A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 27 June 2023 - T for ....Taiwan and Taipei and Sardinia

                                                    Hello lovely ladies,

Today I have a card from Taiwan with a quote:

"Memories are just fragments of what's already gone - Caelus"

I'd never heard of Caelus and looked him up on Wikipedia:

Caelus or Coelus was a primal god of the sky in Roman myth and theology, iconography, and literature (compare caelum, the Latin word for "sky" or "the heaven", hence English "celestial"). The deity's name usually appears in masculine grammatical form when he is conceived of as a male generative force.

The quote sounds more like a definition and the author is a god? It doesn’t make much sense to me. Anyway let’s continue.

The stamp is quite pretty.

It's supposed to be a night view of the capital Taipei. Here are some internet photos of Taipei:

But the tower on the stamp doesn’t feature on the photos.

I’m in Sardegna (Sardinia), a large island in the Mediterranean. It is Italian. Not to be confused with Corsica, the other island which is French.

What I’ve seen of it so far, it’s beautiful.

 The sea is really that blue.

 I also saw some interesting rocks and of course had to photograph those too.

Before going to Sardegna, we stayed at some friends near Frosinone ( between Rome and Naples). They are our Danish neighbours’ best friends and we have known them for years.

I hadn’t seen their holiday home yet and I must admit, although it is up a mountain track, the views are spectacular.

Here they are. They are such a nice couple. She works from home and he flies up and down.

The view is as said, spectacular!

This is the nearby village of Serrone with my friend’s dog Roxy.

But today is the T-Party hosted by Bluebeard and Elizabeth, so a drink is in order:

Cheers!

In the wrong order (Blame Blogger), but this is a nice cappuccino and brioche for breakfast at a cafe in Civitavecchia where we took the ferry to Sardegna.

Last but not least my glass of wine when we had a pizza in Serrone.

That is all from me today. It’s hot and we are probably going to the beach.

Happy T-Day all!

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 23 June 2023 - Friday Smiles

 

 Hello lovely ladies,

I have a black and white postcard for you today. It features the London Docks in bygone days, but was posted in the USA:

Info at the back of the card: "Whilst London has been a port since Roman times, the dock complex to the east of London was not constructed until the days of the railways in the 19th century. At one time it covered hundreds of square miles with produce from all over the world being stored in enormous warehouses. During the second world war the dock complex was badly damaged by bombs but it was containerisation and the much larger container ships that led to complete closure."

Here are the stamps:

The stamp top right is not very clear because of the cancellation stamp (and the bad scan). Here is a better picture:

From the series 'Enjoy the great outdoor': Hiking (2020)

The dark one is the sun solar flare:

In 2021, the United States Postal Service issued a set of 10 Forever stamps honoring Sun Science. Each design pictures a different phenomenon exhibited by our Sun. These include: coronal holes, coronal loops, solar flares, the active Sun, plasma blasts, and sunspots.

The third stamp features an eel and a coral and is from a series of forever stamps about coral reefs.

This coral is brain coral.

Despite their name, brain coral do not have brains.  Their name comes from their appearance, which is strikingly similar to the human organ.  While many living closer to the surface are brightly colored, those that grow in deeper waters are grayer, striking an even stronger resemblance.

I’m in Italy at the moment, visiting my son in Abruzzo  I used to live here myself and it’s really nice to see old friends too. This is my son ( you might have seen this already on FB):

I’m spending time with my 8 year old grandson, who is so active I get tired just looking at him!

Here featured with Rafa, the Girafa.

We are traveling with a dog too:

She likes to lie in the sun so we have to constantly call her back into the shade as it’s too hot.

Finally a photo of a street nearby:

That’s it from me this Friday  There will be some funnies at the end.

Have a lovely weekend!

Hugs,

Lisca

The sign reads: 'My owner will be back soon' And it features the temperature in the car. In the picture it shows 22 degrees C.

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 20 June 2023 - T for a fortress, a sculptress and Pete Seeger....

 Hello lovely ladies, Here I am again and I'm still on my travels. I have some photos to show you but first my postcard for today:

Hohensalzburg Fortress is a large medieval fortress in the city of Salzburg, Austria. It sits atop the Festungsberg at an altitude of 506 m. It was erected at the behest of the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg. The fortress is 250 m long and 150 m wide making it one of the largest medieval castles in Europe. Wikipedia

It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it comes to me from the USA. Kristina, who is an airplane engineer and lives in Renton, Washington state, sent it to me because I collect postcards from UNESCO WH sites.

