3215 GERMANY (North Rhine-Westphalia) - Münster

Münster, the cultural centre of the Westphalia region, is situated on the river Aa, approximately 15km south of its confluence with the Ems in the Westphalian Bight, a landscape studded with dispersed settlements and farms, the so-called Münsterland. Its roots can be traced back to the 6th century, but the city officially came into existence in 793, when Frisian missionary Liudger founded the "Monasterium" cloister.

3214 CYPRUS - Orange seller

Because it has a subtropical climate, Cyprus offers a full range of citrus fruit available almost all year around, but mainly on winter time, from October to June, with many of the popular varieties of oranges, lemons, grapefruit and soft citrus. Though oranges are good refreshment for summer, but during winter, many Cypriot parents want their children to eat oranges during winter to protect them from colds and influenza. The main varieties of oranges that grown in Cyprus, all of high quality, are Navel, Jaffa and Valencia.

1571, 3213 POLAND (Mazovia) - Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw

1571

Posted on 10.05.2015, 08.12.2017
With its 231m height (which includes a 43m high spire), the Palace of Culture and Science is the tallest building in Poland and the eighth tallest building in the European Union. Built in three years according to the design of the Soviet architect Lev Rudnev, almost entirely by 3500 workers from the Soviet Union, the structure was conceived as a "gift from the Soviet people to the Polish nation", and was completed in 1955. The building was originally known as the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science (Pałac Kultury i Nauki imienia Józefa Stalina), but in the wake of destalinization the dedication to Stalin was revoked.

3213

Architecturally, it is a mix of Stalinist architecture, also known as Socialist Classicism, and Polish historicism inspired by American art deco skyscrapers. The monumental walls are headed with pieces of masonry copied from Renaissance houses and palaces of Kraków and Zamość. Currently it is the center for various companies, public institutions and cultural activities such as concerts, cinemas, theaters, libraries, sports clubs, universities, scientific institutions and authorities of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

3212 ROMANIA (Bucharest) - Postcrossing Meetup, Bucharest, 2 December 2017

3212 The first postcard of the series
"100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (1/12)
- the Arch of Triumph in Bucharest.

On December 1 1918, the National Assembly of Romanians of Transylvania and Hungary, consisting of representatives of the Romanians in Transylvania, Banat, Crişana, Satmar and Maramureş, convened in  Alba Iulia, decreed "the unification of those Romanians and of all the territories inhabited by them with Romania". Since 1990, the Great Union Day (which marks the unification not only of the mentioned regions, but also of Bessarabia and Bukovina with the Romanian Kingdom) was established as the National Holiday of Romania.

2839, 2950, 3211 ROMANIA (Maramureş) - Moroşeni

2839 Moroşeni from Şugatag village
in traditional clothes

Posted on 25.10.2016, 13.02.2017, 07.12.2017
Maramureş is a geographical, historical and ethno-cultural region situated along the upper Tisza River, and partitioned between Romania and Sub-Carpathian Ukraine after the WWII. With its picturesque countryside of small villages, rolling hills, pastures, and meadows full of wildflowers, Maramureş epitomizes all that the rural lifestyle encompasses. It is a small and unique location in the geographical heartland of Europe that has carefully and distinctively preserved the culture, traditions and lifestyle of a mediaeval (or even older) peasant past.

2950 Little girl from Maramureş

Little has changed in the centuries gone by. Families remain in the same villages as their ancestors. Traditional skills and crafts are passed down from generation to generation. Traditional hand-woven clothing continues to be practical. The church continues to be the soul of the village. Neighbours know one another and continue to lend a helping hand. The mystery of rural traditions unfolds before the visitor as a living museum that is at once within reach yet simultaneously beyond the grasp of the traveller.

3211 Maria

The traditional costumes of the Moroşeni, as the people of Maramureş call themselves, are impressive through beauty and simplicity, and each region has a local specific. For instance, the costume of the Land of Lăpuş is much more elegant and sobre. The defining elements of the women's clothing are: kierchief, white shirt with sleeves ended in cuffs and flounces, ample skirts, covered by the two aprons (zadii) with horizontal stripes (usually black alternating with red, yellow or orange). Over the shirt, women wear a jerkin (pieptar) richly decorated. Often have at neck collars of colored beads.

3210 VIETNAM (Red River Delta) - Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

3210 Vietnam Fine Arts Museum -
Two Girls and a Child, by Tô Ngọc Vân

Just across the street from the Temple of Literature, Vietnam Fine Arts Museum can be easily spottedfrom afar. Like many other buildings that house museums in Hanoi, it was built in the 1930s as a Girl School for Indochina high-ranked officers. In 1966, it officially became Vietnam Fine Arts Museum where store many of Vietnamese artistic essences. It displays not only paintings, ceramics and lacquers created by modern Post-war artists but many of its contents date back as far as pre-historic and feudalism time.

3209 GERMANY (Berlin) - Tramcar Class TM36 Number 3587 at Machnower Schleuse

The Berlin tramway is one of the oldest tram networks in the world having its origins in 1865 and is operated by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), which was founded in 1928. It is notable for being the third-largest tram system in the world, after Melbourne and St. Petersburg. Berlin's streetcar system is made up of 22 lines that operate across a standard gauge network, with almost 800 stops and measuring almost 190km in route length and 430km in line length.

3208 ETHIOPIA (Oromia) - Mount Ziqualla

Located at 85km East from Addis Ababa, Mount Ziqualla is an extinct volcano rising to 600m above sea level and dominating the western part of the Rift Valley. The crater harbours a lake about 100m below the rim. All outer slopes of the volcano are steep and often dissected by deep gullies. The natural vegetation, mainly forest, only remains inside the crater and in a few deep gullies below the summit, however in former times the whole mountains would have been mainly forested.

