our requirements.  T-shaped streetlight poles.  Red tume roofs.  Tall fences and security gates with a guard shack one might find in a poor country with some affluent neighborhoods.

Another zeroes in:

Finally, one I know!  This photo was taken from a block of flats in Maputo, Mozambique, with that specific view looking at the intersection of Avenida Mao Tse Tung and Avenida Julius Nyerere (the flat where this photo was taken is located on Avenida Mao Tse Tung):

I shouldn’t feel too proud of myself though; I used to work down the street from that location, and also lived within a few blocks of there as well (I passed that intersection on my way home every day).  In fact, at one point, I nearly moved into a flat in that same building where this photo was taken from.  Come September I’ll be back there again, can’t wait … Maputo is a great city.

A half-dozen readers correctly guessed Maputo. Another:

Okay, another set of white buildings with red tile roofs … Grrrr.  I tried to get a photo of the building, but the best I can do is this: the window is, I’d say, on the fourth or fifth floor of the apartment building over the Sheik Restaurant and the lower-level Sheik Discotheque (proper attire required), at Avenida Mao Tse Tung, 57, (at the corner of Avenida Armando Tivane), in Maputo Mozambique.  If I can get more precise on the window, I’ll write again.

Another:

I can’t believe this. What a treat. This photo is taken from an apartment building at number 36 Avenida Mao Tse Tung:

The intersecting street that we barely see is Julius Nyerere. I’m not sure from what floor the photo was taken, but I believe it was not the 9th floor, where I lived. A new building has been constructed toward the Indian Ocean and the house across the street has been painted a new color, but that’s it, I’m certain. I know because I spent many mornings staring at this exact scene as I ate imported Golden Grahams and caught up on Dish posts that had accumulated after I had gone to sleep the night before. (Or tried going to sleep; the thumping bass from the in-building night club, Sheik, often keep us up until sunrise.) My own photo is attached.

I spent a year in Maputo and made wonderful connections with people I’ll stay in touch with for the rest of my life. But you mean to tell me that another Dish reader is (or was) living in my building? Now that’s a connection I wish I could have made.

The following reader had the most accurate and impressive response:

No. 57, Avenida Ma Tse Tung (the Sheik Disco/Restaurant building), 6th floor, corner apartment. Please see attached file called “VFYW Satellite image” where the building is circled in black and the approximate location of the apartment is circled in red:

Ive never entered this contest before, although I’ve guessed correctly on one or two entries, but the husband is out of town, it’s horribly hot and I’d rather be inside, and something about this photo captivated me. So I decided to give it a try.

I noticed the cars were driving on the left, so that narrowed it down. The large satellite dish in the background was distinct, as were the street lights. It had to be somewhere warm enough to have palm trees, but not so dry it couldn’t support more lush vegetation. It also seemed to be on a slight hill, judging from the fence. The buildings also seemed to have a colonial flavor.

So I went to work. A few guesses (Grenada, Suriname) were very wrong, and then I noticed the trees. They looked like flame trees I’d seen in African countries. So I started to look for African countries where they drive on the left. I ruled out former British colonies with coastline and then stumbled across Mozambique. I didn’t know the Portuguese used to drive on the left and the fact they do so in Mozambique is still a holdover from the colonial days. Learn something every day!

Once I had Mozambique, I started looking at the map of Maputo for the boulevard-type streets with a median in the middle, where one intersects with another. There are several in Maputo, but I finally found the intersection of Avenida Mao Tse Tung and Avenida Julius Nyerere. From the satellite view, I could clearly see the buildings visible in this photo. Ah ha! Gotcha.

I could see there were two tall buildings across the street, and figured the photographer must be in the one closer to the park and away from Av. Julius Nyerere. But finding a photo of it was the real challenge. Maputo is not as photographed as a lot of other places and it took a lot of digging to find the buildings. I found photos with the buildings from a distance, but close ups were another story.

Eventually I found a few photos of the Sheik disco/restaurant building. Here‘s a link to a photo of it, but it’s only a few stories, not the whole building. (The person who took the photo lives on the 6th floor, corner apartment in that building. I think.)

Along the way, I discovered that many people who either grew up in what was then Lourenco Marques (now Maputo) or left as kids have memories of it (some fond, some not) and even return as tourists. If you search online for the city and street names as they were during the colonial period, many more things turn up.

