Germany - Bavaria - Erlangen

Greetings From Erlangen
Evening Market Square

Sent by Claudia from Erlangen, Germany.

Erlangen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁlaŋən] ; Mainfränkisch: Erlang, Bavarian: Erlanga) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smallest of the eight major cities (Großstadt) in Bavaria. The number of inhabitants exceeded the threshold of 100,000 in 1974, making Erlangen a major city according to the statistical definition officially used in Germany.

Together with Nuremberg, Fürth, and Schwabach, Erlangen forms one of the three metropolises in Bavaria. With the surrounding area, these cities form the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg, one of 11 metropolitan areas in Germany. The cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, and Erlangen also form a triangle on a map, which represents the heartland of the Nuremberg conurbation (read more).

USA - Mapcard

Mapcard of USA.

National Bird : Bald Eagle

National Anthem : The Star-Spangled Banner

National Flower : Rose

National Language : English

Independence Day : July 4, 1776

Capital : Washington D.C.

Population : 319,000,000

Territory : 3,805, 927 sq mi

First president : George WAshington

Largest State : Alaska

Smallest State : Rhode Island

Largest City : New York City

Sent by Tom from Boones Hill in Virginia, USA.

USA - New Mexico

NEW MEXICO

LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

Sent by Barney Family from Albuquerque in New Mexico, USA.

I received the same postcard 14 years ago from different sender. It is here.

Germany - Saxony - Leipzig (3)

Greetings from Leipzig.

Sent by Juliane from Leipzig, Germany.

My other two postcards of Leipzig are here and here.

Germany - Brandenburg - Commercial Vehicle Show 2023

IFA W 50 L and L 60 for the 6th Commercial Vehicle Show in Horstwalde on 13th August 2023.

Sent by Ulrich from Bonn, Germany.

The IFA W 50 is a medium-duty truck built by the East German IFA conglomerate at their Ludwigsfelde plant from 1965 until 1990. A total of about 572,000 were built in Ludwigsfelde, with an unknown additional number of special-use vehicles assembled at other plants. It was meant to be succeeded by the IFA L 60 but outlived it by several months. IFA ended all truck production on 17 December 1990, following the reunification of Germany (read more).

Germany - Brandenburg - Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin

New Palace

Sanssouci Palace and Park, Potsdam.

Sent by Elke from Berlin, Germany

With 500 ha of parks and 150 buildings constructed between 1730 and 1916, Potsdam's complex of palaces and parks forms an artistic whole, whose eclectic nature reinforces its sense of uniqueness. It extends into the district of Berlin-Zehlendorf, with the palaces and parks lining the banks of the River Havel and Lake Glienicke. Voltaire stayed at the Sans-Souci Palace, built under Frederick II between 1745 and 1747 (read more).

USA - Washington - Ye Olde Curiosity Shop

Interior of world famous Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, Ferry Dock Pier 52, Seattle 4, Wasington, USA, on Seattle's historic waterfront. In the foreground is "Sylvester" the mummy and Cigar Store Indian. Most unique shop in the world, "Beats the Dickens". Established 1899.

Sent by Lisa from Sacramento in California, USA.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop is a store founded in 1899, on the Central Waterfront of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is currently located on Pier 54. Best known today as a souvenir shop and museum, it also has aspects of a dime museum, and is an important supplier of Northwest Coast art to museums. As of 2008, the store has been owned by four generations of the same family.

In 1933, the Seattle Star named Ye Olde Curiosity Shop one of the "Seven Wonders of Seattle", the only shop on the list. The other six Wonders were the harbor, the Ballard Locks, the Boeing airplane factory, the Seattle Art Museum, the Pike Place Market and the University District's Edmond Meany Hotel (now the Graduate Seattle hotel). (read more)

USA - Alabama - State Bird

SCIENTIFIC NAME:  Colaptes auratus
OTHER NAMES:  Yellow-shafted flicker, red-shafted flicker, common flicker.

STATUS:  Breeder. Fairly common to uncommon in all seasons and regions. Designated the offical state bird by the Alabama Legislature. MODERATE CONSERVATION CONCERN.

Sent by Michelle from Dallas in Texas, USA.

The northern flicker or common flicker (Colaptes auratus) is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker species that migrate. Over 100 common names for the northern flicker are known, including yellowhammer (not to be confused with the Eurasian yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)), clape, gaffer woodpecker, harry-wicket, heigh-ho, wake-up, walk-up, wick-up, yarrup, and gawker bird. Many of these names derive from attempts to imitate some of its calls. It is the state bird of Alabama (known by its colloquial name "yellowhammer") (read more)

Remarkable Women #3 - Elisabetta Sirani

ELISABETTA SIRANI
(1638 - 1665)

Sent by Gorab from Bengaluru, India.

Elisabetta Sirani (8 January 1638 – 28 August 1665) was an Italian Baroque painter and printmaker who died in unexplained circumstances at the age of 27. She was one of the first women artists in early modern Bologna, who became a successful painter, producing public altarpieces as well as privately commissioned pictures.

Elisabetta Sirani was born in Bologna on 8 January 1638, the first of four children of Margherita and Giovanni Andrea Sirani. Giovanni was an art merchant and painter of the School of Bologna, having been a favorite assistant of Guido Reni. He did not produce many works during his lifetime; instead, he took over Reni's job as a teacher, and became the master in the first life school held in the house of Ettore Ghislieri (read more).

