Postcards for the Weekend: Bridges

This weekend's Postcards for the Weekend theme is 'Bridges'.

As some of you know, bridges are one of my favourite themes. They connect people, cities and sometimes even countries. No surprise that I posted several bridge stamps and postcards before.

First I'll take you to Asia, the continent I've never been to myself. Thanks to postcrossing and to instagram friends I 'traveled' virtually to beautiful places, by receiving and enjoying pretty postcards.

This postcard I received from a Postcrosser from China. The back of this card doesn't say where this bridge is located. The sender lives in Wuhan, so maybe this beautiful, quiet looking place might be in this area.



From my instagram friend Jael I received this postcard from Singapore. All attention, of both the artists and us, card watchers, goes to the Merlion, but looking close, you can see a bridge on the right. It's one of the bridges over the Singapore River.



This bridge I drew - as a postcard - for a mail art project in Indonesia. It is the Kahayan bridge in Palangkaraya, Borneo. I chose to draw it because the mail art project was in honour of the 60th anniversary of this Indonesian city.



From Asia to Europe.

In Venice there is a lot of water, and fortunately there are bridges, too. Most famous I think the Bridge of Sighs, but the bridge I received thanks to Rio is a more innocent one:



On the back side she added a matching stamp and postmark, showing a larger bridge from Venice:



From John I received a nice postcard showing maybe one of the most well-known bridges:



I replied by this postcard, which to my surprise was available in a local store, here in the Netherlands:



I don't know if it is a good or bad habit, but at least it made and makes me happy: when visiting familiar cities (among them Nijmegen, the city where I grew up, and Murcia in Spain, which is the home city of my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew) I sometimes send postcards to myself. Not that many, so far maybe 7 or so, but to my surprise the majority of the postcards show bridges.

Here you can see two bridges over the Rio Segura in Murcia:



This is the Railway bridge over the river Waal in Nijmegen:



The same bridge you can see in the very back of the photo on bottom on this card:



The two other bridges are the Waalbrug (my favourite bridge as it reminds me of my former 'home'), and a pedestrian bridge, which is new to me.


As a 'dessert' here are some stamps:

A bridge in a winter scene in Finland:



And bridges from Singapore, Hong Kong, Russia and the Netherlands, gathered in one chaincard about this theme:



The stamp bottom left shows a newly built bridge over the forementioined river Waal.

See more bridges at and via this weekend's Postcards for the Weekend!

Postcards for the weekend: "From your home country"

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!

Sunday Stamps: Lakes, rivers: the river Waal

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Lakes, rivers'.

This time I show you just one river, the river Waal (see also here).
I grew up in the city of Nijmegen, and this nice, Roman founded city is located at this river Waal.
Since 20 years I live close to my birth place Amsterdam, which is 120 kilometers north-west of Nijmegen. But every time I'm visiting my old town and when I see this river Waal, its typical 'uiterwaarden' and the bridges, I feel like 'home'. Even though the city has changed, and most of my friends have moved to other places, too.



This is a so-called personalized stamp, which has been issued, via PostNL, by Quinta Buma, photographer from Nijmegen.
She also designed this postcard, on which you see a little more of this river:



The Waal is said to have been founded because of a quarrel between two giants, two brothers.
Long time ago these brothers started to dig a river in Switzerland, the river Rhine. After hundred years of digging they arrived at Lobith, where they got a fight. Each of the brothers went his own way. The younger giant continued digging out what's named the Rhine nowadays, the older brother created the river Waal.

PostNL (then TPG Post) has issued a stamp sheet in honour of Nijmegen in 2005, on which you can see parts of the river Waal, too:



See stamps on lakes and more rivers at/via today's Sunday Stamps post.