I found a YouTube video of someone driving down Avenida Massano de Amorim, which is Avenida Mao Tse Tung’s name in the colonial era. At 2:13-2:14 in the video you can see the building (the yellow one, the Sheik building) from which the VFYW photo was taken:

As an aside, the white building next to it was designed by renowned architect Pancho Guedes and was called Prometheus. It’s since been renovated (not in a good way), but you can read about his thoughts on it here. And here‘s a photo of it when it was in its prime. You can take walking tours to see Guedes’ buildings in Maputo these days. He’s got lots of fans.

And also along the way I found this blog entry, which Google helpfully translated from the Portuguese for me. It turns out that the blog owner had lived in that apartment building growing up and someone sent her photos taken from the windows. You can see the street lights, the flat-topped guard house, and other landmarks. The building that is vivid orange in your VFYW photo must have been painted recently because it’s yellow-beige in these photos, which were taken in 2010. The author says the person who took the photos lives on the 5th floor. The photos on the blog seem a bit closer to the ground than the one you posted, so I’m going to say the VFYW photo was taken from the 6th floor, which is the exact apartment in which this person lived.

I’m sure someone will have a great story about how they grew up in this apartment (like the owner of that blog, maybe) or a terrifying one about how they had to flee for their lives when the Portuguese were expelled from Mozambique and left everything they owned in that apartment, so I don’t expect to win the contest. But it’s been really fun learning about Mozambique, a country I knew virtually nothing about. And do take a moment to listen to the music in that YouTube video – no idea who the artist is, but the music is great.

Congrats on the win; we will get you a window book soon. And thanks to everyone else for the great guesses.

(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’m guessing that’s the central coast of California, maybe a bed and breakfast up on the hill above Monterey, California, with its Monterey Cypresses and Spanish tile roofs. (But it’s all romance and projection; I’d sure love to be there right now with my wife.)

Another writes:

Definitely Caribbean. I’d like to think this is from Jack’s Hill or any hill that circles the Liguanea Plain on which Kingston is built.  Kingston and St. Andrew are like Manhattan and the Boroughs of NY.  Most business and residences are in St. Andrew and those poles seem like the newer utility ones replacing wood.  Even the statue in the garden could belong to one of few Catholic families in the island! The white patch could be another residential development, and farther in the distance are St. Catherine’s hills and the  in-between swampland of Hunt’s Bay/Caymanas.

Another:

I was about to give up on this one.  Then I zoomed in to 16,000x on the patch of ocean and spotted a rare whale that only lives off the coast of Samana, Dominican Republic. Please send me my book before I leave on summer vacation.

Another:

This photo immediately reminded me of Monteverde, a small town in the mountains in Costa Rica.  While this photo seems like it could have been taken anywhere in South or Central America, the simple roof of the building and ocean view reminds me of my time in this beautiful, small town in Central America. Best vacation I ever had.

Another:

I think the view is located in northern Martinique, maybe looking down over Sainte Marie from the west? Do you need a street? Maybe Chemin Rural de la Ferme Saint Jacques, though that’s just a guess. I like this contest, but boy I hope future ones are easier!

They will be. Another:

This may be a bit of a wild guess, but it reminds me of the hills overlooking Kyrenia (Girne in Turkish), Cyprus. I was with a British Greek-Cypriot visiting the village her refugee parents came from before the Turkish invasion. She had subsequently married an American and travelled under his name (travel restrictions for Greek Cypriots have been loosened more recently but back then she had to pretend to be a casual British tourist). The red roof tiles look right and the elevation of the hills close to the coast is about right, but knowing my luck it’s probably on the other side of the world!

It’s the correct side. Another:

I’m reminded of the oceanside red roofs I saw in Haifa, Israel.  Haifa, home to Bahai Gardens, is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. (Israel really is the land of milk and honey.)  Many of the roofs I saw, however, were lined with barbed wire.

Another:

This pic screams Lebanon to me (but watch it be northern Israel). I don’t know how to do those google image searches, so I’ll let someone else explain the bricked arches (which I’ve never seen in Lebanon, and probably are more characteristic of Roman engineering). Nonetheless, I picked Jbeil as a gamble due to the relative proximity of the mountain foothills to the coastal plains.  (Now the husbear is saying it’s probably western Mexico, I better click send…)

Another:

Reggio Calabria, Calabria, Italy? The trees look like Calabrian pine and eucalyptus, and the view could be of Sicily across the Strait of Messina. Wrong or right, I have learned some fascinating things about Mediterranean conifers!

