Monday, May 20, 2013

In Days of Old

No new mail today, it's Victoria Day here in Canada, a National Holiday. What is Victoria Day, you may ask?Victoria Day is a Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday before May 25, in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday. The date is also, simultaneously, that on which the current reigning Canadian sovereign's official birthday is recognized. It is sometimes informally considered as marking the beginning of the summer season in Canada. In this regard Victoria Day is the last day of the May Long Weekend, often called the 24th of May, even though it most often doesn't fall on the 24th. The beginning of summer , tell that to the folks in Gander, Newfoundland- they received 69 cm snow yesterday. If you want to check out the real true meaning of Victoria day, go back in my blog to May 23, 2011. There is a little video there that's worth looking at again. Enjoy.
Now back to today and postcards.

My first postcard is from Riga, Latvia. It was the basis for the title of this post. "In Days of Old " It was the first thing that came to my mind when I found this postcard in the mailbox. "In Days of Old, when Knights were Bold ................... There is more and many versions to the verse , poem , limerick or whatever you might call it. This is a family type blog, so if you want you can find the other parts online. Some are quite interesting. The bottom of the card says, Vidzeme, Nice Place. Vidzeme is a historical and cultural region of Latvia .Located in the north central part of the country, it literally means "the Middle Land ".  You can find many monuments, medieval castles and ancient settlements in the area.
Postcrosser Maija used a nice train and railway bridge  stamp from 2012. It was 1 of 3 issued in a souvenir sheet.







My next card is Airline related. It shows a reproduction of an airline poster for Air Orient. The poster dates from 1932. Air Orient was an airline based in France. Created in 1929, the short lived airline was merged with Air France on October 7, 1933.
  Paolo who hails from Piacenza, a nice and old city in Northern Italy, sent this card. Piacenza really is old, it was founded in 218 BC .Paolo used 3 lovely large stamps . On the left , from 2012 is a stamp commemorating 50 years of the Carbinieri, the national military police of Italy. The other 2 stamps were issued this year, but I have no info on them.


My final card for this time comes from Kostroma, Russia. The card shows a number of Soviet stamps from 1958.



Yulia used a number of the animal stamps from the 2008 definitives. Of more interest is the larger stamp issued in 2003. It was issued to highlight climate change.


That's my update for this time, a little shorter than my normal 6 cards., but that's how it goes some times. Enjoy your cards and leave a comment if you found anything to your liking. Don't forget to check out the video I mentioned earlier. Thanks to Yulia, Paolo and Maija for the cards used today.

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