So it has US stamps:

What beauties! Now who is Edmonia Lewis?

Mary Edmonia Lewis,(July 4, 1844 – September 17, 1907) also known as "Wildfire", was an American sculptor, of mixed African-American and Native American heritage. Born free in Upstate New York, she worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. Wikipedia

Mary Edmonia Lewis was a trailblazer who shattered racial barriers as the first professional African American sculptor in the mid-1800s, becoming famous for her 1,408kg marble sculpture, The Death of Cleopatra.

Read more about her and this sculpture here:

And of course we all know Pete Seeger! 

Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably its recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Wikipedia

I personally remember 'Where have all the flowers gone?' and 'Turn, Turn,Turn' (Later the Byrds had a hit with it), and 'If I had a hammer' (Trini Lopez had a hit with that). I also remember 'Kisses, sweeter than wine'. (Are you humming it with me?)

Wikipedia writes: Seeger was one of the folk singers responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists), which became the acknowledged anthem of the civil rights movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.

My friend and I are now in Italy. Strangely enough the weather in Northern Europe was much warmer. Here it is cool and very windy. We did go to the beach yesterday but we couldn’t swim, it was too wild.

But let’s take you back to Germany. Here we are in a beautiful place called Haslach. We looked for somewhere to eat, but it was late ( in Germany they eat early, at 8 pm there is nothing to be had)

But the beer is really nice. I too love the weissbier. It comes in enormous glasses.

But we were hungry and this place sold Flammkuchen. I had no idea what it was but it is a extremely fine pizza. Very yummy and crispy.

Then we walked through the village. This is the town hall:

And in the next street we found a sculpture:

We found another restaurant still open and we stopped for an ice cream. I forgot to take a picture of it, but as it was getting dark, I photographed the ‘pub sign’.

That’s it from me today. As it’s T for Tuesday hosted by Elizabeth and Bluebeard, I hope you will all join us by posting a drink in your blog. My drink was that enormous glass of beer.

Happy T-Day,

Hugs,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 16 June 2023 - Friday Smiles Moldovan wine and composer

 

Hello lovely girls, 

My postcard today comes from Moldova. The postcard features a vinyard called Purcari:

I can hear you think, Moldova?.... I didn't know where it was either, but since many years, one of my friends' daughter has a Moldovan boyfriend (He lives in Spain). His native tongue is Rumanian (Which is a Roman language) so he learnt Spanish very quickly. He used to talk about his country. It's not very big:

The Château is again known to the whole world for its premium wines, which have received awards and praise from international competitions like Decanter, Challenge International du Vin, Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, International Wine and Spirit Competition as well as the legendary patronage of the royal court of Great Britain.

Château Purcari continues to be a pleasant oasis on the frontier of Europe.

The vineyard is right at the 'heel' of Moldova.

The stamps are interesting:

The man on the left stamp is Mihail Berezovschi. I looked him up:

Mihail Berezovschi was born into a family of priests in Căplan, Cetatea Albă county. He studied at the Theological Seminary in Chisinau, during 1880-1890, later continuing his music studies at the Academic Conservatory in Saint Petersburg.

He was ordained a priest at the church "St. Archangels" from Chisinau (1890-1892) and later worked as a full professor at the Archbishop's Cathedral (from 1892). He also held the position of deputy director of the Cathedral choir (1892), being appointed first conductor in 1904.

After 1918, when the Republic of Moldova united with Romania, he became a full professor at the Conservatory of Music in Chisinau.

He was a founding member of the Society of Romanian Composers, as well as a member and vice-president of the Central Committee of the Music Association "Cântecul Bessarabiei".

He is appointed within the Orthodox Church, participating with the choir he led in the historical events that marked the union of 1918. 

What’s happening here in Spain? I don’t know, because I am now in Italy! I’m on a road trip with my best friend Ineke in her camper van. 

We first drove to Valkenburg, in the south-east tip of the Netherlands, where my friend’s sister lives. We went out for a meal in the evening and had the most delicious salads. ( and a gorgeous view).

I had a smoked salmon salad and my friend had a fresh tuna salad.

This is the bag that hung in the hallway:

It made me smile.

Below is the lovely dog that is travelling with us. She is called Roxy. She’s really sweet.

I hope you have all had something to smile about this week. 

That’s it from me. I’m going to link up with Annie at A Stitch in Time. Please pay her a visit with your smiles too.

Have a lovely weekend,

Hugs,

Lisca

Who remembers the following song? ( oh, the words are different? Just sing it any way)