#1786 Madeira, Portugal

The flag of Madeira consists of a blue-gold-blue vertical triband with a red-bordered white Cross of Christ in the center, alluding the fact that it was discovered by two knights of the Household Henry the Navigator: João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira; symbol of connection to the República Portuguesa.

The regulations and clarification of the dimensions, colors and symbolism of the flag of the Autonomous Region were approved by decree of the Legislative Assembly of Madeira of July 28, 1978 (Regional Decree n. º 30/78/M of 12 September). Its use has been made possible by the Portuguese Constitution, recognizing the status of the Madeira regional autonomy arrangements subject to the Constitution | Constitution itself, with Subjective right | right Insignia | badges that differentiate themselves from the rest of the Portuguese territory.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Rita !

Sent on: September 2, 2019

Received on: September 19, 2019

#1749 The Azores, Portugal

The Flag of the Azores (Portuguese: Bandeira dos Açores) is the regional flag of the Autonomous Region of the Azores. It is a rectangular bicolour with a field unevenly divided into blue on the hoist, and white on the fly. Adopted in 1979 by the regional government of the Azores, it is based on the traditional colours and symbols of Portuguese flags used prior to the revolution of 1910.

Blue and white were traditional colours used by the Portuguese nation.

The name of the archipelago comes from the Portuguese word açor, meaning goshawk, because it was supposed to be a common bird at the time of the discovery. However these birds never existed on the islands, they actually were a local subspecies of the buzzard (Buteo buteo), that was erroneously identified as goshawks by the first explorers. The Portuguese lesser arms are present in the top left corner of the flag.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Ana Sofia !

Sent on: May 23, 2019

Received on: June 3, 2019

#1673 Portugal

Thank you, Ana Sofia !

Sent on: December 4, 2018

Received on: December 2018

#1622 Portugal

Lisbon (Portuguese: Lisboa) is the capital and the largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 552,700 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km². Its urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits with a population of around 2.7 million people, being the 11th-most populous urban area in the European Union. About 3 million people live in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (which represents approximately 27% of the country's population). It is Europe's westernmost capital city and the only one along the Atlantic coast. Lisbon lies in the western Iberian Peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean and the River Tagus. The westernmost areas of its metro area form the westernmost point of Continental Europe, which is known as Cabo da Roca, located in the Sintra Mountains.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Trond !

Received on: June 4, 2018

#1583 Portugal

Thank you !

Received on: April 19, 2018

#1515 Portugal

Belém Tower (Portuguese: Torre de Belém) or the Tower of St Vincent is a fortified tower located in the civil parish of Santa Maria de Belém in the municipality of Lisbon, Portugal. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (along with the nearby Jerónimos Monastery) because of the significant role it played in the Portuguese maritime discoveries of the era of the Age of Discoveries. The tower was commissioned by King John II to be part of a defence system at the mouth of the Tagus river and a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon.

The tower was built in the early 16th century and is a prominent example of the Portuguese Manueline style, but it also incorporates hints of other architectural styles. The structure was built from lioz limestone and is composed of a bastion and a 30-metre (98.4 ft), four-storey tower. It has incorrectly been stated that the tower was built in the middle of the Tagus and now sits near the shore because the river was redirected after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. In fact, the tower was built on a small island in the Tagus River near the Lisbon shore.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #263

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 1983

Thank you, Liliana !

Received on: January 31, 2018

#1509 Portugal

The University of Coimbra (UC; Portuguese: Universidade de Coimbra) is a Portuguese public university in Coimbra, Portugal. Established in 1290 in Lisbon, it went through a number of relocations until it was moved permanently to its current city in 1537, being one of the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world, the oldest university of Portugal, and one of the country's largest higher education and research institutions.

The university is organized into eight different faculties according to a wide range of fields, granting academic bachelor's (licenciado), master's (mestre) and doctorate (doutor) degrees in nearly all major fields of knowledge, such as arts, engineerings, humanities, mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, medicine, sports and technologies. It is a founding member of the Coimbra Group, a group of leading European research universities, whose inaugural meeting it hosted. The University of Coimbra has over 20,000 students, and hosts one of the largest communities of international students in Portugal, arguably being the most cosmopolitan Portuguese university.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #1387

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 2013

Thank you, Liliana !

Sent on: January 20, 2018

Received on: January 24, 2018

#1438 Portugal

The Alcobaça Monastery (Portuguese: Mosteiro de Alcobaça, Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça) is a Roman Catholic church located in the town of Alcobaça, in Oeste Subregion. The monastery was founded in the medieval period by the first Portuguese King, Afonso Henriques, in 1153, and maintained a close association with the Kings of Portugal throughout its history.

The church and monastery were the first Gothic buildings in Portugal, and, together with the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, it was one of the most important of the mediaeval monasteries in Portugal. Due to its artistic and historical importance, it was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1989.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #505

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 1989

Thank you, Ana Sofia !

Received on: October 30, 2017

#1311 Portugal

Viseu Cathedral is the Catholic bishopric seat of the city of Viseu, in Portugal. The church started being built in the 12th century and is the most important historical monument of the town. It is currently a mix of architectural styles, specially from the Manueline, Renaissance and Mannerist periods.

The cathedral is located on a large and harmonious square, beside the old Bishop's Palace (now the Grão Vasco Museum) and in front of the Misericórdia Church of Viseu.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Ana Sofia !

Received on: June 16, 2017

#1148 Portugal

The Flag of Portugal (Portuguese: Bandeira de Portugal) is the national flag of the Portuguese Republic. It is a rectangular bicolour with a field unevenly divided into green on the hoist, and red on the fly. The lesser version of the national coat of arms (i.e. armillary sphere and Portuguese shield) is centred over the colour boundary at equal distance from the upper and lower edges. On June 30, 1911, less than a year after the downfall of the constitutional monarchy, this design was officially adopted for the new national flag, after selection by a special commission whose members included Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, João Chagas and Abel Botelho.

The conjugation of the new field colours, especially the use of green, was not traditional in the Portuguese national flag's composition and represented a radical republican-inspired change that broke the bond with the former monarchical flag. Since a failed republican insurrection on January 31, 1891, red and green had been established as the colours of the Portuguese Republican Party and its associated movements, whose political prominence kept growing until it reached a culmination period following the Republican revolution of October 5, 1910. In the ensuing decades, these colours were popularly propagandized as representing the hope of the nation (green) and the blood (red) of those who died defending it, as a means to endow them with a more patriotic and dignified, therefore less political, sentiment. Although the flag flown from the Oporto city hall in the morning of January 31, 1891, symbol of the republican uprising was red and green. Totally red with a green circle in the center, to which were added the inscriptions referring to the republican center to whom it belonged - the Centro Democrático Federal 15 de Novembro.'

The current flag design represents a dramatic change in the evolution of the Portuguese standard, which had always been closely associated with the royal arms, blue and white. Since the country's foundation, the national flag developed from the blue cross-on-white armorial square banner of King Afonso I to the liberal monarchy's arms over a blue-and-white rectangle. In between, major changes associated with determinant political events contributed to its evolution into the current design.

wikipedia.org

Date of Issue: May 9, 2016 | Europa CEPT 2016 'Think Green'

Thank you, Ana Sofia !

Received on: September 1, 2016

#1130 Portugal | PT-480959

The Jerónimos Monastery or Hieronymites Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos), is a monastery of the Order of Saint Jerome near the Tagus river in the parish of Belém, in the Lisbon Municipality, Portugal.

The monastery is one of the most prominent examples of the Portuguese Late Gothic Manueline style of architecture in Lisbon. It was classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the nearby Tower of Belém, in 1983.

The Jerónimos Monastery replaced the church formerly existing in the same place, which was dedicated to Santa Maria de Belém and where the monks of the military-religious Order of Christ provided assistance to seafarers in transit. The harbour of Praia do Restelo was an advantageous spot for mariners, with a safe anchorage and protection from the winds, sought after by ships entering the mouth of the Tagus. The existing structure was inaugurated on the orders of Manuel I (1469–1521) at the courts of Montemor o Velho in 1495, as a final resting-place for members of the House of Aviz, in his belief that an Iberian dynastic kingdom would rule after his death. In 1496, King Manuel petitioned the Holy See for permission to construct a monastery at the site. The Hermitage of Restelo (Ermida do Restelo), as the church was known, was already in disrepair when Vasco da Gama and his men spent the night in prayer there before departing on their expedition to the Orient in 1497.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #263

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO: 1983

Thank you, Daniela (nakipa) !

Received on: August 9, 2016

Travel time: 14 days

Distance: 3323 km

#818 Portugal

More about Portugal, see received postcard #796.

About some facts written on the postcard:

Mariza, born Marisa dos Reis Nunes (16 December 1973, Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique), is a popular fado singer.

Mariza was born to a Portuguese father and a mother of partial African heritage. At age three, her family moved to Metropolitan Portugal, and she was raised in Lisbon's historic quarters of Mouraria and Alfama. While very young she began singing in a wide variety of musical styles, including gospel, soul and jazz. Her father strongly encouraged her to adopt fado; he felt that participating in the traditional music would grant her greater acceptance in the Portuguese community. Mariza has sold over 1,000,000 records worldwide.

Wikipedia.org

Dom Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, (c. 1460s – 23 December 1524) was a Portuguese explorer. He was the first European to reach India by sea, linking Europe and Asia for the first time by ocean route, as well as the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively, and in this way, the West and the Orient. This was accomplished on his first voyage to India (1497 – 1499).

