envelope

Saint Helena Island, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final resting place

Saint Helena is a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, best known as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile and death from 1815 to 1821. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502 and later controlled by the British, it served as a vital stopover for ships sailing to Asia and South Africa. Today, it is a British Overseas Territory, UK’s second-oldest overseas territory after Bermuda. Its capital is Jamestown.

On this postcard: Prince’s Lodge – the oldest country property in St Helena, built in 1808 AD. Interesting, that it appears to be for sale at the moment, for £720,000!

St Helena postcard

St Helena stamps postmark

St Helena envelope

Sisimiut, Greenland

Greenland is the world’s largest island, and it is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. Sisimiut (which literally means “the people at the fox burrows”), is the second-largest city in Greenland with population of around 5600. Fishing is the main industry in there. Sisimiut has been a settlement site for around 4500 years, originally inhabited by the people of the Saqqaq culture who came from Arctic Canada. Today city’s population is a mix of the Inuit and Danish peoples. This postcard shows women in traditional suits.

I received this awesome postcard in envelope, and still looking for stamped postcard from Greenland.

Corfu, Greece

Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek) is Greece’s island in Ionian Sea. The name Corfi is an Italian version of the Byzantine Koryphō (“city of the peaks”), denoting the two peaks of Palaio Frourio. Corfu has many museums, monuments and cultural centers, and the first modern Greek university was established here. Unlike the rest of Greece, Corfu never fell under the Ottoman rule, and was dominated by the Venetians, the French and the British over the centuries, which greatly influenced it’s culture.

The Spaceport in French Guiana (still looking for)

The Spaceport in French Guiana – also known as the Guiana Space Center – is a French and European spaceport near Kourou in French Guiana. The strategically-located facility provides optimum operating conditions for Arianespace’s commercial launches with the European heavy-lift Ariane 5 rockets, Russian medium-size Soyuz rockets, and Italian-European lightweight Vega rockets.

I received this postcard in a beautiful envelope:

French Guiana stamps

French Guiana postcard

Harar gate, Ethiopia

Harar is a walled city in eastern Ethiopia. For centuries, Harar has been a major commercial center, linked by the trade routes with the rest of Ethiopia, the entire Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and, through its ports, the outside world. The walls surrounding this sacred city, considered “the fourth holy city” of Islam, were built between the 13th and 16th centuries and served as a protective barrier. There were five historic gates, which corresponded to the main roads to the town and also served to divide the city into five neighborhoods, but this division is not functional anymore.

Ethiopia postcard

Ethiopia stamps

Varna, Bulgaria

Varna is a port city and seaside resort on Bulgaria‘s Black Sea, adjacent to the coastal resorts of Golden Sands, St. Konstantin and Albena. It’s famous for the “Gold of Varna,” 6,000-year-old Thracian jewelry discovered in a necropolis. The jewelry’s displayed inside the Archaeological Museum, along with Greek, Roman and Ottoman antiquities. A bar-lined waterfront promenade fronts 19th-century Primorski Park.

Bulgaria postcard

Bulgaria stamps

Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Travnik, a town and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a picturesque city with the charisma of a visibly eventful past. The town is located in the river valley Lasva between Vlasic mountain on the north and Vilenica on the south. Travnik fort is the most impressive castles in Bosnia and Herzegovina, all the time, which still exists and is the best preserved of all. It was built in the 11th century, from which period and generated name Travnikrom.

This postcard came in an envelope.

Bosnia Herzegovina Travnik postcard