VFYW: Spared Destruction

For contest #375, we visit a city whose rich culture stands the test of time. Personal stories abound.

(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.)

A followup from last week’s submitter:

Thanks again for posting my BA photo! I didn’t know what to expect, but somehow the excitement of taking and submitting my first VFYW made me know it was going to be that one-of-a kind feeling similar to locating my first VFYW. I really enjoyed reading everyone’s challenge in locating the window, and the stories — thank you to all the sleuths. I’m hooked and will submit again!

Submit your own to contest@andrewsullivan.com. The UWS super-sleuth from NYC notes:

I stand by my contention that the VFYW is connected to the universe ... or at least the New York Times. Last month it was a couple getting married at the church in Grytviken (#312). And now we have the NYT’s’ “36 Hours in...” column featuring Buenos Aires — just a week after you revealed BA as the answer to #374. Coincidence? Hmmm ...

Back in the early 2010s, the NYT aped the window contest. CNN followed suit.

On to this week’s contest, our longtime sleuth in Bend names the right continent:

This is Europe. It looks like Europe, has to be Europe. The cars are sensibly sized, and one of them is a Renault. Those look like sycamore trees in the foreground, so it is likely not too far north in Europe. 

From a newcomer to the contest:

I recently walked the last 112K of El Camino de Santiago and the scene looks familiar. I’m not sure this is in the Galician region of Spain, but the eucalyptus trees in the distance and knobbed off trees look akin to what is in Galicia.

Another newbie guessed simply “Lucerne, Switzerland,” and another “Wales.” Chini knows it’s neither of those:

Chini adds, “Hmm .... I’m running headlong into the Wednesday deadline after a crazy three days of work, so I’ve little to offer in the way of clues for this one, other than to suggest, perhaps, that a little de-evolution in one’s thinking would go a long way towards getting you to this iconic college town … ” Giuseppe debunks an apparent clue:

You may call it a red-stripes herring. It’s easy to think that the red-and-white sign over one of the bridge’s arches is the Austrian flag, given the Central European appearance of the buildings we see. But a couple of, um, red flags arise: why leave in that conspicuous clue and at the same time blur the car plates? And what is the other sign with the same colors but no stripes over the right arch?

In fact, we are not in Austria, and that sign is not a flag — it’s a signal used for river navigation:

A previous winner has more:

According to the European Code for Signs and Signals on Inland Waterways, it’s a sign to indicate that boats should not enter that arch (Section 8.1.2), while the white bits on the two diamond signs means boats must instead travel through that arch (Section 8.1.1). Leave it to the EU to transform a symbol of nationality into a tool of bureaucracy.

Another focuses on the trees:

They look like sycamores or London Plane trees, but it’s hard to tell from the photograph. The bark does not appear to be mottled, so I’m not sure it’s either one. Could also be an oak or a beech. Any of those species are good city trees that could tolerate being jammed into a small root space, frequent foot traffic and air pollution, which one would expect along a waterway like that. 

But wait, now I see some bark mottling, so I think they may be sycamores or London Plane. I would bet on London Plane because the mottling is so low on the trunk. (The sycamores usually have it higher up, at least what I’ve observed.) I challenge you to add a horticultural element to the contest for identifying genus and species of the surrounding flora. Ask your sleuths. I suspect you may have some eager fans. Amirite?

Horticulturalists always welcome. This next sleuth names the right country: