Cards no 550 - 556 - a little miscellany

Oh Gosh!
 I have not managed to upload any postcard pictures this last three weeks. I am, amazingly, now sixty cards behind. I cannot believe that I have received so many cards in just three weeks. That is an average of over three a day. It makes me wonder if there is any chance of getting this blog up-to-date and, perhaps more to the point, keeping it up-to-date in the future without sacrificing the need to do various other things, like wash my face and drink my morning tea.
And yet some of the cards are so lovely that I really must share them with the blogosphere. So in the future I shall endeavour to do a compromise. This will mean some cards don’t get very much research or description. That doesn’t mean they are any less valuable additions to my collection – they are simply the sacrificial lambs to being able to continue with this blog. Any way, here goes….

Card no 550 – Bryony and Mark 

Dove Cottage, Grasmere

Country Card Sent From: England, GB 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Sheffield 

Date Received: 8th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 77 miles 

Time Taken: 1 day

It seems strange to now be the recipient of family cards from the Lake District having been the sender of so many from there in my youth. Dove Cottage was once the home of William Wordsworth.  I suspect a great deal has changed there since I visited it forty years ago when a few visitors a day was all it received.  Nowadays it has a major Visitor Centre.

Card no 551 – Xiaowen 

Hong Kong Metro map 

Country Card Sent From: China

Place that Card Sender Lives:  Fuzhou

Date Received: 8th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 5,970 miles 

Time Taken: 29 days 

Postcrossing i/d -  CN-911638

This stylised version of the Hong Kong Metro is based on the idea of the London Underground map by Harry Beck (1931) one of the greatest designs of the twentieth century.

Card no 552 – Ashlyn 

Hong Kong Metro map 

Country Card Sent From: Singapore 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Singapore 

Date Received: 8th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 6,834 miles 

Time Taken: 7 days 

Postcrossing i/d - SG-102214

 

Isn’t this a delightful Panda stamp.

Card no 553 – Martine 

Le Ferry-boat, Marseille 

Country Card Sent From: Corsica 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Piedigriggio 

Date Received: 10th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 942 miles 

Time Taken:   days

Card no 554 – Dasha 

Russian Revolution Campaign poster 

Country Card Sent From: Russia 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Moscow 

Date Received: 9th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,618 miles 

 Time Taken: 14 days 

The stamps included one of Russia's Winter Olympic's mascots.

Card no 555 – Maaike 

Letterboxes 

Country Card Sent From: Netherlands 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Roden, nr Groningen 

Date Received: 9th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 388 miles 

Time Taken: 6 days 

 Postcrossing i/d – NL-1849420 

Card no 556 – Jo 

Rubens the Cat 

Country Card Sent From: Belgium 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Schoten, nr Antwerp 

Date Received: 9th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 342 miles 

Time Taken: 4 days 

 Postcrossing i/d – BE-207987 

I like this owl stamp.

That's all for now...

546 - Historic Centre of Sighișoara, Romania

Card no 546 – Andrås 

Historic Centre of Sighișoara 

Country Card Sent From: Romania 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Targu Mures 

Date Received: 8th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,308 miles 

Time Taken: 6 days 

Sighișoara is a fine example of a small, fortified medieval town. I didn't need to do any research on this card because Andrås told me about this part of the World Heritage Site - "Sighișoara is located in the middle of the Transylvanian plateau. You can see here the clock tower, the castle, some very old houses - all are situated in the medieval citadel, which is the only inhabited medieval castle in the whole of Eastern Europe. Built by German Saxons today it is a very famous Romanian tourist attraction."

Cards no 542- 545 and 553

Cards no 542- 545 and 553 - Martine 

Country Card Sent From: France 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Corsica 

Date Received: 10th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 942 miles 

 Time Taken: 7 days 

542 – The Recipe for Bouillabaisse

543 – Rodin, the light of the Ancient

 In 2013, the famous museum in Arles will host an exhibition "Rodin, the light of the Ancient" that will explore cross inspirations, the links forged through the centuries. Rodin wanted to anchor his practice of sculpture in ancient Greek art. His art echoes the plastic perfection and expressive forms; the Greek ideal.

544 – Nice

A map of the coastal area ‘The Bay of Angels’ is a Mediterranean stretching from Nice, with the Promenade des Anglais and the wharf United States, to Cap d'Antibes.

