Well it's a small city, and what you can see here is the Grand Place which is actually the centre of the historic town where is also town hall with the belfry in the background.
The City Hall, originally built near the current location of the belfry, was moved on the Grand Place in the 13th century. The flamboyant gothic building we see today dates from the 15th century. In front of it stands a statue of a monkey, which is said to bring good fortune to those who pat his head.
A million dollar question....can you see the monkey??? :)
and here comes the boring Belgian guy on a definitive stamp issued in 2009 in a set of 4.
3 comments:
My old atlas from 1962 says Mons. But the book is sadly out of date. In China it still says Peking for Beijing. And of course your country is part of Yugoslavia. Things keep changing. I prefer the peaceful changes and not the ones involving tanks and bombs and spies.
The city Mons is in the French-speaking(Wallonia) part of Belgium. They call their city Mons. People in the Dutch-speaking (Flanders) part of Belgium refer to Mons often in Dutch. Bergen is just the translation of Mons in Dutch. If you would translate Mons or Bergen in English it would be 'Mountains'.
A lot of places in Belgium have two official names, the Dutch one and the French one:
Brussel - Bruxelles
Brugge - Bruges
Bergen - Mons
Mechelen - Malines
Namen - Namur
Doornik - Tournai
Kortrijk - Courtrai
...
I hope my explanation made it a bit more clear to you.
Greetings from someone who isn't collecting postcards anymore but who still follows you postcard blog. ;-)
Thanks Linn! Brussels and Brugge for example make a lot of sense, but Bergen vs. Mons was something i couldnt find connection to...but now that you explained the translation, i do get it :)
May I ask why you are not into postcards anymore?
btw, thanks for still following..I do have yours on follow too, even though in most cases i dont understand it :P
Carol, I prefer the peaceful changes too, though they seem to be less and less, or non-existent at all...btw, i LOVE that profile picture of yours :)
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