VFYW: Beating The Dragon

VFYW: Beating The Dragon For contest #514, we come across some peril in this alpine paradise. (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.) Highlights from this week’s write-up: More funiculars! The highest railway station in Europe Cows carrying Christmas-like trees on their heads A lake packed with explosives “A fucking dragon!” From the winner of last week’s contest, who lives near Montreal: Reading the latest VFYW write-up just now, I am humbled by the sheer precision with which the other sleuths were able to find the location. I myself almost went to to find the room number in person (I’m an alumnus). I reminded myself that the challenge lies in getting the info from a computer, so I reasoned myself out. I would most appreciate receiving the book. Thank you and have a great summer! From a sleuth in Vancouver, BC: In the discussions of Montreal last week, I was surprised to see no mention of the city’s most famous son, Leonard Cohen, who was born and buried there. He’s memorialized by a 21-story mural on Crescent Street in his old neighbourhood: Here’s a followup from our super-sleuth biologist: I’m abashed that after finding the tough view last week, I got the building so wrong ☹. But seeing the write-up about William Shatner was some consolation. It left out his album Has Been, the one that Milwaukee Ballet performed a dance sequence around. I got to see it twice — the only ballet I’ve attended more than once — and it was great fun. You can see the documentary about it here, or listen to the title song here: The next followup — a grim one — comes from our super-sleuth in Augusta, GA (and her story contains a subtle clue for where this week’s view is located): In October of 1994, Canadian authorities responding to a fire in Morin-Heights (about 40 miles northwest of Montreal) made a gruesome discovery: five bodies, including those of a man, woman, and 3-month-old baby who had all been stabbed repeatedly, with the infant having been possibly pierced through the heart with a wooden stake. The case was quickly linked to a simultaneously unfolding horror in Switzerland, where burning chalets in the towns of Cheiry and Salvan had yielded a total of 48 bodies, many dressed in ceremonial capes. The deceased were identified as members of the Order of the Solar Temple, an occult society formed in Geneva in 1984 by Joseph Di Mambro (a French jeweler who had once been imprisoned for impersonating a psychiatrist) and Luc Jouret (a Belgian doctor who had embraced homeopathy): The Order combined neo-Templar/Rosicrucian practices with other New Age beliefs and had amassed many wealthy followers in Switzerland, France, and Quebec. Trouble began to brew in the early ‘90s, with accusations of financial impropriety as well as claims of trickery involving the “manifestations” seen during ceremonies. Di Mambro and Jouret decided to eliminate the “traitors” in the Order who had turned against them, and then abandon their mortal shells to “transit” to Sirius with their most loyal followers. They lured back former members with the promise of repaying old debts and dispatched an assassination team to Canada to kill two married members who had named their newborn son Christopher Emmanual. (Di Mambro had named his own “immaculately conceived” daughter Emmanuelle, and had proclaimed her the new Christ-child.) The Order continued to add to its body count with 16 more deaths in France in 1995, and five more in Quebec in 1997. Swiss composer Michel Tabachnik — a high-ranking Order member who had written many of the sect’s esoteric texts — was tried in 2001 in connection to the 1995 deaths, but he was acquitted in both that and a 2006 trial. There have been several documentaries about the group in recent years, such as this one in 2022 (which should be available on BBC iPlayer). Below is the first episode of a 2023 documentary, which features video and audio recordings from the Order’s archives that have been newly released by authorities, as well as current interviews with Michel Tabachnik and other former members: Episodes 2, 3, and 4 have also been uploaded, and the whole series is available for purchase on Amazon. (I’ve seen it disappear from YouTube more than once, so anyone interested in watching it for free might want to do it sooner rather than later!) From the submitter of last week’s view: Thank you again for running my photo of Montréal! I’m really not sure I would have found that one, and I’m kind of sorry there wasn’t an architecture report last week. I know about Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 but have never gotten closer to it, and who knows what else there is in this amazing city. Damn, what a cool building. Here’s a quick followup from our resident architect, who was stumped last week: I can’t believe it; I searched all over Montreal, but I was searching west towards Mt Royal when I needed to be looking east. I almost emailed you to confirm if we were in Montreal so I could write about its buildings. Earlier in my carrier I worked with Vince Ponte, the urban planner who designed the underground walkways in Montreal. He knew all 32 kilometers of them. Plus he had the idea to link the downtown buildings of Dallas and Minneapolis with skywalks. I missed contest #380 the first time we visited Montreal. Maybe next time. P.S. As the Park Avenue sleuth suspected, my wife and I also did a mini-moon in Montreal, before heading to Greece a few months later to check out the Acropolis and ancient Greek sites. One more followup comes from the UWS super-sleuth: Last week I enjoyed reading about Montreal, a wonderful city to visit. My husband and I were there four years ago, staying 650 meters from last week’s View. (Yes, I should have recognized it!) I want to give a shout-out to the glorious Musee des Beaux-Arts, in the Ville Marie area. And to the public art, such as “Les Touristes,” sculptures by Elisabeth Buffoli, located in Parc de la Presse in Montreal: Meanwhile, not sure where you are these days, but if it’s anywhere on the East Coast, hope you’re keeping cool! And that you’re doing something enjoyable for the Fourth. Thanks, as always, for all the VFYW fun! I’m currently on the East Coast, but I’m driving out to western Michigan this weekend for a family reunion and Fourth festivities. Here’s one more email before we get to the current view: When I saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral in last week’s regular VFYW, I said to myself, is your reader at the dentist? Because it’s the similar view I will see on Monday when I go to the dentist for my next cleaning: On to this week’s view, a sleuth writes: I’m pretty sure that’s Luxembourg, along the river descending from the Old Town. I used to live there in the summer of 2019 and it’s a magical, if small, place. Another guessed simply “Besançon:: Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France.” A couple key clues are highlighted by our super-sleuth in Durham, UK: This week I think the view is from the rather-fancy (and expensive!) [hotel redacted]. Two clues in the image led me there — first, the Swiss flag: And there’s a mountaintop antenna in the far distance, which I think is the Beatenberg Antenna: A better view of that antenna comes from our super-sleuth in Warrensburg: I knew the flag conspicuously unblurred in the background was too good to be true, but it didn’t change the fact that [country redacted] has a million towns with a view like that. I therefore decided to focus on the radio tower on the mountain, and after eliminating a bunch, I came upon one at Beatenberg, which seemed to fit: Naming the right country — obvious by now — is our super-sleuth in Berkeley and his wife: Normally Jeanne doesn’t express an interest in the VFYW photo until after I’ve found the location, but this week she asked about it early, and after studying it a bit, and pondering a bit more, she said “Switzerland.” And she was right. (I’d been thinking that too.) But getting any more specific than that didn’t happen until I’d managed to identify the triangular road sign as one indicating a “school crossing,” and the vivid green box next to the sign as a “dog toilet” from a Swiss company named ROBI AG Wallbach (which apparently supplies them all over Europe but mostly in Switzerland). But that just gave me the confidence to conclude that the panel next to the gray box next to the green box is a tourist information sign featuring a map of Thunersee — the lake just west of Interlaken. After that, it was all a piece of Zuger Kirschtorte. Here’s how Giuseppe, our super-sleuth in Rome, got to the lake: This week the contest was fairly easy, because I found the location by searching for it on a map. This might seem a bit odd. While we know the place is in Switzerland (there is a clearly visible flag in the photo), the rest of the image features fairly generic elements: a cluster of houses, a narrow valley, and two looming peaks. Switzerland may be a small country, but it contains hundreds of valleys. How long would it take to check them all? In reality, I only consulted the map for the immediate area, but that just pushes the problem back a step. How did I manage to identify that specific area from such a generic photo? It’s actually perfectly feasible if the image itself contains a map of its surroundings. And that is precisely the case with this week’s view: If you look closely, you can see that the map depicts a lake (which is not surprising, given the palm tree visible in our photo; there is clearly something nearby that moderates the Alpine climate), and within a few minutes, you can find the corresponding lake (Lake Thun) on Google Maps: Our