Assorted European UNESCO

Tags

Europe, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Today I have three new-to-me UNESCO site cards, one from Wales, one from Spain, and one from Switzerland.

First is one of the cave paintings in the Altamira Cave in Spain. The paintings were made during the Upper Paleolithic, 18 to 14 thousand years ago. The caves were discovered in 1880, the first such discovery of prehistoric cave paintings. The cave was declared a UNESCO site in 1985.

Next is the Lavaux Vineyard landscape in Switzerland. People have been growing wine grapes on these terraces on the shores of Lake Geneva since the 11th century. The terraces are protected from development by the Swiss government, and since 2007 have been protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well.

This card was sent by dannyozzy on the Postcrossing forum in late January, 2013.

And finally, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct in Wales. The aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee Valley and is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain. It is 307 meters (1,007 feet) long and 38 meters (126 feet) tall. The canal was completed in 1805 and listed as World Heritage Site in 2009.

Here are the stamps:

Mountains of Switzerland

Tags

Europe, glaciers, Switzerland, trains

Danielle and Oscar, a couple living in Switzerland, recently sent me my first UNESCO cards from Switzerland. First is this wonderful, extra-wide card of the Aletsch Glacier in the Jungfrau-Aletsch Protected Area:

This glacier is located in the Bernese Alps; it is the largest glaciated area in Western Europe and was the first area in the Alps to be placed on the UNESCO list, in 2001. This card shows the altitudes of the many peaks in this area of the Alps.

The second card shows the Rhaetian Railway in the Albula and Bernina Landscapes.

The section of the railway between Thusis and Tirano was added to the UNESCO list in 2001. Google has announced that it will be the first railway to be photographed and put on their Street View section of Google Maps. The railway goes over many viaducts, through tunnels and spirals to climb through the Alps toward the Italian border.

I am happy to have these two cards to start my collection of UNESCO sites in Switzerland.

A Brief Tour of Switzerland

Tags

castles, cities, Europe, nature, Switzerland

I didn’t have many postcards from Switzerland until recently. Then Elizabeth (AKA swisscowgirl) sent me three cards from Switzerland and one of my official Postcrossing cards came from Zurich, so now I have a total of five cards from Switzerland! Here are the four that I haven’t previously shown on the blog:

First is the official Postcrossing card. It shows the garden pavilion at the Villa Pathumba in Zurich. It looks like a beautiful place to go sit in the park surrounding the villa.

The next three cards are from swisscowgirl and show the sites from around her home:

First is the fortress of Munot in the city of Schaffhausen. This circular fortress was built in the 16th century and is a symbol of the city. Swisscowgirl writes that the view from the fortress is beautiful but requires climbing a lot of stairs.

Next is the city of Schaffhausen itself:

Schaffhausen is home to many Swiss heritage sites. It is an old city, dating to around the 11th century CE. The river that you can see on the postcard is the Rhine River.

Europe’s largest waterfalls are nearby on the Rhine River. The Rhine Falls are 150 m (450 ft) wide and 23 m (75 ft) high:

They are a popular tourist attraction. There have been many discussions of harnessing the power of the falls to make hydroelectric power, but for now they remain undisturbed.

These cards came with two new-to-me stamps:

These stamps show some plants: Pisum sativum, the pea, and Allium cepa, onions. Beautiful stamps of common foods!

Places that are not Ireland

Tags

Asia, cities, Europe, Malaysia, nature, Netherlands, religion, Switzerland

So I feel like I should do a post about Ireland or something green for Saint Patrick’s Day, but I haven’t received any cards from Ireland recently. So let’s celebrate Ireland with the Buddha, windmills, and Switzerland!

This card of the “great statue of Lord Buddha” comes from Neko in Malaysia. This statue sits in the Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang, the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. The stamp shows some Malaysian storks.

I think we can get a little closer to Ireland with this card showing…

Geneva, Switzerland! Fine, not very Irish, but at least we’re in Europe. And this is my first card from Switzerland. It’s an official Postcrossing card. The stamp shows a red kite, a kind of bird:

Maybe we can get a little bit of green to represent the Emerald Isles…

This panoramic view of a typical Dutch countryside scene comes from a Postcrosser in the Netherlands. This could almost be Ireland, with all the green and the grazing cows. But the windmill and canal are so Dutch. Oh well…

If you want to see a card that actually has something to do with Ireland, you can see one of these posts. At least we aren’t drinking green-dyed beer!