3452 FRANCE (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) - Les Baux-de-Provence

3452 View of Les Baux-de-Provence and its castle from the northwest.

Les Baux-de-Provence is a commune in Southern France, which has a spectacular position in the Alpilles mountains, set atop a rocky outcrop that is crowned with a ruined castle overlooking the plains to the south. Although already inhabited in the Bronze Age, it didn't really start growing until the medieval period, when the area became the stronghold of a feudal domain covering 79 towns and villages. The fortress was built from the 11th to the 13th century. The princes of Baux controlled Provence for many years and they gained a formidable reputation.

3408, 3417, 3445 SPAIN (Community of Madrid) - Royal Palace of Madrid

3408 Royal Palace of Madrid and Almudena Cathedral

Located on Bailén Street, in the western part of downtown Madrid, east of the Manzanares River, the Royal Palace of Madrid is the official residence of the Spanish royal family, although now only used for state ceremonies. The palace has 135,000 square metres of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms, being the largest functioning royal palace and the largest by floor area in Europe. The last monarch who lived continuously in the palace was King Alfonso XIII, although Manuel Azaña, president of the Second Republic, also inhabited it.

3417 Royal Palace of Madrid - Gasparini Room (18th-19th centuries)

The interior of the palace is notable for its wealth of art and the use of many types of fine materials in the construction and the decoration of its rooms. It includes paintings by artists such as Caravaggio, Juan de Flandes, Francisco de Goya, and Velázquez, and frescoes by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Corrado Giaquinto, and Anton Raphael Mengs. Other collections of great historical and artistic importance preserved in the building include the Royal Armoury of Madrid, porcelain, watches, furniture, silverware, and the world's only complete Stradivarius string quintet.

3445 Royal Palace of Madrid - The kitchen of Ramillete 

The palace is located on the site of a 9th-century Alcázar (Muslim-era fortress), near the town of Magerit, constructed as an outpost by Muhammad I of Córdoba and inherited after 1036 by the independent Moorish Taifa of Toledo. After Madrid fell to King Alfonso VI of Castile in 1083, the edifice was only rarely used by the kings of Castile. In 1329, King Alfonso XI of Castile convened the cortes of Madrid for the first time. King Felipe II moved his court to Madrid in 1561.

3423 ROMANIA (Sibiu) - Cârța Monastery

The Cârța Monastery is a former Cistercian (Benedictine) monastery in the Țara Făgărașului region in southern Transylvania in Romania, currently an Evangelical Lutheran church belonging to the local Saxon community. It lies on the left bank of the Olt River, between the cities of Sibiu and Făgăraș, and was probably founded in 1202-1206 by monks from Igriș Abbey (daughter house of Pontigny Abbey), being disbanded in 1494, when the apostolic legate Ursus of Ursinis ratified Cârța Abbey's attachment to the Provostship nullius of Sibiu.

3415 THAILAND (Bangkok) - Jim Thompson House

The Jim Thompson House is a museum housing the art collection of American businessman and architect Jim Thompson, the museum designer and former owner. Following his relocation to Bangkok and the establishment of the Thai Silk Company Limited in 1948, Thompson also became a major collector of Southeast Asian art. Attracted by the subtlety of their craftsmanship and expression, he built a large collection of historical Buddhist statues and traditional Thai paintings made of wood, cloth, and paper that depicted the life of Buddha and the legend of Vessantara Jataka.

3341 ROMANIA (Braşov) - Prejmer fortified church - part of Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania (UNESCO WHS)

Located in Burzenland, Prejmer fortified church was initially Roman Catholic, but became Lutheran following the Reformation. Around 1211, King Andrew II of Hungary permitted the Germanic Teutonic Knights to settle around Prejmer, where they began constructing a church in 1218, in Gothic style. They were responsible for the Greek cross plan, the only one of its kind in Transylvania, but found in a few churches in northeast Germany. Following their expulsion in 1225, the Cistercians, who took over in 1240, finished the church.

3331 SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS - Mount Liamuiga in Saint Kitts

3331 Aerial view of Mount Liamuiga, Brimstone Hill and Sandy Point Town

Named until 1983 Mount Misery, Mount Liamuiga is a 1,156-m stratovolcano which forms the western part of the island of Saint Kitts. The peak, topped by a 1 km wide summit crater, which contained a shallow crater lake until 1959, is the highest point on the island. The last verified eruptions from the volcano were about 1,800 years ago, while reports of possible eruptions in 1692 and 1843 are considered uncertain. The mountain sides are covered in farmland and small villages up to the 460 m height, after which lush tropical rainforests drape the slopes until cloud forest takes over at 900 m.

