Vienna - Austria

"Vienna is the capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine states of Austria.

Vienna lies in the very east of Austria and is close to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site." - in: wikipédia

On this multiview card sent by Julia "carmen" we can see the Schönbrunn Palace, Riesenrad - Ferris wheel at Prater, Karlskirche - St. Charles's Church, the Hundertwasserhaus, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Hofburg Palace, a Mozart Monument and Belvedere Palace.

Another multiview card but this one was sent by a friend of mine. Here there's also the St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Hundertwasserhaus plus Johann Strauss II Statue (the austrian composer known in his lifetime as "the waltz king", largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century), and Vienna State Opera.

Unesco cards from France and Spain

2 great unesco cards from the great Valerie "octabis".

The 1st one is from France - Chemin de Saint-Jacques / Way of St. James, classified as World Heritage Site under de name of Route of Santiago de Compostela since 1993.

This route is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain, where legend has it that the remains of the apostle, Saint James the Great, are buried.
This cards shows the map of Via Lemovicences or the Vézelay route, one of the 4 routes in France.

"The Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) is a concert hall designed in the Catalan modernista style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. It was built in Barcelona, Spain, between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeó Català, a choral society. It was inaugurated February 9 1908. In 1997, the Palau de la Música Catalana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with Hospital de Sant Pau." - in: wikipédia

Buenos Aires - Argentina

This is a lottery card i got today. It was sent from Brazil by Carolina "caroulina".

On the back of the card: Also a museum, Caminito Street, is a must in every tourist's itinerary of Buenos Aires. It was inaugureted in 1959 to large the city's historical heritage. Nowadays it serves as a stage for different manifestations of the city culture. Amidst a setting of brughtly caloured houses made of wood and metal plate, tourists can daily appeciate the works of painters, sculptors and artisans and delight in the performances of tango dancers and actors.

Ciudad Rodrigo - Spain

Today i went to Spain. Usually i just go there with my dad or brother to get gas because it's cheaper over there, but today we visited a city not so far from the border.

This is not a postcard, is one of the pictures i took. This is Santa Maria Cathedral, a romanic in transition to gothic temple built between 12nd and 14th century.

The walls from the 12nd century and the cathedral.

Ayuntamiento - Town Hall, a building from 16th century.

Seychelles

Ladies and gentlemen, and the new country in my collection is..... Seychelles :D

I've found this great card today in my mailbox. Country #90!! It was sent by Brigitte "apperveilchen".

"Seychelles is an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar. Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius and Réunion to the south, Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest, and the Suvadives of the Maldives to the northeast. Seychelles has the smallest population of any sovereign state of Africa." - in: wikipedia

This cards is from one of the many small islands of the archipelago, Île Cocos. It has been a marine park since 1996 and is a great spot for snorkelling and diving. On the right side of the card there's the coco de mer, a big double coconut that only grows on 2 of the inner Seychelles islands.

When i was looking for some information about Seychelles, i've discovered that the the first recorded sighting of them took place in 1502, by the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama :o This is something new for me. I need to creat a list of the countries discovered, colonized by the portuguese. Since i joined postcrossing, i'm discovering some interesting things about the portuguese discoveries ;)

New Unesco cards

3 new unesco cards and all of them kind of hard to get, from Portugal, Spain and Greenland, sent by Angélica.

"Škocjan Caves is a system of limestone caves in the Kras region in southwestern Slovenia, containing collapsed dolines, about five kilometres of underground passages, caves more than 200 metres deep and many waterfalls. This is one of the best-known sites in the world for the study of karstic (limestone) phenomena.
Škocjan Caves have been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since 1986." - in: wikipedia

"The Prehistoric Rock-Art Site in the Côa valley is one of the largest known open air sites of Paleolithic art.
In the late 1980s, the engravings were discovered in Vila Nova de Foz Côa, in northeastern Portugal. The site in situated in the valley of the Côa river, and comprises thousands of engraved drawings of horses, bovines and other animal, human and abstract figures, dated from 22,000 to 10,000 years." - in: wikipedia
It was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1998.

Monastery and Site of the Escurial, "built at the end of the 16th century on a plan in the form of a grill, the instrument of the martyrdom of St Lawrence, the Escurial Monastery stands in an exceptionally beautiful site in Castile. Its austere architecture, a break with previous styles, had a considerable influence on Spanish architecture for more than half a century. It was the retreat of a mystic king and became, in the last years of Philip II's reign, the centre of the greatest political power of the time." - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/318

"The Ilulissat Icefjord runs west 40 kilometres from the Greenland Ice Sheet to Disko Bay close to Ilulissat town. The glacier flows at a rate of 20-35 metres per day, resulting in around 20 billion tonnes of icebergs calved off and passing out of the fjord every year. Icebergs breaking from the glacier are often so large (up to a kilometer in height) that they are too tall to float down the fjord and lie stuck on the bottom of its shallower areas, sometimes for years, until they are broken up by the force of the glacier and icebergs further up the fjord. On breaking up the icebergs emerge into the open sea and initially travel north with ocean currents before turning south and running into the Atlantic Ocean. The Ilulissat Icefjord was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004." - in: wikipedia

Tel-Aviv - Israel

No cards today and i'm really bored now. There's no one on the GTKY thread, there's no one on msn and there's no one at home, so i've deciced to post a card to kill some time.

"Tel-Aviv is the second-largest city in Israel. Tel-Aviv is situated on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, covering 51.8 square kilometres (20.0 sq mi). Tel-Aviv was founded in 1909 on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. The growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffa, which was largely Arab at the time. Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Aviv's White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, comprises the world's largest concentration of Modernist-style buildings." - in: wikipedia

This card was sent by Leeba.