Another:

I’ve been studying the weird ways that people figure out the location, so this week I decided not to focus on the lovely red-tiled archways, but on something mundane. So, how ’bout that stupid utility pole! That led me to discover that concrete utility poles are used in southern Australia because of termite problems, and – lo and behold! – they have an actual name – Stobie poles (named after some guy named Stobie obviously). So, I’m taking a stab at Adelaide, somewhere high looking down on somewhere low on the coast. I’m sure I’ll lose, but thank you for the education in concrete utility poles, just what I needed.

Speaking of weird ways:

This one seemed to be devoid of useful clues until I spotted the Wasilla Pine Nut Rabbit on his way up the tree to harvest some pine cones for some pesto.  Native to Alaska, the rabbit has apparently been brought to the Northwest coast of Italy and my guess is that this shot was taken from the winter home of Sarah Palin.

By the way: Happy one-year anniversary!

Cheers!  Check out the first contest here. Another:

OK, you finally outdid yourselves. I’m participating because I sincerely believe that, beyond the fact this looks similar to the south coast of Spain, I doubt there is a single reference point that can be used to place the picture anywhere. I believe I am letting my eyes trick me when I think I see the African mountains beyond the sea, but that’s the only useful thing I could see, so I’ll risk a bet and go for Getares, close to Tarifa, in the south end of Spain.

In the right vicinity. Another:

Marbella, Spain, for no particular reason.  It’s just too difficult.

Closer:

In an unusual showing of self-discipline on my part, I’m going to repress my prevailing impulse to scour up and down the numerous unknown, but potentially correct, coastlines and instead simply send you my most immediate Gut Feeling, reinforced with only the most general and precursory glance at Google Maps. My goal is not to win, but to merely be mentioned amongst those happy few Near Misses Below the Fold. I realize, of course, that I’m risking landing amidst those miserable Geographically Obtuse Above the Fold, but that’s the paradox of this irresistible hell which is VFYW.

Here goes nothing (and everything): Mediterranean-looking water, climate, and vegetation, mountains opposite – somewhere in the mountains just outside of Marbella, Spain.

After several recent contests containing razor-thin victories and difficult means to determine them, it’s refreshing this week to have an unambiguous winner – the only reader to guess the correct country, Portugal (specifically Pe da Serra, near Sintra):

If this isn’t the most difficult yet, I will eat my shoe. Therefore, I stand a chance against the VFYW pros. This screams Portugal and the Algarve. Slightly uphill from a beach city in the blistering sun, to the northwest. I’m guessing Pinhal, Portugal (looking down on Albufeira).

Greetings from Heidelberg, Germany, where last month while I was eating lunch in the canteen some stranger came up to me and said while pointing at my T-shirt: I read the Daily Dish too! Never was I more proud of my blue ‘Of no Party or Clique’ outfit.

And now he can add a window book to his collection.

(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:

This is another tough one, and I don’t know where it is.  My first thought was Europe, and the balconies, awnings, and tiled roofs on the apartment buildings suggested Southern Europe, as did the poplar trees.  But the cars don’t look right – I wouldn’t expect to see those minivans in Europe.  Maybe it’s South America?  Like Buenos Aires or Santiago?  So, I don’t know – it might help if I could make out the sidewalk café’s name, or the brand of beer on the sign outside … I’m stumped, but I’ll guess Buenos Aires, Argentina!

Another writes:

Obviously European. Red and yellow signage at lower right pegs it in Spain, as does the little red Seat-brand looking car.  Big city, so probably one or the other of the great Spanish urban rivals Barcelona or Madrid.  Barcelona, where my family is from, has relatively few streets that run in both directions in areas with that kind of architectecture. Plus, buildings in Barcelona’s Eixample neighborhood, where this would most likely be taken, are only six stories tall – these are more or less eight.  So I’m going with Madrid, and, being Catalan, I therefore do not care to spend any more time on this week’s contest. (If I’m wrong, please don’t let it be Barcelona!)

Not Barcelona – or Madrid. Another:

I’m guessing Antakya, Turkey because it’s the only time an answer has jumped into my head so immediately upon viewing a picture. (I’ve also correctly guessed several times in the past when I did not bother to send an answer in – Damascus, Paris, St. Andrews – and ended up kicking myself over it.) The vegetation and light quality seem right – definitely Mediterranean – but I also don’t think it’s Spain. It’s too clean to be North Africa.  Probably that store front is readable by someone more tech-savvy than me, who will reveal this to be a picture of Chile or something, but I’m gonna go with my gut.

Another:

This is a view over Charles Square (Karlovo nám?stí) in the Czech capital, Prague.  I just don’t have the energy (or interest) to spend hours researching the exact building, time of day, window, etc. of the photograph.  I mean, the contest is “The View From Your Window”; the goal is to determine the view rather than the window.  If not, maybe the contest should be renamed something like “The Window Of Your View” or something else that stresses the building and window rather than the view. Prague is a lovely city – what more does a person need to know?