0555-0557, 3319, 3327 BULGARIA (Burgas) - Ancient City of Nessebar (UNESCO WHS)

3319 The Ancient City of Nessebar

Posted on 15.03.2013, 31.12.2019, 03.01.2020

For miles, the road from Varna to Nessebar creeps like a snake along the coast, through the forests where coniferous and deciduous mix like the ethnic groups in the Balkans. But that's not what saw with three millennia ago the Thracians, who came from inland to built the settlement named Menebria, neither the Greeks, who came from the sea to lay the foundations of the prosperous colony named Mesembria. In 71 BC the town fell under Roman rule, yet continued to enjoy privileges, and from the 5th century AD onwards had become one of the most important strongholds of the Byzantine Empire.

0555 A bird's-eye view of the Ancient City of Nessebar

In the following centuries it passed several times from the hands of the Byzantines in those of the Bulgarians, and even of the Crusaders in 1366. The Bulgarian version of the name, Nesebar or Mesebar, has been attested since the 11th century. Conquered by the Ottomans in the same year as Constantinople (1453), it gradually declined until returned to Bulgaria in 1885, becoming since the beginning of the 20th century a key Bulgarian seaside resort.

3327 Vernacular wooden houses in Nessebar

 

As an "outstanding testimony of multilayered cultural and historical heritage", a place where many civilizations left their tangible traces, from the Dorians Black Sea colony's structures to the churches from the Middle Ages and the vernacular wooden houses built in the 19th century, Nessebar was included on the list of UNESCO WHS under the name Ancient City of Nessebar. It is sometimes said to be the town with the highest number of churches per capita, because a total of forty churches had survive, wholly or partly, in the vicinity of the town. Its ancient part is situated on a little peninsula, previously an island, linked with the mainland with only a relatively narrow passageway.

0556 The Church of Christ Pantocrator in Nessebar

One of them is the Church of Christ Pantocrator, constructed in the 13th-14th century and best known for its exterior decoration, rich and colourful. Designed in late Byzantine cross-in-square style, was builded from stones and brickwork, a construction technique known as opus mixtum. The best-known feature of the Church of Christ Pantocrator is the rich and colourful decoration of its exterior walls. Used today as art gallery, is among Bulgaria's best preserved churches of the Middle Ages.

0557 The windmill on the passageway from New Nessebar to Old Nessebar

The Old Windmill shown in the third postcard, located on the passageway from New Nessebar to Old Nessebar, is a lovely, very intact Black Sea style wildmill. Aren't known too much about it, but it's supposed that was built in the Bulgarian revival period from the 17th to the 19th century. The building have a rough style, the design being entirely functional. The windmill base reveals a wooden guiderail and direct wood-to-wood contact.

3301 GERMANY (Hamburg) - Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany after Berlin, 8th largest city in the European Union with a population of over 1.84 million, and also Europe's third-largest port. Located on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Alster and Bille, it is at a sheltered natural harbour on the southern fanning-out of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the northeast. The name Hamburg comes from the first permanent building on the site, a castle which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered constructed in AD 808.

3298 ROMANIA (Alba) - Câlnic Citadel - part of Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania (UNESCO WHS)

The Câlnic Citadel began around 1270 as a residence for a Graf (Chyl de Kelling, whose family gave the village its German name), one of the last such to be built in Transylvania. The strong parallelepiped structure, with a ground floor and three floors for living space, came to be known as the Siegfried tower. Subsequent, frequent Ottoman attacks led the keep to be fortified with a defensive level and surrounded by a massive wall. The oval precinct around the keep was fitted with a guard tower to the south and a gate tower to the north. The structure was surrounded by a water-filled moat, with access only by drawbridge.

2599, 3190, 3195, 3201 SLOVENIA (Slovene Littoral) - Piran

Located in southwestern Slovenia on the Gulf of Piran on the Adriatic Sea, Piran is one of the three major towns of Slovenian Istria. The town has much medieval architecture, with narrow streets and compact houses. It was heavily influenced by the Venetian Republic and Austria-Hungary, therefore the monuments differ greatly from those in inner parts of Slovenia. The Piran town walls were constructed to protect the town from Ottoman incursions.

1067-1070, 1541, 2735, 3162 UNITED STATES (New York) - Statue of Liberty (UNESCO WHS)

1067 - Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty

Posted on 28.04.2014, 25.04.2015, 04.08.2016, 08.10.2017
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor, in Manhattan. The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi built by Gustave Eiffel and dedicated on October 28, 1886, was a gift to the United States from the people of France. The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet.

1068 - The Statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background (1)

The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad. Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. He may have been minded to honor the Union victory in the American Civil War and the end of slavery.

1069 - Aerial view of the Statue of Liberty

 

This masterpiece of the human spirit, which brings together art and engineering in a new and powerful way, is composed of thinly pounded copper sheets over a steel framework, designed by the French engineer Gustave Eiffel. Its symbolic value lies in two basic factors. Presented by France with the intention of affirming the historical alliance between the two nations, it was financed by international subscription in recognition of the establishment of the principles of freedom and democracy.

