Guinea

Hi there! Still a busy guy with no time for postcard swaps, thus the reason for my absence.

However, yesterday I received this beauty and rarety of a card in the mail and was absolutely thrilled. The exciting part was the suprise factor as I had not initiated a swap or whatever with the sender in question. Just a random (awesome) person visiting my blog and helping me out by sending a card straight away. Thank you very very much Madeleine! (Je vous remercie sincèrement de votre gentillesse!) If you happen to read this message, please pass on your address by mail to send something back :)

L'Oise

Hello everyone. Sorry for my long absence! I am currently very occupied with setting up my own postcard webshop and therefore I have a lot of obligations coming towards me like inscribing my webshop into the chamber of commerce, ordering/designing postcards, setting up/designing the website, book keeping etc. This takes a lot of time but especially asks for a lot of investing.  The latter is one of the logical reasons why I can't permit myself anymore to send lots of postcards and decided to put the collecting hobby on a low. So unfortunately I will not update my blog regularly due to lack of time, naturally, but also simply not receiving postcards (which I will miss a lot!). Maybe later this year I will have more time and money to get back to sending postcards and bringing you informative posts on this blog, although studying in the Netherlands with the current plans will become even more expensive in 2014, so I have yet to see that.

I do want to share this postcard with you which Alex has sent me from the L'oise region in France. I really really love these French départements postcards and therefore a big thank you goes out to Alex! He has recently began a blog which you can find through the following link. Be kind to take a look and become a follower. http://jazzstamps.blogspot.fr/

This summer I will be heading to Spain (Salou, Barcelona, Tarragona, Reus) to spend my holidays and during that time I do want to send some postcards from there despite all this. If you want to receive a postcard from there, do not hesitate to send me a message and I will put you on the list :)

For now, see you all soon!

Switzerland, a few vistas...

Zürich is a city whose reputation precedes it - and does it a complete disservice, trashes its name, gives it a good kicking. A boring banking capital? 'Zu Reich' (too rich), business-minded and uptight? The spotless Singapore of Europe? If Switzerland's largest metropolis once lived down to those dull descriptions, it certainly no longer does.

Contemporary Zürich might still be home to the world's fourth-biggest stock exchange and remain Switzerland's financial engine, but it's also (whisper it softly) surprisingly vibrant and trendy. Located on a picturesque river and lake whose water you can drink, easy to get around and a stranger to the hassled lifestyle that defines bigger cities, this affluent, fashion-conscious place enjoys the finest things in life.

Hundreds of new bars, restaurants and clubs have opened since the late 1990s and, since its Street Parade overtook London's Notting Hill Carnival, Zürich now hosts Europe's largest annual street party. Its former industrial quarter brims with nightlife venues catering to a youngish crowd, and this happening 'Züri-West' district has the same buzz as Berlin's Prenzlauerberg or Mitte. The infamous 'gnomes', as the British like to call Zürich's bankers, are still here, but sometimes they can astonish you by whizzing by on a Segway scooter.

Fortunately, the city's Protestant modesty saves it from ever becoming too schmicki-micki (chi-chi). With church steeples rising against a backdrop of hills and mountains, the medieval old town will also appeal to traditionalists. [source: lonelyplanet]

Schaffhausen’s best excursion is the short trip westwards to the Rhine falls, Europe’s largest waterfall. They are truly magnificent, not so much for their height (a mere 23m) as for their impressive breadth (150m) and the sheer drama of the place, with the spray rising in a cloud of rainbows above the forested banks. The turreted castle Schloss Laufen on a cliff directly above the falls to the south completes the spectacle. August 1 – the Swiss National Day – is particularly impressive, with a huge fireworks display mounted on the riverside. [source: isyours.com]

Bern Airport (IATA: BRN, ICAO: LSZB) is an airport serving Bern in Switzerland. The airport is within the town limits of Belp, and it is also known as Bern-Belp Airport.

The Biderhangar, one of the airport's hangars built by Swiss aviation pioneer Oskar Bider, is listed as a heritage site of national significance in the November 2008 review draft of the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance. The airport also houses the head office of Heliswiss. Previously the North Terminal housed the head office of Sky Work Airlines. The airport has multiple touchdown areas, a paved runway (14/32 of 1,730 metres (5,676 ft)), a grass runway (32L/12R of 650 metres (2,133 ft)), a heli-square, and a glider area. Runway 14 has an ILS approach and an NDB approach.

The airport handled 184,831 passengers in 2011, a 82% increase over 2010. In the first half of 2012 the airport announced a new record of 105,773 passengers handled, 53% more than in the first half of 2011. The future development includes new taxiways, but also a new parking area. According to the "Masterplan 2009-2020", a brand new area should be built for private aviation on the southern side of the airfield. The existing terminal was expanded to better accommodate flights to the Non-Schengen area in 2011. [source: Wikipedia]

You won't spend long in Bern without hearing or reading the name Unesco. (Indeed, you just have.) Switzerland's capital is so proud of its medieval town centre it wants everybody to know that the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has declared this a World Heritage Site.

No-one would argue with that 1983 protection order. On the city's long, curving and cobbled streets, lined with tall, 15th-century terraced buildings and arcades, you often feel as if you're in some kind of dizzying architectural canyon. From the surrounding hills, you're presented with an equally captivating picture of parallel rows of red roofs, all crammed on a spit of land within a bend of the Aare River.

Be warned, though: like Canberra in Australia and several other world capitals, Bern (Berne in French and sometimes in English) only got the gig by being the compromise candidate. It was simply the easiest choice for French and German speakers to agree on when the new Swiss Confederation came to life in 1848. So even today this remains an essentially provincial town - with a parliament and bunch of bureaucrats attached. [source: lonelyplanet.com]

Thank you very much Sara!

Cadaqués

I would love to show you a nice stamp, but surprisingly enough this card reached me with no stamp or cancellation whatsoever. Great it still arrived with no stamp and not any surcharge involved. Dominique, I will try to send you a card back asap!

For most of “cadaquesencs”, the local people, it is a special place, but for visitors it is more than a special place, for many people it is like an island, and for some others it is remote town, for the residents it is part of their life and for holidaymakers it is like home… Cadaqués offers a great deal of sensations, experiences and values.

With a population of about 3,000 inhabitants, Cadaqués economy is based on tourism, an activity which has consolidated as the town’s main economic engine. [source: visitcadaques.org]

Merci beaucoup Dominique! 

Palacio Nacional, Santo Domingo

This is a deeply Dominican city – an obvious statement but no less true. It’s where the rhythms of the country are on superdrive, where the sounds of life – domino pieces slapped on tables, backfiring mufflers and horns from chaotic traffic, merengue andbachata blasting from corner colmados – are most intense. Santo Domingo (population 2.9 million), or ‘La Capital’ as it’s typically called, is to Dominicans what New York is to Americans, a collage of cultures and neighborhoods, or what Havanais to Cubans, a vibrant beating heart that fuels the entire country.

At the heart of the city is the Zona Colonial. And at the heart of the Zona Colonial is Parque Colón. And across from the park is one of the oldest churches in the New World. And a block from the church is one of the oldest streets in the New World. And on this street is the oldest surviving European fortress. And so on and so on. Amid the cobblestone streets reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans, it would be easy to forget Santo Domingo is in the Caribbean – if it weren’t for the heat and humidity.

But this is an intensely urban city, home not only to colonial-era relics and New World firsts, but also to hot clubs packed with trendy 20-somethings; museums and cultural institutions, the best of their kind in the DR; and businesspeople taking long lunches at elegant restaurants. Santo Domingo somehow manages to embody the contradictions central to the Dominican experience: a living museum, a metropolis crossed with a seaside resort, and a business, political and media center with a laid-back casual spirit. [source: lonelyplanet]

Thank you very much Princess!

Colorado

Finally a new State map after a long time not having received any of those. This time Colorado, which is number 37/50 for my collection.

Colorado was cool with the college crowd long before MTV’s cameras caught on. No, the seven strangers on the hit reality show The Real World Denver weren’t the first to dig this funky Rocky Mountain High. Their contemporaries have been flocking to the Centennial State for decades to participate in a uniquely Colorado coming-of-age ritual: the act of ski-bumming (definition: living in a mountain ski resort town such as Breckenridge, working in the service industry and riding as much fresh powder as possible in between). And it’s not just the college crowd. Colorado has been catching Californians, New Yorkers and Washingtonians faster than a fly-fisher can snare a cutthroat trout on the Platte River.

Simply said, Colorado is a great place to live and play, and common knowledge among the locals is that once you taste that ‘Rocky Mountain High’ John Denver used to croon about you’ll get so addicted to the atmosphere, altitude and attitude you’ll never leave. Where else can you spend the morning in an office, the afternoon on the mountain bike and the evening sipping a hopped-up, local beer at a brewpub with friends? [source: lonelyplanet]

Thank you very much Debbie!

Prague

More than 20 years after the fall of communism and the Velvet Revolution, the popularity of Prague (Praha in Czech) as one of Europe’s premier tourist destinations shows no signs of slowing down. And while it’s no longer the travellers’ bargain it was in earlier days, the Czech capital’s combination of a thrilling history and glorious architectural overachievement remains as compelling as ever.

But if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed and thinking ‘Is that it?’ during your first hours in Prague, don’t be too hard on yourself. The city’s charms can occasionally be obscured by too many tourists, congested traffic and tacky commercialism. Packed in among thousands of other visitors, trying like crazy to see the city in three days and worrying about getting ripped off, it’s not surprising you may think the city is overrated. Just relax, take a deep breath – or an even longer quaff of the city’s famous beer – and resolve to slow down, dig a little deeper and explore a little further. While the city centre is a mélange of stunning architecture, from Gothic, Renaissance and baroque to neoclassical, art nouveau and cubist, beyond the medieval lanes of the Old Town and the Castle District, there’s an entire other cosmopolitan city to explore. Search out the riverside parks, lively bars and beer gardens, music clubs, museums and art galleries. Harness Prague’s excellent public-transport system to explore emerging suburbs such as Žižkov, Vinohrady, Smíchov and Holešovice. You’ll be guaranteed cheaper prices, a more local ambience, and an assured escape from any more feelings of doubt. [source: lonelyplanet]



Thank you very much Anne!