This weekend the '
Postcards for the weekend' theme is about our home countries.
I tend to just link to
one blog post from July 2016. Because I thought: isn't home - the 'home country' - the place where your heart is, where your friends are? On that blog post I shared two cards. One sent to an old friend in the
city of Nijmegen, the city where I grew up, went to school and university. The other sent to a friend in Amsterdam, the city where I have been born and to which I live close now. Both cities make me feel home. But above all: friends make me feel home. And, also mailboxes make me feel home :-) As these shorten the distance to 'far-away' friends, to mail lovers like you!
Anyhow, I'll show some pictures of my two main 'home' cities, regions, here, too.
This postcard I bought ages ago, I think in the eighties. It shows a part of a shop at the corner of the Van Welderenstraat (a street in the city center of Nijmegen). Our school was close by, so in the breaks we wandered through this city center.
Recently I saw both the fountain pen and the fountain pen shop had disappeared, but a short search on the internet learned that at least the
pen shop still exists, it just moved to a larger location in the same street.
The
Waalbrug, Bridge over the river Waal, is a landmark. I always love to see it, and to pass under the large bows to enter Nijmegen (via the road, not via the water :-) ).
I even drew it, and put it on a personalized stamp.
In the upper right corner you see a tiny stamp of Schiphol, aka Amsterdam Airport, which is close to my present hometown.
Below you can see a part of a stamp sheet about Nijmegen. In contrary to my present home region in the really flat west of the Netherlands, the city of Nijmegen, and almost all of the east of our country, is hilly. There is a nice view from the Valkhof over this Waalbrug.
The statue pictured shows
Marieke van Nimwegen. I never read or heard the complete (medieval) story, but the status also is located in the city center, and I consider a landmark, too.
From Nijmegen 120 kms to the north-west, to Amsterdam:
Below you see the
Dam Square. This is located in 'hartje Amsterdam', 'the heart of Amsterdam' = the city center of Amsterdam. You can see two lion statues behind (in real: in front of) the
Monument on the Dam.
My late grandmother told me that in 1927, when she was 17 years old, the lion's weren't there yet. Instead there were kiosks. My grandmother wanted to work there, to sell newspapers, but she was one year too young. Finally her father convinced the owner to get her job, and she did very well.
A few years later she got married, which in those days meant she had to stop working outdoors. And a few more years later my mother was born.
Finally I'll show you three map cards.
Funny is that the rivers in real are north from the cities: the Waal is north of Nijmegen, and the IJ is north of Amsterdam. But the old cards show the rivers on bottom of the cities, or the cities on top of the rivers:
Nijmegen (Novio Magum is the name given by the founders, the Romans, over 2000 years ago):
Amsterdam:
And on this larger map card you can see where both cities are located:
Be sure to check this weekend's '
Postcards for the weekend'to see more interesting and dear places!
