Bieszczady Mountains, Poland

Another postcard moved forward from the older ones...

....and as well, another postcard from a former pen-friend (Przemek Gorski from Poland) with whom my communication has gone to hell....i really wonder why do i have to be such a lousy penpal...and why am i sooooo lazy when i need to get down to writing letters/emails...coz I actually WANT to do it...but i always have zillion of excuses of why i cant do it at the particular moment...and while im spending time on excuses, time passes by and passes by and passes by...and well, the outcome is obvious...

Ha! Should I label this under maps as well?? coz it has a small map in the bottom...hmm, yeah I will...why not...

Krynica, Poland

Ive found out, that just as in Macedonia, those traditional map cards cant be found in Poland either. I really wonder why some countries have plenty of different map cards...while some have none...


Well, this may not be a regular map card, but it IS a map card of some kind and i like it indeed...it is in the shape of Poland...good that i received this card in an envelope, otherwise i doubt it would have retained its original shape without any damage.

On the pictures you can see some spots in the town of Krynica.
It is a town in southern Poland, inhabited by 11,000 people. It is the biggest spa town in Poland, called The Pearl of Polish Spas.
It was first recorded in 1547 and became a town in 1889.

Im off to the store, to see if they have any Bounty Bars...

Warsaw, Poland

A card which came as a total surprise...but surprises like this are always nice, no?

The card shows the old town of Warsaw, which as well has been a UNESCO site since 1980.
The places which you can see on the card are:

- View of the old town (the big picture)
- Old town market square (top left corner)
- Castle Square (top right corner)
- Piwna Street (bottom left corner)
- Barbican (bottom right corner)

Wroclaw, Poland

This card from Wroclaw shows what he Century Hall looked like when it was built in the beginning of the 20th century.

There is a funny thing regarding these kind of cards...or black/white cards and movies in general.
I find it hard to actually add real colours to it, and when i was a kid I actually saw that world in black and white only, in the sense that i thought everything was like that..buildings or the way people were dressed...for some reason i couldnt get the notion of those things being in colour, so i thought that at the beginning of the last century things were plain and boring and whatever not...I thought Charlie Chaplin was also a man who lived in a world of black and white esp. since he was a mimer, that world of 'silence' really related well to things being black and white only.....well, with shades of gray as well.....i still find it hard actually to see black and white pictures/movies in colour...but i do see life as something in black and white with loads of shades of gray in between....

Wroclaw, Poland

A very interesting and unusual card from Wroclaw.....

The card shows one of the medieval buildings on the Cathedral Island, which is one of the 12 islands in Wroclaw. (it feels odd to have the word 'island' related to a town :))

On the very site of Ostrow Tumski, sometime in the 9th Century, the first permanent settlers of Wroclaw, the Slavic Slezan tribe, built their stronghold. In those days Ostrow Tumski was an island, and a perfect place to built the heart of a settlement, with the protection of the river Odra running around it.

However, as far as its importance as the religious centre of Wroclaw is concerned, the date 1000AD is the key one. It was then, on the turn of the first millennium, that King Boleslaw the Brave earned the favour of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and was able to establish a bishopric in Wroclaw. He chose to build a cathedral on this very promontory and the name Ostrow Tumski was born (literally 'Cathedral Island' in Old Polish). Ever since that day Cathedral Island has never ceased being the centre of religious life in Wroclaw - although it stopped being an island back in 1810, when a northern arm of the Odra was filled in.

History can be really interesting sometimes :)

Wroclaw, Poland

My second card from Wroclaw and a new UNESCO card :)


This here is the Century Hall (later its name was changed into People's Hall, nowadays both names are used). It's not very old, built in 1912-14, but it influenced many other modern concrete buildings so thats why it has been a UNESCO whs since 2006.

I like it when the sender writes something about the card, so apart from some googled info, i can include that as well

It was erected by the architect Max Berg as a multi-purpose recreational building, situated in the Exhibition Grounds. In form it is a symmetrical quatrefoil with a vast circular central space that can seat some 6,000 persons. The 23m-high dome is topped with a lantern in steel and glass. It is a pioneering work of modern engineering and architecture.

Wroclaw, Poland

My first card from Wroclaw....out of 4....which somewhat caught me off guard, but in a pleasant way :)

The card shows a multiview of Wroclaw with a Polish map in the middle...yeeeeeeeeeee!!!! A map!!! Yup, im gonna count it under maps as well ;-)) (cant help it).
I cant not say that Wroclaw has a simply beautiful architecture....im not much of a 'building-interested' type of person, but I do like unique, interesting, beautiful, astonishing yet not pompeous pieces of architecture......Wroclaw definitely scores great points on my list!

Since the letters are probably too tiny and in case you are too lazy to zoom the picture, ill name the pictures for you, starting from top left towards right, then down and so on...

- Ratusz, Ossolinuem, Plac Solny, Rynek, Uniwersytet, Kościół NMP, Sukiennice

Thank you Ksenia for this and the other 3 cards...you really pleasantly surprised me ;-)

Poznań, Poland

A private swap here :)


Poznań is a city in west-central Poland. Located on the Warta River, it is one of the oldest Polish cities, making it an important historical centre and a vibrant centre of trade, industry, and education.
The name Poznań probably comes from a personal name Poznan (from the Polish participle poznan(y)) and would mean "Poznan's town." It is also possible the name comes directly from the verb poznać which means "to get to know" or "to recognize".

Now, I need to make a reference to Macedonian language here :)
In Macedonian, the word "познава" (poznava) means, to know someone....the word "запознава" (zapoznava) means, to get to know someone or to meet someone for the first time...while the word "препознава" (prepoznava) means to recognize someone....the adjective "познат" (poznat) means that someone is known.....its a bit interesting when you can relate your own language with the etymology of foreign places....lest not forget, that both Polish and Macedonian are Slavic languages, so hence the similarities :))))

Apart from the St. Paul's and Peter's cathedral which is the oldest in the country, containing the tombs of the first Polish rulers (top right picture) the most precious building in Poznan is the 16th century renaissance Town Hall in the Old Square (big picture in the middle). It is surrounded by old merchant houses which were carefully restored after World War II.

Beskidy Mountains, Poland

Krakow, Poland

Bieszczady Mountains, Poland (01)

Krakow, Poland

This is a card sent to me by a former and present pen-pal, Nicole from the Netherlands....she is my present pal thanks to HER and to her willingness to look for me and find me :)

This is a card from one of her trips to Krakow in Poland....sent in the now distant 1994!
If it wasn't for this blog and all this collection I'm doing, i wouldn't have known that actually this is a UNESCO card i owe, representing the Historic center of Krakow.

The historic center of Krakow, the former capital of Poland, is situated at the foot of the Royal Wawel Castle. The 13th-century merchants' town has Europe's largest market square and numerous historical houses, palaces and churches with their magnificent interiors. Further evidence of the town's fascinating history is provided by the remnants of the 14th-century fortifications and the medieval site of Kazimierz with its ancient synagogues in the southern part of town, Jagellonian University and the Gothic cathedral where the kings of Poland were buried.