biologist sleuth grumbles: What kind of person posts a mountain-cliff image from Switzerland that isn’t in the Alps? A sadist, that’s who. But I got an exhaustive tour of every limestone cliff in the Alps out of it, so not really complaining. It was the cable car tower that finally gave it away, along with a similar image from Thun. Here’s a town guess from our super-sleuth in Alexandria: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland? I have nothing to go on but the license plates and the alpine houses … and the beautiful cliffs in the background. Sadly, I’m too lazy to descend the rabbit hole this week. My mom died last week and I’m planning the funeral with my sister, so I’m busy. Our VFYW condolences ❤️. Next up is the super-sleuth in Sagaponack — and prepare yourself for the cutest damn photo ever: We’re on a very packed itinerary in Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro this week, so not ideal for solving a very tough (at least for me) contest. From what I can tell in this week’s View, we’re somewhere in the Bernese Oberland. My closest connection is our Bernedoodle puppy, who has 1/8 heritage from that region. Sadly he broke his leg, but happily on the mend: He did his best to help us find the View window from his homeland, but we just ran out of time. That doesn’t deter us from our weekly mural, though. This one is executed in the traditional Lüftlmalerei style — the classic alpine art of trompe-l’œil house painting. It blends 19th-century romantic realism for the sweeping mountain landscape with an ornate folk-art border featuring native edelweiss and chamois, giving the entire piece the timeless look of a hand-painted fresco on a historic stucco facade: Another Swiss town is picked by the super-sleuth in Riverwoods: Hi Chris, I hope your summer is going well and, if you’re a futbol fan, you are enjoying World Cup action. I’m not achieving as much as I would have liked for the VFYW on my trip, but I hope to still send something upon returning — nonetheless our European travels have been enjoyable and are not over yet, thankfully. The view this week is challenging in general, but even more so for me when I can only use my phone and not PC to research. Too small of a screen :) After missing the Piso language clue from the Cusco view, I was determined to never miss easy clues again, so this week I feel confident that the flag shown in rear is Switzerland’s. But no luck in locating the town or window! So I’ll guess Murren. Yet another guess, from a new sleuth: “I’m not sure but this looks like a view from the Swiss Alps in Lucerne, Switzerland.” Another guesses simply “Chur, Switzerland.” Chini knows the right mountain town: The UWS super-sleuth sees Wengen: Immediately clear that those are the Alps. Lots of poking around got me to Wengen, Switzerland, but that’s as far as I could go. The Google Street map shows this area after what looks like a serious storm: snow everywhere, and you can’t even see the mountains. Bottom line: no luck and no time (again!) this week. Also picking Wengen is the super-sleuth in Sydney: No time for the actual hotel this week, as we have almost no reception right now, but here are some photos of where we are — the Kimberley in north Western Australia: Incredible country this one. I still haven’t been, to my dismay. San Mateo writes: The VFYW shows us a small village spread out in a lovely green valley, but this week, the houses, buildings, streets, and cars are not the clues which solve the puzzle, except to suggest that we’re likely in a Swiss village. Then we only need to pay attention to the peaks in the upper-left and -right of the VFYW, because from there, the official Swiss topological maps can help us identify the peaks, which are Spitzi Flue and Merra/Sigriswilergrat, and guide us to the valley below, which leads us to [town redacted]: And so, here is the first iteration of this week’s Reimagined, with the key clues superimposed on the VFYW (but wait): The VFYW, jammed up against this hotel parking lot and hedges, seems cramped. Rather, the VFYW should have better emphasized the small village spread out in the valley, and the limestone cliffs of the Sigriswil Ridge (Sigriswilergrat) — part of the foothills of the Bernese Alps. The curved Seestrasse is a better lower border for the picture, and the Mittelstrasse guides the eye from there up the diagonal to the church at the center top with the distinctive bell tower. So here’s a Reimagining of the Reimagining of the VFYW: Revealing the right town is the CO/NJ super-sleuth: Oof, this was a tough one. Switzerland was the easy part, what with the Swiss flag in front of the highest building up on the hill, the classic Swiss chalets, and the limestone cliffs characteristic of the northern Alps. After that, though, this was a slog. Two big clues were essential for me.