POSTCARD N.166 - PORTUGAL 

Postcard sent on the 1st October, received on the 4th October 2024

Postcard image: Almada landmarks

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World Postcard Day began to be celebrated in 2019, thanks to the efforts of the guys behind the Postcrossing platform who thought that the 150th anniversary of the postcard - whose history, I read, began in Austro-Hungary - could be the perfect opportunity to start a tradition.

Ever since that year, World Postcard Day has been making its way into postal administrations special cancelation marks programmes and  I always make sure I post a couple of postcards, both on and off postcrossing, to some friends here and there, not forgetting, of course, to send one to my own self.

So here's what I sent me this year: a postcard with some landmarks of the municipality of Almada, wherein I live.

Left to right:

The monument of Christ the King.

Inspired by the Christ monument of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, it was inaugurated in 1959. The statue, conceived by sculptor Francisco Franco de Sousa, has an eight of 28 metres and sits atop a 75 metre high pedestal, designed by Architect António Lino.

On the top of the pedestal further to the base of the statue there is an observation deck from which you get a fabulous 360 view of Lisbon and its surroundings on both banks of the river.

The mermaid 

Located at the entrance of the local shopping mall, I could not find any information regarding its author.

The 25th April Bridge

Linking Lisboa on the north Bank to Almada on the south bank of the Tagus, the  2,277.64 m long bridge, which nowadays serves both road and rail traffic, was designed by thge United States Steel Export Company and was inaugurated in 1966.

Os Perseguidos (The Persecuted)

A bronze sculpture by  Anjos Teixeira, inaugurated in1979, honouring all those that were persecuted during the years of the dictatorship.

The Cacilhas Ligthouse

The Cacilhas lighthouse was installed in 1886 in the Cacilhas dock, on the left bank of the Tagus. It is 12 metres high and it was decommissioned in 1978. It was re-implanted in a slightly different position as a public monument in 2009, after a spell in the island of Terceira, Azores, (1983-2004) where it replaced for the duration the old lighthouse of Serreta. 

Theatre Joaquim Benite

The second largest theatre hall in Portugal, the blue theatre as it is also known, was designed by architects Manuel Graça Dias, Egas José Vieira e Gonçalo Afonso Dias and is home to the Companhia de Teatro de Almada, one of the main Portuguese theatre companies, responsible for the famed  Festival de Almada, one of the most important European Theatre festivals.

The World Postcard Day cancelation mark, on a 0.65 € stamp of the set Vessels of the Portuguese Merchant Navy, issued on 29MAY2024, illustrated with an image of the liner Serpa Pinto, built in 1914 as the EMS Ebro, she served with the Portuguese Companhia Colonial de Navegação  from 1940 to 1955, when she was finally scrapped.