3162 - The Statue of Liberty with Manhattan in the background (2)
Postcard made exclusively for Statue of Liberty Museum

The Statue also soon became and has endured as a symbol of the migration of people from many countries into the United States in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, in 1876, and in New York's Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds.

1070 - New York Harbor at dusk

 Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. In 1956, Bedloe's Island was renamed Liberty Island, and nearby Ellis Island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument by proclamation of President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

1541 - Statue of Liberty

In 1972, the American Museum of Immigration, in the statue's base, was opened in a ceremony led by President Richard Nixon. The museum's backers never provided it with an endowment to secure its future and it closed in 1991 after the opening of an immigration museum on Ellis Island. In 1984, the statue was closed to the public for the duration of the renovation. The torch, found to have been leaking water since the 1916 alterations, was replaced with an exact replica of Bartholdi's unaltered torch. It reflects the sun's rays in daytime and lighted by floodlights at night.

2735 The 130th Anniversary of
the Statue of Liberty

The entire puddled iron armature designed by Gustave Eiffel was replaced. Low-carbon corrosion-resistant stainless steel bars that now hold the staples next to the skin are made of Ferralium, an alloy that bends slightly and returns to its original shape as the statue moves. In 1984, the Statue of Liberty was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because is a "masterpiece of the human spirit" that "endures as a highly potent symbol - inspiring contemplation, debate and protest - of ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, democracy and opportunity."

0433-0436, 1597, 3149 ITALY (Lombardy) - Milan

1597 Milan: 1. Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II;
2.  Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral); 3. Teatro alla Scala; 4. Sforza Castle

Posted on 27.12.2012, 21.05.2015, 16.09.2017
Strategically placed at the gateway to the Italian peninsula, in the fertile Po Valley, Milan and the surrounding region of Lombardy have been the subject of constant disputes over the centuries. Celts, Romans, Goths, Lombards, Spaniards, French and Austrians have all ruled the city at some stage of its history and for the most part, the city has capitalised on its position and has emerged today as the undisputed industrial, commercial, financial and cultural powerhouse of Italy, and a leading global city, part of the so-called Blue Banana.

3149 Milan: 1.  Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral); 2. Teatro alla Scala;
3. Sforza Castle; 4. Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II; 

The city is a major world fashion and design capital, and its museums, theatres and landmarks attracts over 6 million annual visitors. Because Milan has always been a rich city, it has been also a place full of famous artists and offers a particular assortment of buildings and monuments. There was a change of culture and art in the Renaissance with big a contribution in the period of the Neoclassicism.

0433 Milan - Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square)

 

The most important church is the Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral), dedicated to Saint Mary Nascent, the third largest church in the world. It occupies the most central site in Roman Mediolanum. Saint Ambrose's 'New Basilica' was built on this site at the beginning of the 5th century, with an adjoining basilica added in 836. The old baptistery, constructed in 335, still can be visited under the cathedral, being one of the oldest Christian buildings in Europe. When a fire damaged cathedral and basilica in 1075, they were later rebuilt as the Duomo.

0434 Milan - Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral)

In 1386, Archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo began construction of the cathedral, following the newest trends in European architecture. A French chief engineer, Nicolas de Bonaventure, was appointed, adding to the church its Rayonnant Gothic, a French style not typical for Italy, and in 1399 another French architect, Jean Mignot, was called from Paris. Many others have contributed to the construction, because the cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete, the last gate being inaugurated in 1965. The plan consists of a nave with four side-aisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apse. The height of the nave is about 45m, the highest Gothic vaults of a complete church. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.

0435 Milan - Aerial view of Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square)

The Duomo is located, of course, in Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square), the main piazza (square) of the city, created in the 14th century and gradually developed ever since. Its current plan is largely due to architect Giuseppe Mengoni, and dates back to the second half of the 19th century. The buildings that mark its sides, with the exception of the Duomo itself and the Royal Palace, were introduced by Mengoni's design, the most notable addition being the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II arcade. In the centre of the piazza was placed in 1896 the statue of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the united Italy. The last major change to the piazza occurred during the Fascist era.

0436 Milan - Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is the oldest shopping mall in Italy, originally designed in 1861 and built by the same Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877. The structure is formed by two glass-vaulted arcades intersecting in an octagon covering the street connecting Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Scala, more accurate The Duomo and the Teatro Alla Scala. The central octagonal space is topped with a glass dome. On the ground of the central octagonal, there are four mosaics portraying the coat of arms of the three Capitals of the Kingdom of Italy (Turin, Florence and Rome) plus the Milan's. The Galleria is often nicknamed il salotto di Milano (Milan's drawing room), due to its numerous shops and importance as a common Milanese meeting and dining place.