That it’s not Prague! Another:

Tough one.  Maybe someone will recognize the signs on the businesses, but I couldn’t find anything concrete to go on.  The satellite angles and general feel of the photo suggest northern Europe.  Since my mom’s side of the family is Danish, I’m going to go with Copenhagen.

Another:

You sneaky bastards.

At first glance this looks like a fairly easy VFYW. Then you start to study it closely and realize there’s almost nothing with which to anchor yourself – no legible license plates or street signs (that blue/white “PD” looking sign on the bottom right is a googlers dead-end), and fairly nondescript buildings that could be suburbs in any European or even southern cone South American city (Buenos Aires, Santiago).

The most striking things in the picture are the lime green tables and chairs outside that cafe. I mean, seriously … lime green chairs. And so it is that I find myself on a Saturday afternoon google-imaging “cafe lime green chairs outside.” The only plausible hit comes from some woman’s lovely blog about her year-long sabbatical in France. Walking through Lyon, she stumbled upon these tables and found them striking enough to photograph. In her picture, the restaurant seems to be “Le Panier a Salade” which is located in the heart of Place Neuve Saint Jean, which is my final answer.

One of the joys of VFYW is discovering blogs during the hunt. Almost makes up for the compulsion to comb through hundreds of lime green table google image pics on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

Another:

I have a great idea for a movie. A demented criminal mastermind hides a nuclear bomb somewhere in a major city in the United States.  In order to taunt the police, he sends them a clue – an extreme close-up photo of a brick at the base of the building where the bomb is hidden.  The police are stumped, until one intrepid rookie decides to send the photo to a certain beagle-loving blogger.  The blogger posts the photo online for his readers to see.  Ninety minutes later, the bomb is found, along with a story about how somebody proposed to their girlfriend right in front of that brick. It would make a fortune, don’t you think?

P.S. I have no idea where that picture was taken.

Another:

It’s definitely Switzerland. In the bottom-right corner, next to the cafe, is a Swiss parking meter, yellow cycle lanes, overheard strung lights, and a sign for Cardinal beer. The beer is brewed in Fribourg but also found in the capital Bern and Zurich.  The architecture reminds me more of Zurich just north of the city. I was looking at Google Street View without success. Since I won #33, my wife only let’s me search VFYW for half an hour. So I’ll stick with Fribourg.

It is definitely Switzerland. Another:

The buildings, the old ones in the background and the newer ones (’70s, ’80s) in the foreground look truly Swiss. But why I’m sure it’s Switzerland is because of the bar sign in the yellow house. This looks like the Cardinal brand, a Swiss beer brand which is brewed in Fribourg. So my guess would be that this is from a Swiss city in the French speaking part of the country – let’s say Lausanne, cause the place isn’t flat …

Closer. Another:

The yellow markings for the bike lane and (especially) the pedestrian crosswalk suggest that the photo was taken in a city in Switzerland; apparently, very few European countries have yellow pedestrian crosswalk markings.  I couldn’t pin down an exact location, but my hunch is that the photo was taken in Geneva.

Good hunch!  About a dozen readers correctly guessed Geneva. One writes:

Easy. I imagine loads of people will get this. The Coop supermarket in the photo was my local for three years. The photo is taken from the building on the corner of Rue Voltaire and Rue Vuache. Probably from the fourth floor or fifth floor for Americans.  Here‘s the view of the building the photo was taken from. Here‘s the view from street level:

Another:

I already won this competition last year by getting Lausanne, but thought I’d email in anyway because, well, OMG that’s my town! My office is about three blocks from here, and I very nearly got an apartment in older building on the far corner of the T-junction in the picture (rue Benjamin, where the white car is leaving the frame on the right). There’s a railway bridge immediately behind the photographer; behind that is the stop, Isaac Mercier, where I catch the #13 or #14 tram home every evening.

The Salvation Army shelter is round the corner, so this is not the most salubrious area in the city, though it’s hardly dangerous. However, if any intrepid Dishers want to go have a look, they should walk down the hill behind the frame to the railway line, turn left and walk two blocks North alongside the tracks (on rue de Malatrex) to Trattoria da Tonino, on the corner with rue Servette, who does a very tasty Penne alla Siciliana.