545 – Côte d’Azur 2014 Calendar

553 – The Ferry Boat at Marseilles

The Ferry-boat: So cherished by the Provençal writer and film director, Marcel Pagnol, leaves from the quay in front of the City Hall to make several daily crossings of the Vieux-Port. The crossings began in June 1880, thus opening the famous passage from the City Hall to the Place aux Huiles, a square located on the opposite side of the port.

These cards all came in the same envelope and these were the stamps used by my good friend Martine. 

540 - Chicago

Card no 540 – Karen 

The Chicago Skyline 

Country Card Sent From: Canada 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Winnipeg 

Date Received: 7th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 3,741 miles 

Time Taken: 9 days 

The Chicago skyline showing the Hancock Building and the lake shore. 

Some pretty, delicate flower stamps.  They are Magnolias - Eskimo and Yellow Bird.

and a black cat...

This is one of five 'Adopt a pet' stamps (2 dogs, 2 cats, a parrot).  Did you notice the little mouse on the bird table?

536 – A medieval walled village

Card no 536 - Maylis et Jean-Pierre 

The village of Vence, France

Country Card Sent From: France 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Nice 

Date Received: 4th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 805 miles 

Time Taken: 4 days 

Postcrossing id – FR-282890  

The medieval walled village of Vence is set in the hills of the Alpes Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in south-eastern France between Nice and Antibes. Vence is famous for its spring water, which can be collected from numerous fountains in the town.

The stamps shows the church at Aulnay, a busy little town famous for this 12th Century church on the pilgrimage route to the shrine of St James of Compostela. There is a delightful market in the town square on Sunday and Thursday mornings.

In medieval times, the Via Turonensis (Way of Tours) was the most westerly of the four traditional pilgrim routes. It was a fairly movable feast, with several strands running roughly parallel in a southerly direction. It catered for pilgrims from the Low Countries, Paris and Britain, and converged with two of the others at Saint-Palais in the Pyrénées, before crossing into Spain for the final push to Compostella. 

531 – A peaceful harbour

Card no 531 - Ciro 

Near Naples 

Country Card Sent From: Italy 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Naples 

Date Received: 3rd May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,172 miles 

Time Taken: 7 days 

 Postcrossing id – IT-224268 

521 – Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil

Card no 521 - Amanda 

Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil 

Country Card Sent From: Brazil

Place that Card Sender Lives: São Paulo

Date Received: 27th April 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,176 miles 

Time Taken: 10 days 

 Postcrossing i/d - BR-255254

Ibirapuera Park is a major urban park in São Paulo, Brazil. It has a large area for leisure, jogging and walking, as well as a convention center. Its importance to São Paulo is comparable to that of the Central Park to New York City. The Ibirapuera is one of Latin America largest city parks, together with Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City and Simón Bolívar Park in Bogota.

The Obelisk of São Paulo, in the centre of the park is a symbol of the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932.

Ibirapuera Park was inaugurated in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the city, with buildings de-signed by famous architect Oscar Niemeyer and landscape by designer Roberto Burle Marx.

516-8 – Bulgarian cities, monasteries, and the Etar museum

Card no 516 - 518 – Irina 

Bulgaria 

Country Card Sent From: Bulgaria 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Sofia 

Date Received: 25th April 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,414 miles 

Time Taken: 13 days 

These are three wonderful cards from Irina – all shaped rather than rectangular. The ones of Bulgarian Monasteries and Etar are the shape of the country of Bulgaria.

And what a wonderful stamp sheet Irina put on the envelope.

507 – Views of Old Sofia

Card no 507 - Irina 

Old Sofia 

Country Card Sent From: Bulgaria 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Sofia 

Date Received: 22nd April 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,414 miles 

Time Taken: 12 days 

I love cards like this with pictures of old towns showing the street life as it was around 100 years ago.

506 – Targu Mures, Romania

Card no 506 - Andras 

The centre of Targu Mures, Romania 

Country Card Sent From: Romania 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Targu Mures 

Date Received: 20th April 2013 

Distance Travelled: 1,308 miles 

Time Taken: 7 days 

The buildings shown here in the centre of Targu Mures are the old city hall (with the tower) and the Palace of Culture.

This is my first card from Romania.

Its stamp…