France - Tour de France 2025 : 3rd Stage (Valenciennes to Dunkirk)

Tour de France 2025

Third Stage : Valenciennes to Dunkirk (7th July)

Sent by Jean-Paul from Nantua, France.

The 2025 Tour de France is the upcoming 112th edition of the Tour de France. It will start in Lille on 5 July, and will finish with the final stage at Champs-Élysées, Paris, on 27 July (read more).

USA - Wildlife In Southwestern Desert

WILDLIFE IN SOUTHWESTERN DESERT.

Sent by Yajaira from New Mexico, USA.

The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The largest cities by metropolitan area are Phoenix, Las Vegas, El Paso, Albuquerque, and Tucson. Before 1848, in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as well as parts of Alta California and Coahuila y Tejas, settlement was almost non-existent outside of New Mexico's pueblos and Spanish or Mexican municipalities. Much of the area had been a part of New Spain and Mexico until the United States acquired the area through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the smaller Gadsden Purchase in 1854 (read more).

Bicycle (53)

Sent by Sinisitikas from Estonia.

Bicycle (52)

Sent by Martina from Hamburg, Germany.

Bicycles (51)

Which two bikes have a flat tire?

Sent by Gabriele from Leverkusen, Germany.

Swimwear #11 - Boomerang Beach Pacific Palms

Boomerang Beach Pacific Palms, NSW, Australia.

Sent by Jeroen from Nijmegen, Netherlands.

USA - California - Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary

ALCATRAZ ISLAND SAN FRANCISCO BAY
Once a federal prison for notorious crriminals, the island is now part of the National Park System, and can be visited on tours leaving from Fisherman's Wharf.

Sent by Hannah from Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz (English: /ˈælkəˌtræz/, Spanish: [alkaˈtɾas] "the gannet") or the Rock, was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles (2.01 km) off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States. The site of a fort since the 1850s, the main prison building was built in 1910–12 as a U.S. Army military prison.

The United States Department of Justice acquired the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Pacific Branch, on Alcatraz on October 12, 1933. The island became adapted and used as a prison of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in August 1934 after the buildings were modernized and security increased. Given this high security and the island's location in the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay, prison operators believed Alcatraz to be escape-proof and America's most secure prison (read more).

India - Andaman and Nicobar Islands - Havelock Island

These are few postcards left from my early this year trip to Havelock Island which is part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India.

All blank unaddressed postcards are internationally stamped and cancelled on 2nd January 2025, at the Post Office in the island. If you are interested, the postcard will then be mailed inside an envelope.

Five (5) pieces of blank postcards.

front

back

POSTCARD 1

front

back

POSTCARD 2

front

back

POSTCARD 3

front

back

POSTCARD 4

front

back

POST OFFICE IN HAVELOCK ISLANDS

Japan - Hokanji Temple

Yasaka Pagoda is a landmark located in the Gion neigborhood. Its official name is Hokanji Temple, and the current five-storied pagoda was built in 1440.

Sent by Yumi from Fukuoka, Japan. 

The Yasaka Pagoda (Japanese: 八坂の塔, romanized: Yasaka-no-to), also known as the Tower of Yasaka, is a Buddhist pagoda located in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The 5-story tall pagoda is the last remaining structure of a 6th-century temple complex known as Hōkan-ji (法観寺). The pagoda is now a tourist attraction.

Archaeological evidence dates the foundation of the Yasaka Pagoda to the 7th Century. The founding date is disputed between the reign of Prince Shotoku and the sixth year of the Tenmu period (678 CE). The pagoda and the associated temple were destroyed and reconstructed several times up to 1440, of which the current pagoda stands to this day.
Control of the pagoda was historically disputed between the nearby Shinto Gion Shrine and the Buddhist temple of Kiyomizu-dera, to the point the pagoda was burnt down in May of 1179. It was later rebuilt in 1191 with funding from Kawachi Genji noble Minamoto no Yoritomo. In 1240, the head priest of the nearby Buddhist temple of Kennin-ji affiliated the pagoda with Zen Buddhism, which remains the official designation of the Yasaka Pagoda to the present day (read more).

Peru - City of Cuzco

PERU 

Cusco Main Square

Sent by Hotel Novotel Cusco, Cusco, Peru. Thank you very much.

Tripadvisor Reviews :  Hotel Novotel Cusco.

The City of Cuzco, at 3,400 m above sea level, is located in a fertile alluvial valley fed by several rivers in the heart of the Central Peruvian Andes of South America. Under the rule of Inca Pachacuteq (Tito Cusi Inca Yupanqui), in the 15th century, the city was redesigned and remodelled after a pre-Inca occupation process of over 3,000 years, and became the capital of the Tawantinsuyu Inca Empire, which covered much of the South American Andes between the 15th and 16th centuries AD.

The Imperial city of the Incas was developed as a complex urban centre with distinct religious and administrative functions which were perfectly defined, distributed and organized. The religious and government buildings were accompanied by the exclusive abodes for royal families, forming an unprecedented symbolic urban compound, which shows a stone construction technology with exceptional aesthetic and structural properties, such as the Temple of the Sun or Qoricancha, the Aqllahuasi, the Sunturcancha, the Kusicancha and a series of very finely finished buildings that shape the Inca compound as an indivisible unity of Inca urbanism. The noble city was clearly isolated from the clearly delineated areas for agricultural, artisan and industrial production as well as from the surrounding neighbourhoods. The pre-Hispanic patterns and buildings that shaped the Imperial city of the Incas are visible today (read more).