POSTCARD N.168 - GERMANY 

Postcrossing Postcard sent on the 26th October, received on the 29th October 2024

Postcard image: Moselle river somewhere in Germany

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UPDATE:

These are the days of wonder...said Paul Simon on his "The boy in the bubble" song... indeed they are.

While trying to conjure a few phrases together to fill the post pertaining to Stefan's nice Moselle valley postcard, I fired up Google Earth and tried to follow the course of the river from France and Luxembourg up to Germany, to see if I could find anything remotely superimposable to the image on the card. I confess I did not spend too much time on it and, maybe because of that, I was totally unsuccessful.

Well, turns out Stefan was indeed kind enough to take a look at my blog and read the post regarding his postcard and he kindly provided me with all the relevant information regarding the location in the image.

Quoting direct form his message, for which I could not be more thankful:

"If you're interested in the exact location of the view side:

49°48'40.67"N, 6°53'25.00"E

The town in the middle of the photo is Leiwen. The little village in the middle behind it is actually a holiday village (Eurostrand). At the foot of the right mountain range, the first village to come is Köwerich on the side of the slip slope, where I live. Diagonally behind on the side of the impact slope is Klüsserath."

So there we have it. Thanks a bunch Stefan. You do live in a fine place.

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A very nice postcard from Germany with a view that clearly illustrates the importance of the Moselle Valey for Rieseling production in Germany. Danke Sehr, Stefan.

Stefan tells me that grapes have been cultivated in this region since the time of the Romans who left some quite remarkable landmarks behind such as the "Porta Nigra", at Trier, the oldest city in Germany and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

David Bowie (1947-2016) is one of those names that need no introduction, so important was his contribution to popular music of the 20th century, as a performer, composer and musician.

Born David Robert Jones, David Bowie, as he would later be known, first hit the chords of fame with his well known song Space Oddity, in which he tells the story of Major Tom, an astronaut whose mission at some point seems to go awry.... but "planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do".... so maybe, in the end, Major Tom manages to go back into his capsule and return to our planet....

The song was released in 1969, the year  Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon and just one year after the epic Kubrick Film from which it gets a strong inspiration.

Bowie would not only draw inspiration from movies but he would also participate in them, in fact in more than 30 of them. His role in Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, comes to mind, as I write.

Bowie had a strong link to Berlin, a city where he would produce three albums that would become known as the Berlin Trilogy, of which no song is more famous than "Heroes", which would become a sort of a hymn for the events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany.

On 03JAN2022, for the Musician's 75th birthday, and 6 years after his passing, Deutsche Post honoured him with the 0,85 € stamp on the postcard, featuring a very young Bowie playing guitar, although he was also a multi-intrumentalist who played keyboards and saxophone.

The 0.10€ stamp is part of the definitive "flowers" series initiated in 2005. It was issued on 08JUN2017 and it depicts a Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis).