VFYW: A Massif Good Time

For contest #394, we travel to one of the most incredible ski areas in the world.

(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)

From the winner of last week’s contest:

Wait, what?! I thought there would be multitudes of sleuths getting the right spot, and my entry was relatively thin, but I am happy to accept two free years of Dish. More like delighted, thrilled, surprised, and a bit gobsmacked. I don’t feel very impressive at the VFYW, so I humbly accept your congratulations and the gift. And I look forward to more playing!

Looking at the photo above, the UWS super-sleuth cries, “Now THAT is a mountain!” Another sleuth asks, “Peja, Kosovo?”:

That’s my guess for this week’s picture — the view towards Rugova Gorge from Peja, a town I lived in during 1999-2000 as a humanitarian aid worker. Rugova is part of the Accursed Mountains (aka the Albanian Alps).

My first thought was how nice it was to see a beautiful landscape during such dark times for the world. Then I remembered why I had lived in Peja. My ethnic Albanian colleagues told me about their experiences in March 1999 when conflict erupted and they had to flee on foot over the snow-covered mountains into Montenegro. When they returned, many found their homes had been burned, their friends and neighbors killed. Terrible stories from a terrible time. So even looking at this lovely picture reminds me of brutality.

Here’s Chini with the high-up view, adding, “I’d give you folks a clue this week, but to be honest, I’m drawing a blank ... ”

From the previous winner in Shiprock: “Switzerland! That is all.” A sleuth in Alexandria gets more specific:

Wengen, Switzerland? My husband did a duathlon in Zofingen when we were younger and did things like that, and we took a day trip to Wengen for some beautiful hiking. The town looked exactly like the photo, but I’m sure there are a zillion towns in the Alps that look like it, with the winding roads, chalets and flower boxes. I didn’t see anything fancy like the Matterhorn in the background, so I guess that Wengen is as representative as any other beautiful mountain town in France or Switzerland.

Thanks for letting me take another pot shot from the cheap seats in the back of the VFYW stadium ... I’ll let the super stars on the field do the hard work :)

Another Swiss town:

This one feels so easy to get to the right part of the world, which makes me think we’re being tricked. It looks like the Alps, but could it be one of those American tourist towns (e.g. Leavenworth, WA) that are made to look like somewhere else? It all looks a little too neat and tidy to be real. That said, I’ve been to Leavenworth and it isn’t that neat and tidy either. So, I’m going to guess Interlaken, simply because it is the only place in the Alps that I’ve been to.

A previous winner reveals the right country: