Saturday, May 10, 2014

Air France- France, Aeroporto Afonso Pena, Lufthansa, Tarragona, Fisht Olympic Stadium and Versailles

That's a pretty long title for this update. Those are the keywords on the front of each of today's featured postcards. Those cards arrived from France, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Russia and France again. So let's start with the Air France card from France. This is a new card for my Aviation / Airlines Postcard Collection.Air France is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France,. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance.  My card is the Eiffel Tower , towering over a number of the other tourist related structures.



Fabienne , who collects World Heritage Sites postcards sent this card along. She has a great postcard blog called "Postcards, Stamps and World Heritage ". You can check it our here . It's well worth the visit. Fabienne used 2 stamps from a 2013 souvenir sheet of 8 commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Tour de France. 



Today's second card is another airport card. Afonso Pena International Airport. It is the main airport serving Curitiba, Brazil, located in the adjoining municipality of São José dos Pinhais. It is named after Afonso Augusto Moreira Pena, the 6th President of Brazil. The airport was originally an air field built during World War II to help serve the allied forces. Civil aviation began at the air field in 1946 and a passenger terminal was built to serve regional and international passengers. The airport provides service to more than seven million passengers and records more than 94,000 aircraft operations annually.



This is another card compliments of Jean Pierre. He used 2 stamp on this card, the one on the left was issued in 2012 and commemorates 100 years of the University of Parana. Parana is one of the 26 states of Brazil and is located in the south of the country. The stamp on the right was issued in 2006 and commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the first flight of 14Bis.  The 14-bis , was a pioneer era canard biplane designed and built by Brazilian  engineer Albert Santos-Dumont. On 23 October 1906, in Paris, France, it performed the first officially witnessed unaided takeoff and flight by a heavier than air aircraft.[








Flying in next is a Lufthansa Airbus A380-800. The A380 is the largest and heaviest passenger aircraft in the world. It is 73 meters long, 24 meters high, and has a takeoff weight of up to 560 tons. The Lufthansa A380 seats 526 passengers, and its four Rolls-Royce engines each generate 70000lbs of thrust. The aircraft on the card,  D-AIMA  Frankfurt am Main , was delivered to Lufthansa on 19 May 2010.



Interestingly this card arrived from Russia, not Germany. Maria used a couple of nice large stamps along with a small definitive from 2008 showing a Fox.  The stamp on the left is from a set of 6 issued in 2006 showing different regions of Russia. The other large stamp, is an Europa issue from 2013 , featuring Postal Transport- in this case it's a horse drawn sleigh.



This next card shows a scene in Tarragona. Tarragona is a port city located in the north-east of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capital of the Tarragona province, and part of the Tarragonès county and Catalonia region. On the card we can see a group of castellers in action.
A castell is a human tower built traditionally in festivals at many locations within Catalonia. At these festivals, several  teams often succeed in building and dismantling a tower's structure. On November 16, 2010, castells were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.



Dominique , who is becoming somewhat of a regular on this blog, used a 2012 self adhesive stamp, 1 of 3 in a set, showcasing Civil Values.



Fisht Olympic Stadium is up next. It's an open-air stadium in Sochi, Russia. Located in Sochi Olympic Park and named after Mount Fisht, the 40,000-person-capacity stadium was built primarily for the 2014 Winter Olympics. It didn't come cheap, costing $779 million  to build.




Viki sent this card and used stamps from 2006 and 2007. On the left is 1 of 3 in a WWF Animals issue. This one shows a European Bison or wisent. It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the American Bison.  The stamp on the right is another from the Regions set that I mentioned earlier.







And today's last card is ....... This view of Versailles. The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal chateau in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France.  When the chateau was built, Versailles  was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The city of Versailles is  , world-widely renowned for its chateau, and its gardens, designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites . According to the 2008 census, the population of the city is 88,641.





This is another card from Dominique. The stamp on this one commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the French National Order of Merit.



So ends another update , another one put to bed, so to speak. Thanks go out to Fabienne, Jean Pierre, Maria, Dominique, Viki, and Dominique one more time. Great cards - and great stamps on them. What more could one want- only more of the same, I guess.
Take care. and thanks for reading. Drop by again soon.

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