0985, 0986 SPAIN (Andalusia) - Alhambra - part of Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada (UNESCO WHS)

0985 Panorama of the Alhambra

Although the area was inhabited from at least the 8th century B.C., the actual founding of present day Granada, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of four rivers (the Beiro, the Darro, the Genil and the Monachil), took place in the 11th century, during a civil war that ended the Caliphate. In a short time this village was transformed into one of the most important cities of Al-Andalus, spreading across the Darro to reach the hill of the future Alhambra, and included the Albayzín neighborhood.

0986 Alhambra -Ornamental works in stucco and azulejos

 

With the Reconquista in full swing after the conquest of Cordoba in 1236, the Nasrids aligned themselves with Ferdinand III of Castile, officially becoming the Emirate of Granada in 1238. In 1492, the last Muslim ruler in Iberia, Emir Muhammad XII, surrendered complete control of the Emirate of Granada to Ferdinand II and Isabella I, Los Reyes Católicos (The Catholic Monarchs), after the last battle of the Granada War. Actually the fall of Granada completed the Reconquista, putting an end to the 800 year-long Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula.

0710, 0979-0984 UNITED STATES (Pennsylvania) - Life in Amish Country

Posted on 30.06.2013, completed on 23.01.2014
"Strolling along a rural road and admiring the flower, this Amish family is the sum total of all who went before. The Amish work with nature, not against it. They live in peace and brotherhood with with both man and nature - and in respecting both they have prospered." Even though I don't know this community than from some books and movies, I think that this description of the postcard is very appropriate. Known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt the modern technology, the Amish (a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships, actually a subgroup of the Mennonite churches) live in closed communities in 27 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario, the largest population being in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

The history of the Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish. In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites emigrated to Pennsylvania as a reaction to religious wars, poverty, and religious persecution on the Continent. The rules of the church, the Ordnung (order in German), must be observed by every member and cover most aspects of day-to-day living, including prohibitions or limitations on the use of power-line electricity, telephones, and automobiles, as well as regulations on clothing. Members who don't follow these rules are excommunicated. There is generally a heavy emphasis on church and family relationships, and a large families is considered a blessing from God. The more traditionally minded groups became known as the Old Order Amish. Most of them share a German or Swiss-German ancestry and speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

The Amish clothing is plain, and must not call attention. Hook-and-eye closures or straight pins are used as fasteners on dress clothing. Snaps are used on everyday clothes, and plain buttons for work shirts and trousers. Some groups tend to limit color to black and white, while others allow muted colors. Women wear calf-length plain-cut dresses in a solid color. Aprons are worn at home, usually in white (the unmarried) or purple or black (the married), and are always worn when attending church. Girls in some areas may wear colored bonnets until age nine, and begin wearing a cape for church and dress up occasions at about age eight. Men wear dark-colored trousers, with a dark vest or coat, and broad-rimmed straw hats in the warmer months. Married men and those over forty grow a beard. Mustaches are forbidden, because they are associated with European military officers and militarism in general.

Usually, the Amish don't educate their children past the eighth grade, believing that the knowledge offered up to that point is sufficient to prepare a child for their lifestyle. On the other hand, they believe that the pathway to heaven is paved with modesty, so a person must be separate from the world, forsake self interest and humbly submit to the authority of the church. The public education is considered a springboard toward individual advancement, independence, power, and distancing of the simple life. So the purpose of Amish education isn't to promote individuality and critical thinking, or to create artists, scientists, musicians or actors, but to prepare the children to remain Amish. In many communities, they have their own schools, which are typically one-room schoolhouses with teachers (young unmarried women) from their community.

According to the Amish, "progress" is not assumed to mean "something better", so they don't accept many of the modern conveniences - such as electricity generated by public power lines, TVs, computers and modern tractors - which are considered to be tempting elements from an "outside world", that could lead the Amish away from their close-knit community or weaken the family structure. However is acceptable to use some limited forms of electricity (such as battery power for the lights on their buggies), the phone (only a public one, not private) and some machinery (such as tractors without rubber tires). In this sense one of the icons of the Amish culture is the horse and buggy, though it has been a symbol of separation for only about the last century. It is the prominent mode of transportation, naturally limiting travel, and therefore, interaction with the non-Amish world. But while owning a car isn't permitted, to be a passenger is no compromise to their beliefs. Amish businessmen often have agreements with non-Amish persons to haul materials as needed, or hire a non-Amish employee who provides a vehicle.

