COVERS N. 360/361 - POLAND

Postmark: W przestworzach Warszawa 1 18.11.2023 /Gdansk 50 13.11.2023

Posted on the 13th November; received on the 21st November 2023

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Up, up and away, my beautiful, my beautiful balloon...

I was a kid in my very early teens when there would not be a day without this refrain from the fifth dimension's classic "Up, up and away" airing on the waves of radio station CSB 81 - Clube Asas do Atlântico.

Many years later I would finally have the opportunity of experimenting the incomparable lightness and calm of balloon flying, over the  fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, in Turkey, and the sight of dozens of balloons flying at sunrise over that surreal landscape, every now and then illuminated from within, like a Christmas ornament, as their pilots opened up the burner to get some altitude,  is something I will never forget.

Balloons, for their shape, the way they move and the disproportion between the envelope and the gondola, lend themselves quite well to  fantasy and fiction as Jules Verne so well put it on his Five Weeks in a Baloon, and I am quite sure I've have seen examples of  balloons being used in many a comics story and fantasy fiction book.

Roman knows I am partial to things that fly, so once again he surprised me with two official FDC with a set of four 3,90 Zloti stamps with marvellous fantasy illustrations of balloons, entitled W przestworzach  - In the Skies - which were issued by Poczta Polska on 18OCT2023.

Dziękuję bardzo, Roman!   

Nothing much to say about the stamps other than they are absolutely fictional and beautiful, and that I quite like them.

To post the FDCs Roma used a 20 g stamp for international service, issued on 03OCT2028,  dedicated to the Via Carpathia, a transnational road scheduled to open in 2025, linking Klaipėda, Lithuania to Thessaloniki in Greece.