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.

POSTCARD N.165 - PORTUGAL - R.A. AÇORES

Postcard sent on the 13th September, received on the 4th October 2024

Postcard image: the Seven Cities lagoon in S.Miguel island

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Another postcard sent me by The Phantom, from his recent stay in the Azores. This time from quite a special place: the Lagoa das Sete Cidades. Danke Sehr, Alex!

The Seven Cities lagoon is one of the many natural wonders of the Azores. It is a lagoon created by the  collapse of the walls of an ancient volcano thus forming a 2 x 4,2 km caldera whose 30 metres deep waters are separated by a narrow canal with a bridge thus forming a blue lagoon on one side and a green one on the other.

Legend has it that the colours of the waters of the lagoon are due to the tears of a shepherd and a princess who were madly in love but could not be married due to the differences in their social standings. The shepherd had green eyes and the princess blue, and they cried so much that they filled both sides of the lagoon with their tears....

In truth, the green is just the reflection of the forest trees that surround the green side, while the blue is the reflection from the sky, but I'd rather stick to the other explanation, if you'd ask myself....

Alex used a N20 (Domestic 20g) self-adhesive definitive stamp from the !st groups of definitives dedicated to Portuguese numismatics, issued  on 22APR2020, illustrated with the image of an Asse, a Roman bronze coin, from dating from the II-I centuries BC, this particular specimen having been found in Alcácer do Sal, a town on the banks of the river Sado, and one of the oldest European ones, having been founded by the Phoenician earlier than the year 1,000 BC.

The Postmark hails from S. Roque, a parish of Ponta Delgada, the Capital of the Administrative Capital of the Azores Autonomous Region, located in the Island of S. Miguel.

COVER N. 518 - SRI LANKA

Postmark: Headquarters P. O. Colombo Mail 10.09.24

Posted on the 28th September; Received on the 3rd October 2024

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A circuit from Sri Lanka with a few more stamps from the Boy scouts and Girl Guides issue that was the theme of cover #484. Bohomȧ  sthoothi, Ravindra!vindra!

The Scout movement was, as it is well known, the brainchild of Sir Baden-Powell, who in 1907 oriented a first encampment for young boys in the Island of Brownsea, with 20 participants, in which he set the bases for what would become a worldwide movement aiming at the development of young boys and girls within a stong set of positive values.

Originally a boys only organisation, Baden-Powell would later found the feminine counterpart of the movement, the Girl Guides, in 1910 but things have slowly evolved and I believe that nowadays in most if not all countries both Scouts and Guides organisations  admit any children irrespective of sex to its ranks.

The three stamps on the cover are part of a ten x 50 Rupee stamp set dedicated to the Scouting Movement in Sri Lanka, issued on 21FEB2024.  The stamps have been issued both as a single mini-sheet with the 10 stamps or as 2 x 5 stamp souvenir sheets, one dedicated to Boy Scouts and the other to Girl Guides, the sheets being shaped cut in the format of both organisations emblems. 

COVER N. 517 - POLAND

Postmark:  66. Wrzesień Jeleniogórski, Pokaz kolekcjonersko-filatelistyczny Jelenia Góra 10.09.2024

Posted on the 12th September; Received on the 3rd October 2024

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A cover from Poland with a nice cancellation from a philatelic show which Roman tells me is held every August/September in the town of Jelenia Góra (Stag Mountain), in the southwest of Poland.

Dziękujemy, Roman!

Thanks to Roman's notes I understand that each year the local Philatelic Circle organises a show within the scope of a larger local event, called "Days of Jelenia Góra", for which a cancellation is designed, highlighting an interesting objet related to the town. 

This year, for the 66th philatelic show, the chosen landmark selected to be featured in the special cancellation was a monument to a young stag (the stag being of course present in the town's coat of arms) which is just one of several stag statues which, Roman tells me, exist in Jelenia Góra.

Stamps:

- Continuing, most appropriately, on the stag theme, Roman used a 3.9 Zloty stamp issued on 10MAY2023, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Polish Hunting Association.

- The 2 Zloty stamp on the right corner was issued on 14OCT2023, on the occasion of the  250th anniversary of the funding of what is considered to be the first ministry of education ever created: the Commission of National Education, established on the same date in 1773 in what was then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, its first chairman being the bishop of Vilnius, Ignacy Massalski, whose portrait illustrates the stamp.

- As I understand it The Pocztowy Dar Foundation is social responsibility organisation,  established within the scope of the  Polish Post, with the aim of providing social help for particular situations.

The 4.70 zloty stamp on the cover illustrated with its logo  is dedicated to it and was issued on 04DEC2020.

