0258 POLAND (Lower Silesia) - Journey of a church

In the summer of 1841, the parish church of the Norwegian village Vang went on the road. More than 600 years served the community, since she was build by Eindridi, son of Olav of Lo, but locals wanted a new church, larger and bright, so the stave church followed the advice of painter J.C. Dahl and left her fate in the hands of Frederick William IV, king of Prussia.

In September she arrived in port Lærdalsøyri, at the head of the Sognefjord, where she climbed on the board of Haabet. After two months of travel by sea, the church reached in port of Stettin (then in Kingdom of Prussia), where she took a barge to Berlin. Meanwhile winter came, so she interrupted the travel, being hosted in the courtyard of the Altes Museum.

The initial plan was to reach to Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island), near Potsdam, but at Berlin she has second thoughts, and decided to move in the village of Brückenberg (now Karpacz), near Krummhübel, in the Riesengebirge (Giant Mountains - now the Karkonosze Mountains, in Poland) in the province of Silesia, where Count Christian Leopold von Schaffgotsch of Warmbrunn (now Cieplice), donated the land on which to sit.

Therefore, in springtime she took again a barge, up the Oder to the foothills, and from there a train to the mountain village of Krummhübel. She liked the surroundings from the very beginning, so he remained there until nowadays, serving the Polish community, and becoming probably the world's most visited stave church, with about 200 000 visitors each year.

About the stamp
The stamp is part of the Gapiszon, Kwapiszon, Gucio and Cezar series, which contain 4 stamps with the 4 well known polish cartoons characters. The series was issued on May 27, 2011, in order to celebrate 80 years since the birth of the Polish designer Bohdan Butenko, creator of these characters. The 4 stamps are:
• Cezar (1.55PLN)
• Gucio (1.55PLN)
• Kwapiszon (2.40PLN)  - it’s on the postcard
• Gapiszon (2.40PLN)

Sender: Sylwia Filipiak (direct swap)
sent from Ostrów Wielkopolski (Geater Poland / Poland), on 09.01.2012
photo: Jerzy Lewandowski