Because children aren't counted in local congregation numbers, it's difficult to put an exact figure on the number of Amish, but was estimated that in 2008 were 221,000. In addition, they are among the fastest-growing populations in the world, with an average of seven children per family. There are Old Order communities in 27 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario; Ohio has the largest population (55,000), followed by Pennsylvania (51,000) and Indiana (38,000). One of the largest Amish settlements are in Lancaster County (in south-central Pennsylvania), known since the 18th century as the Garden Spot of America. Even if only around 30,000 Amish people live in this county (6.37% of the total population), Lancaster is synonymous in American popular culture with Amish country, a place of peace, prosperity, and traditional values that has somehow survived unscathed the upheavals of the 20th century.

 

Amish homes are also plain and modest, though they tend to be sprawling to provide for extended family. Most are painted white, and old order homes are devoid of pictures on the walls and usually have no window curtains. Amish give their main house to the oldest son, when they retire, and, if there are children at home yet, there is a fairly large grandpa house built or if they don’t retire, the son will more than likely buy a farm or stay on the family land. Isn't uncommon for three and sometimes, four generations of a family to live under the same roof. The "family" provides the member with a status within the home and within the community. A person is more of a member of the family, rather than an individual. Each member has a job, a position, a responsibility, and a status.
 

0977 MOROCCO (Souss-Massa-Drâa) - Aït Larbi Kasbah on Dadès River valley

A kasbah is a type of fortress (citadel) in the Islamic cities, built by local leaders to live in it, and as defense when the city was under attack. On the valley of Dadès River, which rises in the High Atlas and then turns south crossing through the Dadès Gorge, then westward between the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountain ranges, are many such kasbahs. One of them is Aït Larbi, located near of Dadès Gorge, not far from Boumalne Dades, a town situated at the edge of a desert plateau. Built in the late 19th century, it consists actually of three kasbahs: Aït Hamid, Aït Amer, and Aït Juia Ali. The landscape that surrounds further increases their artistic value, by providing one of the most spectacular in the region settings.

0976 GERMANY (Hesse) - A Bembel of Apfelwein, please, and Handkäse mit Musik!

Cider or cyder (named also "apple wine" in some regions) is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from fruit juice, traditionally apple juice, which varies in alcohol content from 1.2% ABV to 8.5% or more. Can be classified from dry to sweet, its appearance ranges from cloudy with sediment to completely clear, and its colour from light yellow through orange to brown,  the variations in clarity and colour being mostly due to filtering between pressing and fermentation. Is popular in the United Kingdom, that has the highest per capita consumption, as well as the largest producing companies in the world, but is also traditional in other European countries, such as Ireland, France (Brittany and Normandy), Spain (Asturias, Basque Country and Galicia), Poland or Germany (Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse).

0975 NEW ZEALAND - The map and the flag of the country

Located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, at 1,500km east of Australia, New Zealand (Aotearoa in Māori) comprises two main landmasses - the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu) - and numerous smaller islands. Is long and narrow, and has a mild and temperate maritime climate. The South Island is divided along its length by the Southern Alps, and the east side of the island is home to the Canterbury Plains, while the West Coast is famous for its rough coastlines such as Fiordland, and Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The North Island is less mountainous but is marked by volcanism. The highly active Taupo Volcanic Zone has formed a large volcanic plateau, punctuated by the island's highest mountain, Mount Ruapehu, and host of the country's largest lake, Lake Taupo, nestled in a caldera. The country owes the varied topography to its position straddling the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates. Actually it's part of Zealandia, a microcontinent that gradually submerged, after breaking away from the Gondwanan supercontinent. During its long isolation (80 million years), it developed a distinctive biodiversity of animal, fungal and plant life, most notable being the large number of unique bird species.

0363 UNITED KINGDOM (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) - Wandering Albatross

Considered Antarctic territories, because are located south to the Antarctic Convergence, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) have a polar climate, at higher elevations being permanently covered with ice and snow. In addition, most of the islands, rising steeply from the sea, are rugged and mountainous. As a result, they are inhospitable for humans. On the other hand, they embrace many rocks offshore and small islands that provide homes for breeding birds and mammals.

