COVER N. 634 - ROMANIA

Postmark: 5407 TG Mures OPE M. S 01.09.2025 

Posted on the 1st September; Received on the 9th September 2025

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Christopher Columbus sails from Târgu Mureș to my letterbox, thanks to a fine Romanian cover, Mulțumesc mult, Anna Maria!

In my personal ranking of  road trips in Europe, the days I spent travelling through Romania some years ago,  occupy quite a high position. 

I absolutely loved the country, full of great scenic beauty and amazing historical sites, but I do have one regret: on the last day of my stay in Bucharest, I remember trying to find a post office open to buy some stamps and for some reason I don't remember now, I could not find one.

Still I managed to send a postcard from Bran, after the inevitable visit to its famous castle, since I managed to buy a card and a stamp at one of the  stalls, in front of the restaurant where I remember having had a great bowl of soup.

Since this was some years before the Covid epidemic, I did not yet have my covers blog nor was I really interested in collecting stamps. Still, whenever I went abroad I would send me a postcard and buy a few local  stamps as a souvenir of the journey, and I was sad not to have bought Romanian stamps since they are generally quite interesting.

And so are those on  the cover Anna Maria sent me.

2006 marked the 50th anniversary of CEPT/Europa common themed issues. The postal administrations of several countries - some not even European - chose to commemorate this fact with celebratory issues.

Poșta Română was one such case, having issued on 22AUG2005 a 4 x 4,75 Leu stamp set in se-tenant form, both in perforate and imperforate versions, all stamps being illustrated with the effigy of Christopher Columbus  (Cristofor Colum, in Romanian).

In two of the stamps the illustration space is shared with an illustration of one of the ships of Columbus most famous expedition of 1492.: The Carrack Santa Maria,  originally La Gallega, is featured on the stamp on the left end of the three stamp row  in the cover, while the stamp on the right end includes an image of the Pinta, I believe, a caravel.

The stamps also pay homage to the Genovese (?) Spanish (?) Portuguese (?) navigator and explorer, since 2006 marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus passing, in Valladolid, Spain.

The Postmark indicates the cover was send from the beautiful  city of Târgu Mureș, in Transilvania, which I well remember, especially for the very large Orthodox Ascension Cathedral on one end of a very long the square which had another orthodox church at the other end - the Annunciation Church.