Sydney Opera House

Card No. 164

Image contributed by Pushpalatha Sam (Teacher)

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Situated on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the facility is adjacent to the Sydney central business district and the Royal Botanic Gardens, between Sydney and Farm Coves.

Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the facility formally opened on 20 October 1973 after a gestation beginning with Utzon's 1957 selection as winner of an international design competition. The NSW Government, led by Premier Joseph Cahill, authorised work to begin in 1958, with Utzon directing construction. The government's decision to build Utzon's design is often overshadowed by circumstances that followed, including cost and scheduling overruns as well as the architect's ultimate resignation.

Though its name suggests a single venue, the project comprises multiple performance venues which together are among the busiest performing arts centres in the world — hosting over 1,500 performances each year attended by some 1.2 million people. The venues produce and present a wide range of in-house productions and accommodate numerous performing arts companies, including four key resident companies: Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As one of the most popular visitor attractions in Australia, more than seven million people visit the site each year, with 300,000 people participating annually in a guided tour of the facility.

Identified as one of the 20th century's most distinctive buildings and one of the most famous performing arts centres in the world, the facility is managed by the Sydney Opera House Trust, under the auspices of the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts.

The Sydney Opera House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007.

Read more

Information Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lage Vuurtoren Van Ijmuiden, Amsterdam

Lighthouse No.4

From Post-crossing

The Lage vuurtoren van IJmuiden is a round, cast-iron lighthouse in IJmuiden, Netherlands, designed by Quirinus Harder. It was built in 1878 by D.A. Schretlen & Co, a company in Leiden and activated the following year.
In 1909, the top three sections were moved to Vlieland where they serve as a separate lighthouse.

In 1966 the lighthouse was moved slightly. Together with the Hoge vuurtoren van IJmuiden, the 24-meter high lighthouse forms a pair of leading lights marking the IJgeul (the entrance on the North Sea to the North Sea Canal). The lighthouse now has five stories and 88 steps; it is unmanned and not open for visitors. Since 1981 it is a Rijksmonument.

Information Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vesteralen lighthouse Norway, Germany

Lighthouse No. 3

From Post-crossing

Tankar Lighthouse Kokkola, Finland

Lighthouse No.2

From Post-crossing

Tankar is a small lighthouse island which has been inhabited since the 16th century. The oldest buildings are a chapel built in 1754 and fisherman’s hut built in 1768. The lighthouse was completed in 1889.

Today Tankar is a popular tourist attraction offering visitors an experience of nature and an insight into what life used to be like in the archipelago.

Information Obtained www.spottinghistory.com/view/690/tankar/

Mollosund lighthouse, Sweden.

Lighthouse No.1

built in early 1900 at Orust (west-coast)

From Post-crossing

Ruins of Deir el-Medina. A UNESCO World Heritage Site

Card No. 163

This beautiful Postcard i received from postcrossing :)

Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments

Card No. 162

This beautiful Postcard i received from postcrossing :)

The Catherine Palace is a Rococo palace located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 25 km south-east of St. Petersburg,.The residence originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia engaged the German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to construct a summer palace for her pleasure. In 1733, Empress Anna commissioned Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Kvasov to expand the Catherine Palace. "The palace was then being built, but it was the work of Penelope: what was done today, was destroyed tomorrow. Read more



Tsarskoye Selo , Catherine Palace

The Palace Chapel

Information and Image Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments

Card No. 161

This beautiful Postcard i received from postcrossing :)

Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments is the name used by UNESCO when it collectively designated the historic core of the Russian city of St. Petersburg, as well as buildings and ensembles located in the immediate vicinity as a World Heritage Site in 1991.
The site was recognised for its architectural heritage, fusing Baroque, Neoclassical and traditional Russian-Byzantine influences.


Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. It is the northernmost city in the world to have a population of over one million. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is also home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.

The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in 1917 as depicted in Soviet paintings and Eisenstein's 1927 film October became an iconic symbol of the Russian Revolution.
The palace was constructed on a monumental scale that was intended to reflect the might and power of Imperial Russia. From the palace, the Tsar ruled over 22,400,000 square kilometres (8,600,000 sq mi) (almost 1/6 of the Earth's landmass) and over 125 million subjects by the end of the 19th century. It was designed by many architects, most notably Bartolomeo Rastrelli, in what came to be known as the Elizabethan Baroque style. The green-and-white palace has the shape of an elongated rectangle, and its principal façade is 250 m long and 100 ft (30 m) high. The Winter Palace has been calculated to contain 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows, 1,500 rooms and 117 staircases. The rebuilding of 1837 left the exterior unchanged, but large parts of the interior were redesigned in a variety of tastes and styles, leading the palace to be described as a "19th-century palace inspired by a model in Rococo style." Read More

Information Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Historic Centre of Riga, Latvia

Card No. 160

Another,Riga. Postcard i received from postcrossing :)

Turkey

12-12-2012 Special postal mark, Postcard from my friend Cuneyt Ozarikan.

Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace, Episcopal Ensemble and Avignon Bridge

Card No. 159

Thanks to my FB Friend Ulla

Avignon (French pronunciation: Occitan: Avinhon in classical norm or Avignoun in Mistralian norm) is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city (as of 1 January 2010), about 12,000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.

Often referred to as the "City of Popes" because of the presence of popes and antipopes from 1309 to 1423 during the Catholic schism, it is currently the largest city and capital of the département of Vaucluse. This is one of the few French cities to have preserved its ramparts, its historic centre, the palace of the popes, Rocher des Doms, and the bridge of Avignon. It was classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO under the criteria I, II and IV. The site of Avignon was settled very early on; the rocky outcrop (le Rocher les Doms) at the north end of the town, overlooking the Rhône River, may have been the site of a Celtic oppidum or hill fort.

Avignon, written as Avennio or Avenio in the ancient texts and inscriptions, takes its name from the Avennius clan. Founded by the Gallic tribe of the Cavares or Cavari, it became the centre of an important Phocaean colony from Massilia (present Marseilles).

Under the Romans, Avenio was a flourishing city of Gallia Narbonensis, the first Transalpine province of the Roman Empire, but very little from this period remains (a few fragments of the forum near Rue Molière).

During the inroads of the Goths, it was badly damaged in the fifth century and belonged in turn to the Goths, the kingdoms of Burgundy and of Arles, in the 12th century. It fell into the hands of the Saracens and was destroyed in 737 by the Franks under Charles Martel for having sided with the Arabs against him. Boso having been proclaimed Burgundian King of Provence, or of Arelat (after its capital Arles), by the Synod of Mantaille, at the death of Louis the Stammerer (879), Avignon ceased to belong to the Frankish kings. Read more

Information and Image Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prambanan Temple Compounds

Card No. 158

Candi Prambanan or Candi Rara Jonggrang is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound in Central Java, Indonesia, dedicated to the Trimurti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the Preserver (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shiva). The temple compound is located approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) east of the city of Yogyakarta on the boundary between Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces. The temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia, and is one of the largest Hindu temples in Southeast Asia. It is characterized by its tall and pointed architecture, typical of Hindu temple architecture, and by the towering 47-metre-high (154 ft) central building inside a large complex of individual temples. One of the most majestic temples in Southeast Asia, Prambanan attracts many visitors from across the world.

Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple of ancient Java, and the construction of this royal temple was probably started by Rakai Pikatan as the Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty's answer to the Buddhist Sailendra Dynasty's Borobudur and Sewu temples nearby. Historians suggest that the construction of Prambanan probably was meant to mark the return of the Hindu Sanjaya Dynasty to power in Central Java after almost a century of Buddhist Sailendra Dynasty domination. Nevertheless, the construction of this massive Hindu temple signifies that the Medang court had shifted the focus of its patronage from Mahayana Buddhism to Shivaist Hinduism.

A temple was first built at the site around 850 CE by Rakai Pikatan and expanded extensively by King Lokapala and Balitung Maha Sambu the Sanjaya king of the Mataram Kingdom. According to the Shivagrha inscription of 856 CE, the temple was built to honor Lord Shiva and its original name was Shiva-grha (the House of Shiva) or Shiva-laya (the Realm of Shiva). According to Shivagrha inscription, a public water project to change the course of a river near Shivagrha Temple was conducted during the construction of the temple. The river, identified as the Opak River, now runs north to south on the western side of the Prambanan temple compound. Historians suggest that originally the river was curved further to east and was deemed too near to the main temple. The project was done by cutting the river along a north to south axis along the outer wall of the Shivagrha Temple compound. The former river course was filled in and made level to create a wider space for the temple expansion, the space for rows of pervara (complementary) temples. Read more

The ruins of Prambanan soon after their rediscovery.

The statue of Durga Mahisasuramardini in northern cella of Shiva temple.

Information and Image Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

London 2012 Postcard

Thanks to my FB friend Santanu Saha