VATICAN CITY– Postcard from Rome, Italy to Braga, Portugal

 

Postcard representing a detail from the ‘Basilica Papale di San Giovanni in Laterano’ with Vatican City stamp of €0,75 commemorative of the beatification of the Pope Giovanni Paolo II posted on August, 22 2012.

(Special thanks to my best friend Alberto Velez Grilo)

ITALY – Postcard from Pesaro, Italy to Braga, Portugal

 

Postcard representing the ‘Riviera Adriatica’ with stamp of €0,75 commemorative of the Inter-Cultural Year Italy-Russia posted on August, 12 2012.

(Special thanks to my best friend Alberto Velez Grilo)

Route of the Portuguese Cathedrals

Set of stamps

First Day Covers with stamps

Brochure

As an heritage dating back centuries and of crucial reminiscence of diocese life, Portuguese cathedrals play a fundamental role in the interaction between the religious, cultural and tourist centres of cities. With a particular importance in city growth and urban structure, cathedrals stand as key heritage points, calling out to be shared and enjoyed. While, in some cases, their original vocation, as Episcopal headquarters, places of learning and pastoral activity might have become faded with time, they continue, undoubtedly, as living witnesses of the collective memory and faith of the people who raised them. Embodying a dedication to their valorisation and an opportunity to place cathedrals at everyone’s disposal, the “Route of the Cathedrals” project emerged in 2009, under the agreement of cooperation signed between the Portuguese State and the Catholic Church. Fostering concerted action around these monuments, amongst temples used for Catholic worship with the canonical status of Cathedral, or Co-cathedral, as well as the official seat of the bishop in the ancient Episcopal Sees of Elvas and Silves, the “Route of the Cathedrals” intends, apart from its inherent material intervention, to place Portuguese cathedrals within a cultural context, with a view to encouraging their greater enjoyment and understanding. In this strict sense, the project constitutes a unique opportunity for the rehabilitation and sustainable development not only of the buildings themselves, but also of the communities and historic centres to which they belong. It is in this perspective that the present issue of postage stamps arises, an initiative aimed at promoting an interlinked understanding of Portuguese cathedrals. Fostering their discovery as a key collection of heritage, in the spirit of those presiding over the ambitions of this project, the cathedrals are highlighted as a coherent and profoundly indentifying whole, closely interwoven with the priceless cultural and artistic values that make each one so very unique.

Technical Details

Date of Issue: 18 May 2012

Values: Ten stamps for Inland 20g covers (€0,32)

Designer: Atelier Acácio Santos / Helder Soares

Photos: Terra das Ideias para Secretariado Nacional para os Bens Culturais da Igreja

Printer: Joh. Enschedé, The Netherlands

Process: Offset

Size: 40 x 30,6 mm

Perforation: Cross of Christ 13 x 13

Paper: FSC 110 g/m2

Watermark:

Sheet: sheets of 50 stamps

Welcome the 27000th Visitors

Aqui ficam as melhores saudações Filatélicas, para os visitantes de todo o mundo, que diariamente visitam o meu blog.

(English version)

Here are the best Philatelic greetings to visitors from all over the world who daily visit my blog.

Europe 2012 - Visit...Portugal

Portugal - First Day Cover with stamps

Portugal - First Day Cover with souvenir sheet

Brochure

They usually arrived in the early hours of the morning and, impressively, approached the skylines of the cities. Land was initially a vague, distant outline. A soft watercolour printed on the rounded line of the horizon, framed by the shades of blue of the sky and the sea. Amidst the strong ocean smell and dispersed aromatic notes emanating from the landscape, the ships headed towards the port. Little by little, the city grew, looming. Tones and reliefs were defined. Finally, the typical bustle of a quay, the mythical meeting place between those who have left and those who have remained. A mixture of people, a thousand stories to tell, a blend of feelings. It was in the third quarter of the twentieth century that the Portuguese merchant navy experienced a period of splendour. A favourable economic environment contributed to the return to the sea: dozens of new ships, remarkably advanced for their time, were purchased. Robust, luxurious, elegant. For nearly three decades (the 50s/60s/70s), a magnificent fleet of ships linked Portugal (both mainland and islands) to the rest of the world. Every year, regular cruise lines carried thousands of passengers between Europe, Africa and America. The word paquete (steamer), of restricted use in European Portuguese, originated in the French designation paquebot, which applied to fast mail transport ships. With the development of long-distance steam navigation, these ships gradually began to also ensure the transportation of passengers. In the memories reported by those who can remember this golden era, the unparalleled excitement of reaching the land by sea is significant. To perceive cities like huge amphitheatres, or natural reliefs that appear to be carved in dreamy settings. It is the most beautiful way to reach a destination, they declare. Aboard a ship, time changes, it can be felt. And it is time that deepens the experience of the senses, giving them a poetic texture. It is impossible to remain indifferent to the strength of the natural elements, the impressionism of the landscapes. It is the challenge of the capture of this other perspective on departures and arrivals that CTT Correios de Portugal sets to the travellers of today, regarding the launch of a stamp collection devoted to the theme “Visit...”, which occurs under the aegis of PostEurop. The motto inspired the nostalgic evocation of three of the most notable Portuguese steamers that ever joined the fleet: the Príncipe Perfeito, the Santa Maria and the
Funchal. Her name suggested distinction and pride, and thus was indeed the “Príncipe Perfeito (Perfect Prince), which fulfilled 45 days of round trips, connecting the Portuguese capital to Western and Eastern Africa. This was evidenced by the perfection and harmony of its exterior architecture. Appreciated by the nobility of her features and artistic detail, the Santa Maria was received with a celebration when she first sailed the Tagus river, in 1953. Her usual route was Brazil and the Americas, through Madeira. The sole survivor of the ancient maritime fleet, later devoted to cruise travel, the Funchal intended to promote the touristic development of the islands. It was considered the best ship ever built to sail in the Azores sea. Preserved by the memory of generations and now delivered to the postal stamp, these “star” liners, icons of an era, suggest a renewal of our outlook. Reminding visitors of the 21st century that the sea is also a way to reach mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores.

