Espinho

Received from: Portugal
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: December 2011
Distance: 2566 km
Time of travelling: 10 days

Espinho is a city in Espinho Municipality in Portugal. It is a reputed beach resort and a zone of legal gambling with a casino - Casino Solverde. Its fair - Feira de Espinho, having been first organised in 1894, is well known in Portugal. The city is home to CINANIMA - Festival Internacional de Cinema de Animação, an international animation festival. Espinho is about 15 km from Oporto (Porto) and approximately 50 km from Aveiro. It is serviced by trains to Porto, Gaia, Ovar, Aveiro, Coimbra, Lisbon (Linha do Norte) and S.M.da Feira, S.J.da Madeira, O.Azemeis, Águeda and Aveiro via linha do Vouga. Espinho became a city in 1973. It is located in the famous Costa Verde; it has several beaches and a golf course.

Kraków

Received from: Poland
Category: 6-miesięczny RR
Date: November 2011

Lithuania

Received from: Lithuania
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: November 2011
Distance: 329 km
Time of travelling: 15 days

Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.

Kraków

Received from: Poland
Category: 6-miesięczny RR
Date: November 2011

Tadeusz Pankiewicz was a Polish Roman Catholic pharmacist, operating in the Kraków Ghetto during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. He was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem on February 10, 1983, for rescuing countless Jews from the Holocaust. Pankiewicz studied at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1933, he took over the proprietorship of the "Under the Eagle" pharmacy (Apteka Pod Orłem) founded in 1910 by his father Jozef. The pharmacy was situated on Plac Zgody (formerly Mały Rynek square) in Kraków's Podgórze district. Its prewar clientele included both Gentile Poles and Jews.

Finland

Received from: Finland
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: November 2011
Distance: 984 km
Time of travelling: 8 days

Thann

Received from: France
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: November 2011
Distance: 1106 km
Time of travelling: 7 days

Thann is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. Its inhabitants are known as Thannois.

Beskid Sądecki

Received from: Poland
Category: 6-miesięczny RR
Date: November 2011

The Beskids are approximately 600 km in length and 50–70 km in width. They stand mainly along the southern border of Poland, and in the neighboring far eastern Czech Republic, neighboring regions in northern Slovakia, and in western Ukraine. Multiple traditions, languages and nationalities have developed overlapping variants for the divisions and names of these ranges. Geologically all of the Beskids stand within the Outer Western Carpathians and the Outer Eastern Carpathians.

Białystok

Received from: Poland
Category: 6-miesięczny RR
Date: November 2011

Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Located on the Podlaskie Plain on the banks of the Biała River, Białystok ranks second in terms of population density, eleventh in population, and thirteenth in area, of the cities of Poland. It has historically attracted migrants from elsewhere in Poland and beyond, particularly from Central and Eastern Europe. This is facilitated by the fact that the nearby border with Belarus is also the eastern border of the European Union, as well as the Schengen Area. The city and its adjacent municipalities constitute Metropolitan Białystok. The city has a Warm Summer Continental climate, characterized by warm summers and long frosty winters. Forests are an important part of Białystok's character, and occupy around 1,756 ha (4,340 acres) (17.2% of the administrative area of the city) which places it as the fifth most "wooded" city in Poland.

Dresden

Received from: Germany
Category: Tag within Europe
Date: November 2011

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area.

Mannheim

Received from: Germany
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: November 2011
Distance: 936 km
Time of travelling: 13 days

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart. Mannheim is located at the confluence of the River Rhine and the River Neckar in the northwestern corner of Baden-Württemberg. The Rhine separates Mannheim from the city of Ludwigshafen, just to the west of it in Rhineland-Palatinate. The border of Baden-Württemberg with the Bundesland of Hesse is just north of Mannheim, and Mannheim is just downstream along the Neckar from the city of Heidelberg. Mannheim is the largest city of the Rhine Neckar Area, a metropolitan area with about 2.4 million inhabitants.

Gisborne

Received from: New Zealand
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: November 2011
Distance: 17665 km
Time of travelling: 19 days

Gisborne (Māori: Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa, "The place where Kiwa - of the Tākitimu waka - stood") is a city in northeastern New Zealand and the largest settlement in the Gisborne Region. It has a population of 34,000. The district council has its headquarters in the city. Gisborne is named after an early Colonial Secretary William Gisborne.

Baltic Sea

Received from: Poland
Category: 6-miesięczny RR
Date: November 2011

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. The Kattegat continues through Skagerrak into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is connected by man-made waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal, and to the North Sea via the Kiel Canal. The Baltic Sea might be considered to be bordered on its northern edge by the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, and on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga. These various gulfs can also be considered part of the Baltic Sea.

Warsaw

Received from: Poland
Category: 6-miesięczny RR
Date: November 2011

The Royal Castle in Warsaw is a castle residency and was the official residence of the Polish monarchs. It is located in the Castle Square, at the entrance to the Warsaw Old Town. The personal offices of the king and the administrative offices of the Royal Court of Poland were located there from the 16th century until the Partitions of Poland. In its long history the Royal Castle was repeatedly devastated and plundered by Swedish, Brandenburgian, German, and Russian armies.

Minsk

Received from: Belarus
Category: Postcrossing - official card
Date: November 2011
Distance: 474 km
Time of travelling: 11 days

Minsk Passazhirsky (Minsk Passenger Station, Belarusian: Мінск-Пасажырскі - Russian: Минск-Пассажирский) is the main passenger rail terminal in Belarus. It is located in the centre of Minsk. It is sometimes called Minsk Ploshchad Lenina due to the metro station serving the terminal, or simply Minsk.

Comino

Received from: Malta
Category: from a friend
Date: November 2011

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Another result of my complaing for a postcard to a friend who spent a few days in Malta. I just envy such holidays in the middle of academic year!

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Comino is an island of the Maltese archipelago between the islands of Malta and Gozo in the Mediterranean Sea, measuring 1.35 square miles (3.5 km2) in area. Named after the cumin seed that once flourished in the Maltese islands, Comino is noted for its tranquility and isolation. It has a permanent population of only four residents. One priest and one policeman commute from the nearby island of Gozo, to render their services to the local population and summertime visitors. Today, Comino is a bird sanctuary and nature reserve. Administratively it is part of the municipality of Għajnsielem, in southeastern Gozo.