0973 UNITED STATES (New York) - St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City

The Cathedral of St. Patrick is prominent landmark of New York City, located on the east side of Fifth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets in midtown Manhattan, across the street from Rockefeller Center. Designed by James Renwick, Jr. in the Gothic Revival style, it replaced the Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral in downtown Manhattan as the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Its cornerstone was laid on August 15, 1858, but the work was halted during the Civil War, being resumed in 1865 and completed in 1878. The spires were added in 1888, and an addition on the east, including a Lady chapel, designed by Charles T. Mathews, was begun in 1900. The Lady Chapel's stained-glass windows were made between 1912 and 1930 by Paul Vincent Woodroffe. In 1927 and 1931, the cathedral was renovated, which included enlarging the sanctuary and installing the great organ.

The cathedral, which can accommodate 2,200 people, is built of brick clad in marble, quarried in Massachusetts and New York, and the slate for the roof came from Monson, Maine. The windows were made by artists in Boston, Massachusetts and European artists from Chartres (France) and Birmingham (England). Charles Connick created the rose window. In 2012 was announced the renovation of the church, in three-phase, because of crumbling bricks, faulty heating, and acid rain and pollution. The first phase, which involves repairing, restoring, and cleaning the soot-covered exterior, and an extensive cleaning of the outside and inside surfaces of the stained glass windows, is nearing completion. 

0972 UKRAINE (Autonomous Republic of Crimea) - Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora (UNESCO WHS)

Chersonesus is an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2,500 years ago, by settlers from Heraclea Pontica, on the shore of the Black Sea (now in a Sevastopol's suburb), in the southwestern part of the Crimean Peninsula, known then as Taurica. During much of the classical period, it was a democracy ruled by a group of elected archons and a council called the Damiorgi. In the late 2nd century BC it became a dependency of the Bosporan Kingdom, in 1st century BC was subject to Rome, and in the 370s AD was captured by the Huns.

0971 AUSTRIA (Salzburg) - The hotel on the peak Schafberg

0971 The hotel on the peak Schafberg

Situated within the Salzkammergut mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps, the Schafberg (1783m) rises at the shore of the lake Wolfgang (538m above sea level). In the town of Sankt Wolfgang there is a rack railway, with a length of 5.85 km, built between 1892 and 1893, which ascends from 1,365m to 1,730m altitude (only from May to October). The peak offers a panoramic view of the Salzkammergut mountains and lakes and is also the site of a hotel (Schafbergspitze), established in 1862 (in the postcard), as the first mountain hotel in Austria.

0970 BELARUS (Minsk City) - Trinity Suburb

0970 Trinity Suburb in Minsk City

Located on left bank of the Svisloch River, on the Trinity Hill, Minsk's old town, more commonly known as Troitskoe Predmestye (Trinity Suburb) after the former Trinity Church that once stood in the area, is a slight misnomer in that it dates from just three decades ago. Built between 1982 and 1985 on the site of a former settlement dating from the 12th century, Trinity offer a break from the sprawling concrete and the Stalinist architecture of the city's centre, rebuilt (not restored) after WWII, when Minsk was destroyed in proportion of 80%.

0969 CZECH REPUBLIC (Central Bohemia) - Kutná Hora: Historical Town Centre with the Church of St Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec (UNESCO WHS)

The town of Kutná Hora began in 1142 with the settlement of the first Cistercian monastery in Bohemia, Sedlec Monastery, on whose property German miners began to mine for silver in 13th century. The town developed with great rapidity, so that between the 13th and 16th centuries it competed with Prague economically, culturally and politically. Along with the rest of Bohemia, Kuttenberg (Kutná Hora) passed to the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria in 1526. The flooding of the richest mine, the loss of privileges, the plague and the horrors of the Thirty Years' War led to the ruin of the city. The mines were abandoned at the end of the 18th century. Bohemia was a crownland of the Austrian Empire in 1806, in the Austrian monarchy after the compromise of 1867, and part of Czechoslovakia after WWI. Since 1995 the city center has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