The address where the photographer was standing is either rue de Voltaire 10, 1201 Geneve, or rue du Vuache 1, 1201 Geneve – not sure on the configuration of the staircase in the building, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you which. The photographer is facing West looking along rue Voltaire towards the (rather under-rated in my view) neighbourhood of St.-Jean. As a little variation on a theme, I patriotically put together the ubiquitous aerial photograph on our very own web-map service, www.search.ch, rather than on Google: http://map.search.ch/d/zllztk4nz.

You should give this week’s prize to someone who doesn’t live here though, because most people who do will immediately recognize the distinctive Geneva architecture and yellow Swiss road paint.

A good point. A quick detour:

The fact that I’ve been living in Geneva for the last two years and still can’t find this view, even though I’m absolutely positive that it’s here somewhere, makes me realize just how hard this contest is. So I’m just gonna go with the Jonction neighborhood of town. Here is a view of it, behind the beautiful Rhone, from my window:

Another:

So the location is looking out from a building down onto the Coop at 18 Rue Voltaire. I recognized it instantly – the slope of the road, small cars, architecture of the buildings – I thought, hey, that’s Geneva. Looked a little closer and I saw the Coop sign; I’ve stocked up on Suchard (swiss hot cocoa), vervene tea and chocolate bars there a number of times. Then, of course, the yellow SwissPost truck left no doubt it was Switzerland. A quick poke around Google maps led me right to Rue Voltaire and you can’t miss those pink buildings.

I’ve already been lucky enough to win one book (Brookline), after also guessing Lausanne correctly, so no need to consider me for this one. Plus this spares me sending screenshots and guessing exact windows. But it was fun to reminisce about the really fun karaoke bar that used to be across the street from the building where the photo was taken. Good times.

Another:

Wow, I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, and now I feel like I have! The place looks Italian, and I looked at many Italian cities in Google Maps but noticed they all had white crosswalks. I looked in some other nearby countries and saw Switzerland had yellow ones. There seem to be only a few places in Switzerland where there are 7+ story buildings like these ones. I looked along bus routes in Geneva and Zurich and was about to give up when I saw a pink/yellow building in the satellite view. I held my breath and went to street view and saw it was right! I highlighted the window in the attached picture:

Should be in the corner building above La Bella Gallipoli restaurant on Rue Voltaire, though it looks like the building’s entrance is on Rue du Vauche. I think it’s the 2nd window in (away from Rue Voltaire) because of angles. I think it’s sixth floor because it seems to line up with the 5th floor in the pink building, and the slope should be going down. Also the iron work at the bottom of the picture looks to be directly in the window frame, and lower floors look like they have it a little outside. Google maps doesn’t show a hotel and there isn’t any sign, so I’m guessing an apartment.

A previous winner sends another one of her multi-part diagrams:

Another guesses a different window:

I hope this note finds you after a restful long weekend. Despite hoping to spend little time near my computer this weekend, my heart leapt when I spotted the yellow cross walk in the VFYW contest. Those had to be from my native Switzerland!  The satellite antennas made me think this had to be in the French-speaking part of Switzerland (the German speaking Swiss are too neat for Satellite dishes).  The sign on the corner of the pink building looked like “Coop”, one of Switzerland’s largest retail chains. A search of Coops in Geneva soon revealed the one pictured here, seen from the apartment building on the corner of Rue du Vuache and Rue Voltaire. The railings and wire probably make this one easier for skilled contestants, but it’s still just a guess for me … maybe it’s the leftmost window on the fifth floor?

Thank you for giving me ‘home’ court advantage; now I have two successful VFYWs under my belt!

Yet another close tie this week, and we have yet to hear back from the submitter of the photo as to which window is the precise vantage point.  We will update as soon as we hear back.

Update: Our submitter points to the window in the second row from the top, second window from the left:

Wow, that is indeed exactly correct, my kitchen window! Suddenly I find myself ever-so-slightly frightened  :)

Only one other reader (who hasn’t won a contest already) correctly guessed that window:

Yesterday, a friend posted to Facebook that they were leaving Switzerland, so I  e-mailed and asked if the contest photo reminded them of anything.  “Perhaps Lausanne, it reminds me of a train trip from Zurich to Geneva”.  So I spent some fruitless hours cruising around Lausanne, before visiting Geneva.  I looked for places with at least a few trees on the south side of the street, and none on the north side.  The link to the street view is here. Looking back at the building, and finding place on the road where the tip of the tree, a spot on the road, and the window all line up makes me think the window is the one circled in orange.

This is one of those rare moments when we can’t determine a tie-breaker based on the given rules, so we’ll just have to send books to two readers this week.

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