Porto, Portugal

Next is a card that dear Marta sent me from a small meeting held in Porto on November 11th, last year.

If there is something typical about Portugal, it is all these beautifully decorated tiles and these can actually be seen at the São Bento Railway Station! That is really thoughtful Marta! Thank you so much!

There are approximately 20,000 azulejo tiles, dating from 1905–1916, and were composed by Jorge Colaço, an important painter of azulejo of the time. You can see different scenes, events, and personalities depicted on these walls, like the Battle of Arcos de Valdevez and Egas Moniz before Alfonso VII of Castile, D. João I in Oporto, with his fiancé and the Conquest of Ceuta,  the Battle of Valdevez, a meeting between the knight Egas Moniz and Alfonso VII of León in Toledo etc etc etc.

there is even a train sticker on the back of the card :D The stamp is from a set of 4 issued in 2017, representing Trees of the Mediterranean. This one shows a strawberry tree or Arbutus unedo.

Muito obrigada Marta!  ❤ 

Porto, Portugal

Next comes a lovely view of Porto, thanks to dear Alvin

The beautiful colourful buildings are in the old/historic part of the town, which makes this card also a UNESCO whs! Btw, I've noticed many people know the exact number of UNESCO whs sites they have in their collection...as for me, even though I am not like an active UNESCO collector, but I do collect them - I have not even the slightest idea how many I have and which ones I already have...usually I realize that along with my posts...)
Fun facts:
- One of Portugal's internationally famous exports, port wine, is named for Porto, since the metropolitan area, and in particular the caves of Vila Nova de Gaia, were responsible for the packaging, transport and export of the fortified wine. (the first time I encountered the name of this wine years ago, while I was working as a teacher, I was completely lost at it, and at how I should properly pronounce it and what it is exactly and so on.....probably I still sound funny at my attempts of pronouncing it properly...)
- In 2014, Porto was elected The Best European Destination by the Best European Destinations Agency. (and I still haven't visited it...)

the stamp is from a set of 3 "Extreme Sports" stamps issued in 2015, with this one showing Rafting....hmmm, I didn't know Rafting was considered an extreme sport....

Thanks a lot again to Alvin for the splendid card!