0968 UNITED STATES (Kentucky) - Fort Knox

Fort Knox is a U.S. Army post which occupy an area of ​441 km.sq and currently holds the Army human resources Center of Excellence, being also one of only three Army posts (along with Fort Campbell, Kentucky and Fort Sam Houston, Texas) that still have a high school located on-post. It was the home, for nearly seventy years (1940-2010), of the U.S. Army Armor Center, and the U.S. Army Armor School (now at Fort Benning), being used by both the Army and the Marine Corps to train crews on the M1 Abrams main battle tank. Fortifications were erected near the site in 1861 (Fort Duffield), but the construction for a permanent training center was started only in July 1918, the new camp being named after Henry Knox, the Continental Army's chief of artillery during the Revolutionary War and the country's first Secretary of War. Here is also the General George Patton Museum.

0967 BELARUS (Mogilev) - Saint Nicholas Monastery

0967 Saint Nicholas Monastery in Mogilev

Located in eastern Belarus, at about 76km from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and 105km from the border with Russia's Bryansk Oblast, Mogilev (also spelled Mahilyow) is a city with a long history, documentary attested since 1267. From the 14th century was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then, since 1569, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 16th-17th centuries the city flourished as one of the main nodes of the east-west and north-south trading routes. In 1577 Polish King Stefan Batory granted it with city rights under Magdeburg law.

0966 RUSSIA (Krasnoyarsk Krai) - Putorana Plateau (UNESCO WHS)

The Putorana Plateau is a high-lying basalt plateau, a mountainous area at the northwestern edge of the Central Siberian Plateau, to the south from Taymyr Peninsula. It is composed of Siberian Traps, which form a large region of volcanic rock, and the highest mountain in the range is Mount Kamen (1,700m). To protect the world's largest herd of reindeer as well as snow sheep, in 1988 was established the Putorana Nature Reserve (situated about 100 km north of the Arctic Circle), which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2010, as "a complete set of subarctic and arctic ecosystems in an isolated mountain range, including pristine taiga, forest tundra, tundra and arctic desert systems, as well as untouched cold-water lake and river systems".

0965 CHINA (Shaanxi) - Inside the Yellow Earth

In China, the Yellow Earth usually refers to the Loess Plateau (also known as the Huangtu Plateau), located in the country's northern part, on the upper and middle reaches of Yellow River (which in fact took its name even at the Yellow Earth), extending northeast to southwest for more than 1,000km, and having several hundred kilometers wide. More specifically, the Loess Plateau and its dusty soil cover almost all of Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, as well as parts of Gansu province, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, being a transition zone to the steppes and desert regions of Inner Mongolia.

0962 VIETNAM (Mekong Delta) - An Thoi fishing village in Phú Quốc island

Located in the Gulf of Thailand, just 12km south of the (now) Cambodian coast, the mountainous and densely forested island Phú Quốc (known as Koh Trol in Khmer) now belongs to Vietnam, but was and is a bone of contention between the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam. In the early 17th century, it was a desolate area, where Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants earned their living from sea cucumbers. In 1869, the French occupied it to set up rubber and coconut plantations. Anyway, in the late 19th and early 20th century less than 1,000 people resided on island, mostly distributed among small fishing communities, and even at the end of WWII the population was still less than 5,000. In 1949, after China fell under the control of the Communist Party, more then 33,000 Republic of China Army soldiers came in Phú Quốc, but they went to Taiwan in 1953. During the Vietnam War, the island housed South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp (40,000 in 1973).

0961 GERMANY (Hesse) - Express locomotive 01 523 in 1965 in Bebra station

The DR Class 01.5 was the designation given by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in East Germany to express train locomotives that were reconstructed from DRG Class 01, the first standardised (Einheitsdampflokomotive) steam express passenger locomotives built by the unified German railway system. They were of 4-6-2 wheel arrangement in the Whyte notation, or 2′C1′ h2 in the UIC classification, almost globally known as Pacific type. The firms of AEG and Borsig, together with Henschel, Hohenzollern, Krupp and BMAG previously Schwartzkopff, delivered a total of 231 of these locomotives between 1926 and 1938,  the one from the postcard,  No. 01 191, being built in 1937.