Czech cards

Yes, i've traded again with Emerich and inicially i picked these cards because i thought i could trade them later but i decided to keep them for me instead.

Žďár nad Sázavou is a city in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. The Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk, one of the World Heritage Sites, is situated there.

Holašovice is a small historic village located in the south of the Czech Republic. The village was deserted after the Second World War, allowing its medieval plan and vernacular buildings in the South Bohemian Folk or Rural Baroque style to remain intact. It was restored and repopulated from 1990, and it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998. - in: wikipedia

Slovenian cards

This set of great slovenian cards was sent by Ivana. he contacted me via official site and asked me if i had portuguese used stamps. I had lots of them and sent them all to her. In return she sent me these beautiful cards. I love cards from Slovenia, i'm more than happy with this trade.

The 1st card she sent was this one of the Bohinj Lake in the Julian Alps. The colors are so great. I don't know if she knew but this card was in my favorites :D

Another one from the Julian Alps, in the kingdom of Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia and the highest peak of the Julian Alps.

Skrlatica is also a mountain in the Julian Alps and is among the highest peaks in Slovenia.

Postojna Cave is a network of 20 kilometres of passages, galleries and chambers into which experienced guides have accompanied more than 31 million visitors in the last 188 years. It is the largest cave in the “classic karst” and the most visited show cave in Europe. It was discovered in 1818 by Luka Cec and opened for visitors in 1819.
Visitors to the cave are dazzled by a wealth of speleothems: calcite formations, stalactites and stalagmites abounding in a variety of shapes, colours and age. The constant temperatureinthe caves ranges from 8 to 10° C.
Finally, a lovely snowy view from Ljubljana.

Mantua - Italy

Last monday i've received an envelope with 6 new Unesco sites, some of them are kinda hard to get. It was a trade with a portuguese postcrosser, Lídia, only active in the official PC site.

This card is from Mantua, a city in the Po valley, northern Italy.

Mantua together with Sabbioneta, was classified as World Heritage Site in 2008. Mantua shows the renewal and extension of an existing city. Typically, Mantua’s layout is irregular with regular parts showing different stages of its growth since the Roman period and includes many medieval edifices among them an 11th century rotunda and a Baroque theatre. Both cities offer exceptional testimonies to the urban, architectural and artistic realizations of the Renaissance, linked through the visions and actions of the ruling Gonzaga family. The two towns are important for the value of their architecture and for their prominent role in the dissemination of Renaissance culture. The ideals of the Renaissance, fostered by the Gonzaga family, are present in the towns’ morphology and architecture. - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1287

It is the town to which Romeo was banished in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

Bologna - Italy

For the last update of the day, i chose this italian card from Bologna, sent by Marita "MaHaKo", who visited the city almost a year ago.

The card shows the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca.

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy.
The Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca is a basilica church in Bologna, northern Italy, sited atop Colle or Monte della Guardia, in a forested hill some 300 metres above the plain, just south-west of the historical centre of the city.

While a road now leads up to the sanctuary, it is also possible to reach it by traversing a long (3.5 km) monumental roofed arcade (Portico di San Luca) consisting of 666 arches, which was built in 1674-1793. It was meant to protect the icon as it was paraded up the hill. A yearly procession proceed from the church of San Pietro in the centre of Bologna to the Sanctuary along this path. Originally the arches held icons or chapels erected by the patron family.

The icon of the Virgin Mary, allegedly painted by Luke the Evangelist.The Sanctuary was meant to house a miraculous icon of the virgin. A church or chapel existed atop the hill for about a thousand years. The present church was constructed in 1723 using designs of Carlo Francesco Dotti. The lateral external tribunes were built by Carlo Francesco's son Giovanni Giacomo using his father's plans. - in: wikipedia

Paestum - Italy

I didn't only get new belgium Unesco sites in Belgium, i also go this one from Italy. I bought it in a shop in Gent. I found 2 great shops in this city. This one is kinda of a philatelic shop and the other has lots of kinds of cards.

Paestum is the classical Roman name of a major Graeco-Roman city in the Campania region of Italy. The three Doric temples of Paestum are said to be the best preserved Greek temples in the world and the walls around Paestum are the most complete of that period.
The city is classified as a Unesco WHS since 1998, on the list under the name of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park with the Archaeological sites of Paestum and Velia, and the Certosa di Padula.

Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni - Malta

Thanks to Marta from Italy, i've got my last missing Unesco site from Malta :D The Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni is an Unesco World Heritage Site since 1980.

The Hypogeum of Paola, Malta, literally meaning "underground" in Greek, is a subterranean structure dating to the Saflieni phase in Maltese prehistory. Thought to be originally a sanctuary, it became a necropolis in prehistoric times. It is the only prehistoric underground temple in the world.
The Hypogeum consists of halls, chambers and passages hewn out of the living rock and covering some 500m². The rock-cut chambers are of a diverse shapes and sizes and finished to different standards of workmanship. The complex is grouped in three levels – the upper level (3600-3300 BC), the middle level (3300-3000 BC), and the lower level (3150 -2500 BC). The deepest room in the lower level is 10.6 metres under road surface.
It was discovered by accident in 1902 when workers cutting cisterns for a new housing development broke through its roof. The workers tried to hide the temple at first, but eventually it was found.
The Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni is a very popular tourist attraction. However, because of its age, Heritage Malta (the government body that looks after historical sites) only allows 80 persons per day to visit the Hypogeum. Heritage Malta recommends tourists to book well ahead of time if they wish to visit.

Siega Verde - Spain

This is the spanish Unesco card i didn't know i had. I mean, i knew i had the card, i just didn't know it was from an Unesco site. I've got it before the postcrossing era.

Siega Verde is an archaeological site in the municipality of Villar de la Yegua, in the province of Salamanca, Spain. It was added to the Côa Valley Paleolithic Art site (Portugal) in the World Heritage List in 2010.
The site consists a series of rock engravings, discovered in 1988 by professor Manuel Santoja y Rosario Pérez, during an inventory campaign of archaeological sites in the valley of the Águeda river. Subjects include horses, goats, bulls and deers, among the most common ones, as well as bisons, reindeers and the whoolly rhinoceros, which were not yet extinct at the time.
The engravings date to the Gravettian culture of the Upper Palaeolithic (c. 20,000 years ago). There are also more recent, anthropomorphic representations, dating to the Magdalenian age (c. 12,000 years ago). There is a total of 94 panels spanning some 3 kilometers of rock. - in: wikipedia