Casa de la Vall, Andorra

next is another surprise card sent by my friend Goran who, well, decided to make us all jealous and during his trip to Spain last summer, take a short tour to Andorra as well :)

May seem just like some another ordinary house/building, but turns out that this Casa de la Vall is an important place in Andorra, where the headquarters of the General Council of Andorra are
It was built in 1580 as a manor and tower defense by the Busquets family.

Goran used a a EUROPA stamp from the 2014 theme of instruments.

Фалааа Гораааан! :)

Andorra la Vella, Andorra

Well, first of all, I want to wish a Happy Easter to all of you celebrating it today...Im not very familiar with every country's particular traditions, so if anyone feels like it, you can share that in a comment :)
We will be celebrating Easter a bit later....that is, in one month's time..ive never seen the point of Easter falling on different dates every year along with the different time difference each year btw the two Easters, except to get it confusing as much as possible for people like me who are actually not much into all those religious kind of festivals and festivities...
So that's why we'll get down to a few cards for today...nothing Easterish...but I now somewhat regret not having saved that Finnish card below for an Easter update...who would have known it is Easter related :)

And first card comes from Andorra...sent as a surprise from Fabienne  who seems to have the chance to visit this small beautiful country rather often :)

the card here gives us a glimpse of Andorra's capital, that is, Andorra la Vella. Feels like a nice cozy town, located high in the east Pyrenees between France and Spain, which makes it the highest capital city in Europe and a popular ski resort. And well, probably it is more famous for being one of those tax haven places on Earth ...i dont know about you, but i find taxes as a total rip-off..yeah, for all those millionaires/billionaires/politicians, let them pay it...they should even be higher...i find it really unfair that people who barely make a living, pay the same percentage of taxes as those who bathe in money...and in the end, those money are used for completely useless and irrelevant things...there are countries in the world where taxes are really high, but there you have free education, free health care and tonz of other benefits...but here, they just keep finding ways of how to take as much money as possible from you...and you will see no single benefit from it...i guess some of you know the feeling :)

the stamp on the left is the Christmas stamp issued in 2012, while the right one was issued in 2011 for the EUROPA series on the forest theme.

Merci beaucoup Fabienne!

Arinsal, Andorra

It's been a rather crazy and overloaded start of the week...and apart from hugging my cats, another way to relieve all that stress is post some cards, of course :)

well, my first card for today came as a surprise last week from JP (the generous fairy you've all heard about so far I think :)....my first written and stamped card from Andorra! I have several Andorra cards, but finally one sent from the country itself!!

The card shows the village of Arinsal, located at the head of a valley, close to the border with Spain. In summer is home to hikers and bikers, while in winter, the skiers take the floor.

the card is mailed using a stamp issued by the French Postal administration (bugger...this means ill have to add the Spanish one as well on my list now).
The stamp was issued this year in a set of two Flora stamps.

Thanks a lot JP, as always!

Vall d'Incles, Andorra

Sorry for the post-less week, but it has been such a busy, tiring and stressful one, in so many aspects...when you just try to get through the day and meet all your obligations in time and as appropriate, i simply had no time for something else...so hopefully now, ill manage to use this rainy cold Saturday morning to post some cards...ok, it is far from morning, it is past noon...but for someone who has gotten out of bed, less than an hour ago, it is still sort of morning...yeah, im trying to compensate for all the sleepless hours i had during this past week :)

I got this card time ago...somewhere at the beginning of the year..but i dont know why i kept avoiding it...not really on purpose...but anyways, here's my second ever Andorra card....here is my first one, and unfortunately, none of them are written and stamped, but hopefully ill get such one day...both cards are just great and it would be a pity not to have them in the collection just coz they are lacking the stamp and cancellation.
This card shows a view of the Incles village, or if im not wrong, 'vall' means 'valley'. It is located in the parish of Canillo, in the north-eastern part of the country.
Looks so beautiful and peaceful...

Andorra

Its been such a lousy day so far.....one of those days when you just feel wrong about everything...i think you know what kind of a day im talking about...when you just feel as if you are either spreading the worst karma around you...sounds familiar?
No mail today either...though i mustnt complain...i cant get mail on daily basis...and yesterday i received some great stuff....but still...it just adds to my non-feeling good mood :)

Here is a quite special card...not coz its from a new country only, but coz its also a map card...which makes it like being the cherry on top of a delicious chocolate cake...
I havent been to Andorra, but this man i met once, said that Andorra had to be his favourite place out of all countries he has been to, since Andorra had some beautiful old architecture he enjoyed...some small narrow streets with an ancient spirit....well, if i am to judge according to the architecture pictures on the card, it does seem so..
As for Andorra....the basics you should know about it is that its 470km^2. It is a landlocked country in Southwestern Europe and its residents have the have the highest human life expectancy in the world at the average of 85 years...it is also one of the tax haven countries...so you should take it into consideration if you want to move out some day. And make sure you learn some Catalan before you go...and send me a postcard once you get there ;)