COVER N. 682 - FRANCE

Postmark: Bureau Philatélique 06 Nice Marché aux Fleurs 27.01.2026

Posted on the 27th January;  Received on the 2nd Febreuary 2026

_________________________________________________________________________________

Stamps can bring memories forth. I said it here before, I restate it again, thanks to a nice cover from France with a stamp that made me go and take a look at the photographs I took a bit over a year ago at Nice....

Un grand Merci Andrè. Aussi pour les fantastiques timbres aviation. Je les ai adoré!  

I much rather walk along any given coast or shore line in the winter than in the summer. In fact, in the summer I'd rather stay away from the coast, this being one of the most perennial points of contention with my dear wife, who, for nine out of the twelve months of the year, longs for the scorching hot days of the sunny season, since that is the only time when she will allow the ocean to caress her delicate body, while I barely exist by her side, turned into a lifeless lump of sweaty, nearly vegetative, matter...

That's why I was quite happy when we visited Nice, a little more than a year ago, in mid winter. And, just to set the record straight, so did she, since, baring our thermostatic differences, summer of winter, what we really like is to go and see what we have never seen before.

What could be more pleasurable than a late afternoon walk along La Promenade des Anglais, thus concluding a more than full day on the coast that took us to Cannes and Antibes with its Picasso Museum, taking advantage of the sunny and temperate embrace of the Mediterranean?

That's what the calm and inviting illustration on the stamp on the cover seemed to ask me, when I first look at the envelope that I had just taken out of my letterbox.... ah those blue chairs.... we both sat on them for a while having a sandwich (an omelette sandwich, I remember quite vividly) while the calm waters played the looping minimal symphony of the beach stones rubbing their backs against each other...

The 2025 United Nations Conference on the Oceans, took place in Nice between 9 and 13 June, with the aim of « Accelerating action and mobilizing all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean ».

Not an easy task in a world that still seems to ignore the voice of science, and where a leader that should know much better, proclaims his unabated love for coal, while exerting the oil industry to "drill, baby drill", and exhibiting ferocious cold tempests as proof that global warming is a hoax....

On the occasion of the Conference La Poste issued, on 10JUL2025, the 2.10 € stamp on the cover illustrated with a nice artistic rendition of Nice's waterfront, with the typical blue chairs, a couple of seagulls and two frolicking dolphins in the distance. 

Postage was colpleted with two Marianne stamps. The 0,10 is part of the Marianne of Lamouche issue, and is dated of 01OCT2006, while the 0,05 is part of the Marianne de l’avenir set, issued on 13SEP2023.

Postmark of the Philatelic Bureau of the Post Office, located near the Flower Market, in downtown Nice.