3207 GERMANY (Berlin) - Berlin Cathedral after the bombing of May 25, 1944

Berlin Cathedral is located on Museum Island in the Mitte borough, and has never been a cathedral in the actual sense of that term since it has never been the seat of a bishop. The current building was finished in 1905 and is a main work of Historicist architecture of the "Kaiserzeit". At 114m long, 73m wide and 116m tall, it was much larger than any of the previous buildings and was considered a Protestant counterweight to St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

3206 CHINA (Hong Kong) - Double-deck tramcar in front of Western Market

Hong Kong Tramways, which has served the territory since 1904, covers the northern parts of Hong Kong Island. Owing to strong passenger demand, the first double-deck tramcar was introduced in 1912. It had an open top design, fitted with garden-type seats. The first class occupied the upper deck and one-third of the lower deck. Ten new tramcars were constructed, and 18 were rebuilt from single deck cars.

3205 GERMANY (Brandenburg) / POLAND (Lubusz) - International Postcrossing Meetup, Frankfurt (Oder) & Słubice, November 4, 2017

Frankfurt (Oder), also Frankfurt an der Oder, is a town in Brandenburg, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice, which was part of Frankfurt until 1945, when the Oder was designated Germany's eastern border. The Oder Bridge (in the postcard) connects the two cities. On November 4, 2017 there tooke place an international Postcrossing meetup with the theme "Bridges connecting...", the main organizer being Holger Kaufhold.

3204 FRANCE (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) - Settons Lake

Built between 1854 and 1861 to regulate the flow of the Yonne River and make it easier to float wood along the river to Paris, Settons Lake lies at the heart of the Morvan Massif, near Montsauche-les-Settons, at an elevation of 586 m. Protected by a unique granite dyke, this 367-hectare lake, long of 3.5km, wide of 2km and with a maximum depth of 6m, lies between quiet, wooded banks planted with pine trees and larches.

3190 SLOVENIA (Slovene Littoral) - The town crier in Piran

In nowadays, the town crier is only heard at ceremonials, fetes and local events, but in medieval Europe have been common on the streets of the towns. Often he would announce his presence with a a large hand bell or a drum. His job was to inform the townspeople of the latest news, proclamations, bylaws and any other important information, as at this time most folk were illiterate and could not read.

3201 SLOVENIA (Slovene Littoral) - Washing the laundry in Piran

In the past, women used to wash the laundry in common, those from the country to the river, and those from the town to the wells located in small squares. Because in small towns they often did not have enough space to hanging out the laundry at home, they did so in these small markets. Of course, this habit has long been lost, with the generalization of running water and washing machines.

3203 SINGAPORE (Central Region) - Haw Par Villa

A diorama from Haw Par Villa - The spider spirits in the form
of beautiful women; they kidnapped the monks and forced him
to make love with them.

Haw Par Villa is a theme park which contains over 1,000 statues and 150 giant dioramas depicting scenes from Chinese mythology, folklore, legends, history, and illustrations of various aspects of Confucianism. Originally called Tiger Balm Gardens, it was built in 1937 by the Burmese-Chinese brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, the developers of Tiger Balm, as a venue for teaching traditional Chinese values. They moved their business from Burma to Singapore in 1926 and purchased the site in 1935.

3202 UNITED STATES - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. King has also become a national icon in the history of American liberalism and American progressivism.

3195 SLOVENIA (Slovene Littoral) - At the well in Piran

Almost always human settlements coagulated near a water source, which was sometimes a well. Because the well was one of the few places where many members of society could meet at one point, it got it of particular importance to human communities, as a very popular gathering place, where people exchanged news, joked, gossiped or simply socialized. Because the work of carrying water was assigned to women and often young women, the wells became even a popular gathering places for young men seeking a wife.

3183, 3186 SLOVENIA (Slovene Littoral) - The fishermen in Piran

3183 Piran - Fisherman square, next to the town's inner port (mandracchio)

Worldwide, for populations that inhabit the coasts of the seas and oceans, fishing is one of the main occupations of ancient times. In Slovenian Istria, however, historical and political developments have radically and definitively changed the situation. For many hundreds of years, the population of Piran was predominantly Italian, but in 1954 the town was transffered to Yugoslavia, the result being a massive exodus of Italian-speaking inhabitants. The new Comunist government of Yugoslavia sought to replace the old population with immigrants, so several traditional economic trades, among which are fishing, started to dissapear.

3186 Piran - Fisherman repairing a fishing net

In the 1980's,  the number of fishermen increased, and the statistics for 1996 demonstrate that there were 40 fishermen in Piran, whose only sourse of income was fishing, and 39 persons who engaged in fishing as their secondary activity. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, and the establishment of the new state border between Slovenia and Croatia, new problems arose for the fishermen from Slovenia, who lost some resourses in the now croatian waters, where they used to fish, and had to adapt their strategies in various ways. One of these is the strategy of connecting fishing with tourism.

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.

3200 TAIWAN - National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine in Taipei

The National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine, resting on the slopes of the Chingshan Mountain and overseeing the Keelung River, is located right next to the Grand Hotel in Taipei, and is dedicated to the war dead of the Republic of China. Built in 1969, it recalls the architecture of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in Beijing's Forbidden City. The structure houses the spirit tablets of about 390,000 persons killed, among other engagements, during the Xinhai Revolution, Northern Expedition, Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises.