COVER N. 705  / POSTCARDS 224 - 225 - SPAIN

Postmark: Correos CTA Valencia 20.04.2026

Posted on the 20th April;  Received on the 24th April 2026

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Letters can hide all sorts of surprises inside their opaque envelopes. If not for the welcome splash of colour of one or two stamps, usually tightly framed in the upper right corner, most times they dress up in an almost antiseptic and absolutely neutral whiteness which gives no clue as to what might be lurking inside.

And so the ritual again begins: fuelled by anticipation and curiosity (provided he or she is not a cat...) - or fear and discontentment (yes, letters can also be the unpleasant harbinger of pain or sorrow) - he or she whose name appears on the front of the neat paper rectangle momentarily inspects the envelope, the stamps and the postmark, only to nervously turn it face down on the worktable and carefully insert a blade trough the fold of the rear flap. Then, with the time honed mastery and certainty of a cardiothoracic surgeon, he or she runs it through the top of that same fold, thus creating a clean access into the treasure chamber.

Two fingers, usually  thumb and indicator, then provide the mechanical element  that allows content to be extracted.

That does not mean that extraction can be void of its own set of hurdles to jump over. In fact, the written paper inside might have caught  some glue while the envelope was being closed and is now also glued onto to its inner face;  the paper inside was so tightly inserted into the envelope that it proves hard to extract...; the door bell rings and you have to leave it to deal with it later....

But most times it is a pleasant ride all the way down to the moment when you have the envelope and its contents all laying on your desk and you finally go through the latter with the calm and attention they deserve.

None of the difficulties I just wrote about arose when I opened up the nice envelope adorned with the most gracious handwriting that I got from across the border. In fact I don't even know why I would write all that stuff as a prologue to a post regarding a perfectly composed and treated envelope, such as the ones I get from Eva, of which this one is no exception....

A written train of thought, maybe... does this even exist?

Moltes gràcies, Eva. És sempre un plaer rebre una carta teva.

- I was in A Coruña just a couple of weeks ago, so the stamp with the photo of the beautiful Hercules Tower, the oldest operating lighthouse in the world, whose roman origins go back to the late 1st or early 2nd centuries, brought back pleasant memories of quite an enjoyable weekend escapade.

The 0,62€ stamp is part of a 6 same denomination stamp set themed on Spanish Lighthouses issued by Correos de España on 15APR2009.

- I confess I have never heard of  Gabriel Aragón "Gaby" (1920-1995), whom the internet informs me was a "Spanish clown and saxophonist, member of the trio Gaby, Fofó and Miliki". The trio was very famous as "The TV Clowns" all across Latin America, and of course in their homeland, so I read also.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Payasos de la TV (The TV Clowns), as can be read on the legend on the side of the stamp,  Correos de España issued on 16FEB2024 the self-adhesive "A3" Tariff  (domestic up to 100 g) stamp, illustrated with the effigy of  Gabriel Aragón "Gaby".

Mechanical postmark from the Automated Treatment Centre of Valencia (CTA Valencia)

There are few things, if any, in this world which have no detractors or “dislikers”. But if there is one, then Lighthouses have got be it!

And rightfully so. What is not to like in the elegant towers, the more so since most times their warm and assuring light revolves around places blessed with unspoiled natural, even if harsh sometimes, beauty?

Cullera might not be the most spectacular lighthouse in Spain, as Eva tells me, but then again  who wouldn't stop  a while if driving along the winding road on the photo, to admire its beautiful trellised lantern?

Rice might not be as universal, as liking goes, as lighthouses, but it is still one of the most common and globally consumed staple food.

So much so that many countries have found endemic ways of cooking it, which have gone past the simple fruition at table status to become maters of national pride and honour. Many are the examples and  from Yangzhou fried rice to Risotto, from Biryani to Paella, a whole plethora of national declinations lies in between.

Paella was invented in the Valencia region and is today one of Spain's most well known dishes.

Still,  just as with the Italian Pizza, what is served as Paella in many a restaurant worldwide, is a far cry from the original simple yet tasteful dish, that Eva tells me is locally better known simply as Arròs (rice) and cooked with a lot more vegetables (artichokes, peas, green beans...) in it than what is usually proposed elsewhere.

In my own country, we used to have a dish called Arroz à Valenciana (Valenciana Rice) that sadly seems to have but disappeared from our tiny local restaurants' menus... another sad sign of times....