Technical Details

Date of Issue: 18 May 2012

Values: Stamp of €0,68 and one souvenir sheet with two stamps of €0,68

Designer: Atelier Acácio Santos / Helder Soares

Printer: Cartor, France

Process: Offset

Size: 40 x 30,6 mm

Perforation: Cross of Christ 13 x 13

Paper:

Watermark:

Sheet: sheets of 50 stamps

ERASMUS 25 Years

Stamp

Souvenir sheet

First Day Cover with stamp

First Day Cover with souvenir sheet

Brochure

Deixem passar quem vai na sua estrada.
(…)
Deixem passar e não lhe digam nada.
Deixem, que vai apenas
Beber água de Sonho a qualquer fonte
(…)
Miguel Torga, Santo e Senha 

Make way for those who follow their path.
(…)
Make way and don’t say anything to them.
Make way for they are merely going to
Drink the Dream water from some fountain
(…)
Miguel Torga, “Santo e Senha”

Erasmus
The first one, an important personality of the Renaissance, a scholar and traveller, fought for dialogue in a time of theological disputes and religious intolerance.
The second one celebrates the 25th anniversary and is “Santo-e-Senha”  of a community of nearly three million people, spread across Europe, united by the identity ties of a time when the stage of life has moved from the country where it was born, to Europe. And from here, to the world. New explorers whose luggage comes down to the urge to part and learn, challenge homesickness and see there, what the television showed here, now with tastes and smells, sounds and textures and a palette of feelings whose colours time will not erase.
One parts in search of another, which in the end is finding oneself.
Why does one often part alone? Because one guesses a destination made of fortunes and adventures, seen from the couch back home; they do not anticipate the discomforts of travel, the need to develop capabilities hitherto unsuspected and minor, how to decide what and how to cook. The confrontation with different people, speakers of other languages, makes communication the first oddity.
Then the enchantment, a world that opens up to the exploration of the senses and intellect keen to know a culture, often so different from their own, a fascination that seizes those who so recently felt the hardship of homesickness.
On the curves of the road arise adversity, loneliness, being with someone you don’t know. You face the building of trust. You discover a new space and time in the mysteries of another language that unfolds in the exchange of affections that are woven, and, in that revelation, shady glimpses of the mother-tongue are perceived, which are so intimate that one would think they had no secrets.
Singularities of the place you left, deemed attributes of some silent parochialism for its modesty, they appear, by comparison, tinted by the colours of the identity of the people to which one belongs and enshrine in the soul with the tenderness with which one displays pictures of family and friends.
The new “me” is now the bearer of a cultural identity different from that in which (s)he immersed, but just as legitimate as it. A Citizen of Europe, a bigger project, a quilt of different colourful patchwork that one wishes to be interwoven with the threads of social cohesion, solidarity and tolerance based on the recognition of oneself in others and not in complacency or subservience.
In return, the transfiguration. The new “me” retraces the path that led him/her further: more secure and confident, resilient. Behind lies a time of joys and cries, of questioning and reconstruction, of teachings about genuine autonomy.
Ahead? Curiosity, restlessness, a taste for the new that is never fully satiated. The revelation of oneself, of the unity of a being in a global world, becomes the lens through which to read the events of existence. An existence unavailable to limit the now discovered freedom of being what one is, having (re)discovered oneself in the eyes of another. An existence that projects a future in love with the unknown that is not feared, equipped with the boldness of those who went and thus reinvented themselves and therefore know that they will leave, time and again, in the certainty that like so they will be more whole.

Technical Details

Date of Issue: 17 April 2012

Values: Stamps of €0,68

Designer: Folk Design

Credits: Excerto de Santo e Senha, de Miguel Torga
em Diário I (1941). Coimbra, edição de autor

Acknowledgments: Agência Nacional para a Gestão do Programa
Aprendizagem ao Longo da Vida.

Printer: INCM

Process: Offset

Size of Stamp: 40 x 30,6 mm

Size of souvenir sheet: 125 x 95 mm

Perforation: Cross of Christ 13 x 13

Paper: FSC 110 g/m2

Watermark:

Sheet: sheets of 50 stamps