A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 10 October 2023 - T for

Hello lovely girls,

It's Tuesday again and I'm in England saying hello to everyone. At the moment I am in Bristol, staying with my friend Keren. I will show you a few photos of what I have been doing since last week, but first lets look at one of my recent postcards:

Extremely rare train poster to promote the Simplon Tunnel through the Alps, from Brig in Wallis to Italy. A Swiss Avant-Garde travel poster finely printed in stone-lithography, artist Hans Eggimann, 1913.

The geography is rather confusing. It looks like the rail links on the poster are a mirror image of the real life geography. Most people would know that London is more north than Paris and that Paris is more north than Milan. Venice is east of Milan and Nice is west. very puzzling.... makes no sense. But the poster is beautiful.

It comes to me from Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a German-speaking, 25km-long principality between Austria and Switzerland. It’s known for its medieval castles, alpine landscapes and villages linked by a network of trails. The capital, Vaduz, a cultural and financial center, is home to Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, with galleries of modern and contemporary art. The Postmuseum displays Liechtenstein’s postage stamps. ― Google.

 

The stamps are lovely. It is my first ever card from Liechtenstein, so I have never seen any of their stamps.

The left stamp reads Fürstentum (Principality) Liechtenstein. It depicts the Former Customs House, Vaduz. 

Dating back to 1438, the building which today houses the Liechtenstein National Museum has a long and varied history.

The building - today part of the former Administrator's House - has acted as the princely tavern, a customs house and the seat of the government over the many centuries of its existence. Between 1998 and 2008 work was carried out to renovate the building and extend it towards the mountain slope that is home to Vaduz Castle.

As a matter of interest, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited the tavern on his travels in 1788.

The stamp on the right has Frieden 2000 written on it (Peace 2000). It comes from a series of three stamps about peace:

The artist (of the stamp on my card) is the Italian Antonio Martini and it is called 'Colomba della pace' (Peace dove).

OK, so what have I been up to?

Last week you saw me in Windsor at my son Richard's. 

Yep, he's very tall! (By the way, that is Windsor Castle in the background).

From there I traveled on the train to North Devon where I went on a Christian retreat to a place called Lee Abbey. 

No, it's not an abbey but a former stately home, with a large estate around it which is managed and worked by the Christian community that lives there. They run the place as a hotel and conference center.

I went with my friend Keren. The view from our room:

That's the sea you can see and the water coming into the bay where there is a little beach.

One of the walks we did was a place where two rivers meet (called Watersmeet):

The weather was mild and it didn't rain very much.

Then on Friday we traveled back again. An hour and 20m minutes by taxi to get to the railway station.

Here we are waiting outside the station, as the sun was shining. Our train was delayed and we had a fair old time to wait, but we had fun.

Then an hour on the train to Bristol, where I spent the weekend with my eldest son Phil, who lives outside Bristol. Nearer to Bath actually. 

Now it's Monday and I am at my friend Keren's house. That's where I'm at at the moment. So I will leave you with a photo of my coffee and cake that I enjoyed on Sunday in Bath:

A large mocha and a very chocolatty wedge of cake which is my 'ticket' to the T-Party hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard. Yummy!

Happy T-Day to all!

Hugs,

Lisca