VFYW: Warships At Rest

For contest #320, we get a glimmer of Hope.

Before we get to that serene view, the submitter of last week’s photo from DC takes umbrage:

You wrote last week, “Not a single reader guessed Room 331, but perhaps like last week our submitter was mistaken. That’s what this entry suggests: ‘A friendly and patient gentleman named Andrew who answered my call to the Capitol Hill Hotel... In fact, according to Andrew, it is room 330.’”

“Mistaken”??? That’s waving a red flag in front of my fragile ego. The staff at the hotel are indeed very friendly, but I’m afraid it was the staffer who was mistaken. Here’s the hotel's bill showing Room 331 :->

*Mic drop*

But that’s not all from DC — here’s our super-noodge from Berkeley:

A bit like in Chefchaouen, the window in the Capitol Hill Hotel that got identified as the right window last week was just one or two windows off target. It was the right floor, but wrong window. Yes, you highlighted the consensus choice, but then we’ve always needed to guard against the tyranny of the majority. I slapped together an illustration of why the consensus window couldn’t possibly have been the view window:

Sorry to be a noodge.

In more housekeeping, regarding the contest two weeks ago — the one from Chefchaouen — that photo’s submitter is chagrined:

The response from your Colorado sleuth in Jersey is hilarious. It is totally possible I misremembered the window. But then that suggests that Chini is reading my email to you — which would actually explain a lot.

To settle things once and for all in Chefchaouen, next up is the globe-trotting sleuth in Alaska, who promised that his daughter would provide a definitive, on-the-ground answer to the dispute:

She was headed to Chefchaouen anyway, so it was pure serendipity that the View came out the week before she arrived — and of course that gave my Siberian partner and I the idea of looking in Morocco in the first place. My daughter got to Chefchaouen after an overnight bus ride and wasn’t feeling so great, but she still managed to find the hotel with the View. She is a committed young traveler and VFYW aficionado. Turns out the majority was right, and Chini gets a rare miss. Here’s her report:

Ok, get excited. I had a great time entering the hotel and asking the desk guy if I could go upstairs to retake the photo. He was totally amused and allowed me into the rooms and agreed with me that the view is most definitely from the top window!  Here are photos:

I tried to get multiple angles just in case, but I really don’t think it could be the bottom one. Also, Chefchaouen looks a bit different, since it’s winter now — no leaves on the trees or vines.

She texted that she is beginning to feel like a regular contributor to the Dish and wonders if you’ll come up with a nickname for her. She now has had two of her Views used for the contest — UBC Vancouver dorm room and a more recent View from a cathedral bell tower in Cadiz, Spain — as well as one used for the main Dish (from her hostel in Cadiz). She has texted me dozens more from her journey across the US in the fall and now in Spain and Morocco in the past couple of months. She is hooked.

Finally, on to this week’s contest, here’s a regular sleuth in Toronto:

My first thought: this view has to be somewhere either very far north or very far south, given the angle of the satellite dishes. The presence of what looks like a navy ship in the harbour made me think it must be a place of some importance. 

So, maybe this might be Ushuaia, Argentina — the capital of Tierra del Fuego — since the Argentinians jealously protect their presence in the area from the Chileans just across the Beagle Channel. But since you just recently featured a view on South Georgia Island, I figured you wouldn’t go back to that part of the world so soon, even with last week’s announcement of the discovery of the wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance. Also, the hills behind this town are too small to be those behind Ushuaia. 

So, I moved north in my hunt. I’m pretty sure this is Narvik, Norway, one of the most northerly ports within NATO and the site of the first victory for the Allies over Nazi Germany, in 1940.

Another reader sticks with Argentina:

I was supposed to travel there in 2020 but the trip was cancelled due to COVID. This week’s window reminds me of the view from a hotel I was planning to stay in. Common sense tells me that you wouldn’t post a window so close to South Georgia Island — but then again, maybe you are very, very sneaky. 

So I’m sure that this is a loser, but I’ll guess: Ushuaia, Argentina.

Another reader goes with simply “Dobrota, Montenegro.” Another picks another town in Montenegro — Kotor:

This contest was a tough one. I couldn’t find any other bays that had the dry low hills — or are these mountains? Palm trees and the letters PA with the macaw? Tropical, English speaking? That one house — it looks like something from San Fran to me, or at least the states. It’s such a populated area with yachts and money — where is it? I couldn’t find a match, but hopefully I’ve got the right general area!

The right area is pictured below, from Chini. This week’s view really hit Chini’s sweet spot (as if he needed it):