Further to the commemorative cancelation, the cover contains a regular postmark from the Jelenia Góra post office, dated of the 12, September.

COVER N. 516 - MOROCCO

Postmark: Meknes CD 20.09.2024

Posted on the 20th September; Received on the 3rd Ocftober 2024

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The Marathon.... I can't even imagine what it is like to run for over 42 km... for me running is mostly pain, intermingled with boredom and suffering... I love to walk, at my own pace (which is not that slow...). Proof of that is that everyday my first routine is to go out after breakfast and walk for about 1,5 hours. I find it therapeutical, and invigorating, and I do get pleasure out of it, something that running completely excludes from the equation, as far as I'm concerned...

All this because a while ago I completed my daily walk and am now in front of the computer with a letter that I received from Morocco with that country's official FDC for the 2024 Euromed issue, this year subordinated to the theme Sports of the  Mediterranean. Un grand Merci, Pierre!

Now that I look at it in more detail, I don't know if the runner wearing Morocco's colours (same as Portugal’s, by the way) sprinting at the head of the race to the finish line is a marathonist but even it was just a 100 m race, my thoughts regarding running would be the same :-)

Anyway, the painting reproduced on the 9.80 dirham stamp issued on 08JUL2024, as indicated in the first day postmark, is quite nice and colorful and  is a fitting homage to all Moroccan running athletes, like Soufiane El Bakkali, who won gold in the 3000 m obstacles race in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

COVERS N. 514/515 - UKRAINE

Postmark: Karmatorsk / Slovyansk 23.08.2024

Posted on the 23rd August; Received on the 25th September 2024

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After a week of trekking in the south (which will in time be reported about in my other blog, as usual), I return to these pages to comment on two letters from two cities in the Donbas region of Ukraine, which we have sadly become used to hearing about in the news as they  have (and still do) suffered heavily the effects of Russia's unjustifiable aggression and occupation.

It is a matter of wonder and absolute respect for those that ensure it,  that in times like this, public services, like the postal service, still carry on their essential functions.

My utmost respect for these Ukrainian Civil Servants and also my warm thanks for the person who, on behalf of Alex, sent me these two official and rather special first day covers, which were issued under the motto "Все буде UA" (Everything  will be UA).

Issued on the 33rd anniversary of Ukraine's independence, the "U" tariff  self-adhesive stamp wherein the yellow and blue national colours prevail, bears the shape of the country, with the "Все буде UA" legend written on it under the image of a mother holding a new born baby, an obvious allegory for rebirth and peace.

Reconstruction is also the obvious idea behind the UA letters in the envelope, designed as two habitational buildings being recovered from the effects of the aggressor's bombardments.

The Kramatorsk cover, on top, also carries  2 "F" tariff stamps which are part of the definitive series issued on 29SEO2021, dedicated to coats of arms of the cities of Ukraine. The coat of arms presented is that of the city of  Kremenchuk.

Postage on the Sloviansk cover was completed with four U tariff stamps of the set of two definitives issued on 27SEP22 dedicated to traditional Pysanka Easter eggs, in this case painted in the characteristic fashion  of the Lviv area.

The Sloviansk cover also features and additional postmark with the inscription "Донбас - це Украіна" (Donbas is Ukraine)

COVER N. 513 - CZECH REPUBLIC

Postmark: 10 00 Praha 18.09.2024

Posted on the 18th September; Received on the 23rd September 2024

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A very neat Cover from the Czech Republic with a beautiful postmark. Děkuji mnohokrát, Ivan.

Prague's Botanical garden formally came into being on the 1st January 1969, in the  Troja - Podhoří area. Today it occupies some 50 hectares being open all year to the public to visit its exhibition grounds which include varied nuclei devoted to flora not only of the Czech Republic but also of the whole world.

On 10APR2024  Česká pošta issued a three stamp souvenir sheet illustrated with fern species from Prague's Botanical garden. The 31 Koruna stamp on the cover bears the image of a Dipteris Conjugata,  of the Dipteridaceae family, native from tropical and temperate Asia, northern Queensland in Australia and some islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Karel Svolinský (1896–1986) was a painter, graphic artist, illustrator, set designer and university teacher who was also responsible for designing and engraving several stamps issued by the then Czechoslovakia.

On the 120th anniversary of his birth and the 30th of his passing, Česká pošta issued the 13 Koruna stamp on the cover, graced with his effigy and a reproduction of one of his beautiful illustrations.

The postmark carries a coat of arms which at first I believed to be that of Prague, but on close inspection I could not match it to the image I found on the internet...can anyone help?