Wikipedia.org 

 Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães; c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies that resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Wikipedia.org 

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, GOIH, known as Cristiano Ronaldo (born 5 February 1985), is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid C.F. and is the captain for the Portugal national team.

Wikipedia.org

Portuguese is a Romance language and the sole official language of Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe. It also has co-official language status in Macau (China), Equatorial Guinea and East Timor. As the result of expansion during colonial times, Portuguese speakers are also found in Goa, Daman and Diu in India, in Batticaloa on the east coast of Sri Lanka and in Malacca in Malaysia.

With approximately 215 to 220 million native speakers and 260 million total speakers, Portuguese is usually listed as the fifth most spoken language in the world, the third most spoken European language and the major language of the Southern Hemisphere. It is also the most spoken language in South America and the second most spoken in Latin America, after Spanish, as well as an official language of the European Union and Mercosul.

Wikipedia.org

The Rooster of Barcelos (Portuguese, "Galo de Barcelos") is one of the most common emblems of Portugal.

Wikipedia.org 

The Vasco da Gama Bridge (Portuguese: Ponte Vasco da Gama) is a cable-stayed bridge flanked by viaducts and rangeviews that spans the Tagus River in Parque das Nações in Lisbon, capital of Portugal. It is the longest bridge in Europe (including viaducts), with a total length of 17.2 kilometres (10.7 mi)), including 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) for the main bridge, 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi) in viaducts, and 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi) in dedicated access roads. Its purpose is to alleviate the congestion on Lisbon's other bridge (25 de Abril Bridge), and to join previously unconnected motorways radiating from Lisbon.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Madalena !

 

Sent on: February 18, 2015

Received on: February 25, 2015

#796 Portugal

Portugal (Portuguese: Portugal; Mirandese: Pertual), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa; Mirandese: República Pertuesa), is a country in southwest Europe. It is located on the Iberian Peninsula, and it is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, being bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east. Aside from continental Portugal, the Portuguese Republic holds sovereignty over the Atlantic archipelagos of Azores and Madeira, which are autonomous regions of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose name derives from Latin "Portus" and the Celtic place-name "Cale".

The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continually fought over and settled since prehistoric times. The Celts and the Romans were followed by the Visigothic and the Suebi Germanic peoples, who were themselves later invaded by the Moors. These Muslim peoples were eventually expelled during the Christian Reconquista of the peninsula. By 1139, Portugal established itself as a kingdom independent from León. In the 15th and 16th centuries, as the result of pioneering the Age of Discovery, Portugal expanded western influence and established the first global empire, becoming one of the world's major economic, political and military powers and ultimately dividing the world with Spain.

The Portuguese Empire was the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires, spanning almost 600 years, from the capture of Ceuta in 1415 to the handover of Macau to the People's Republic of China in 1999 (de facto) or the granting of sovereignty to East Timor in 2002 (de jure) after occupation by Indonesia since 1975. The empire spread throughout a vast number of territories that are now part of 53 different sovereign states, leaving a legacy of over 250 million Portuguese speakers today (making it the sixth most spoken first language) and a number of Portuguese-based creoles. Portugal's international status was greatly reduced during the 19th century, especially following the Independence of Brazil. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, itself being superseded by the "Estado Novo" right-wing authoritarian regime. Democracy was restored after the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Shortly after, independence was granted to Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau.

Portugal is a developed country with an advanced economy, high living standards and high-quality infrastructures, ranking 2nd in the quality of the road network and 11th overall, according to the Global Competitiveness Report. It is one of the world's most globalized, peaceful and responsive nations. It is a member of the United Nations, European Union, Eurozone, OECD, NATO, WTO, Schengen Area and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. Portugal was among the first countries to abolish capital punishment in 1867. On 31 May 2010, Portugal became the sixth country in Europe and the eighth country in the world to legally recognize same-sex marriage on the national level. Portugal also received international attention for being the first country in the world to fully decriminalize the usage of all drugs in 2001.

Wikipedia.org 

Thank you, Leticia !

Sent on: January 20, 2015

Received on: February 4, 2015

#795 Portugal

Douro is a Portuguese wine region centered on the Douro River in the Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro region. It is sometimes referred to as the Alto Douro (upper Douro), as it is located some distance upstream from Porto, sheltered by mountain ranges from coastal influence. The region has Portugal's highest wine classification as a Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC). While the region is associated primarily with Port wine production, the Douro produces just as much table wine (non-fortified wines) as it does fortified wine. The non-fortified wines are typically referred to as "Douro wines".

The style of wines produced in the Douro range from light, Bordeaux style claret to rich Burgundian style wines aged in new oak.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #1046

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 2001

Thank you, Leticia !

Sent on: January 20, 2015

Received on: February 4, 2015

#633 Madeira, Portugal

Paredes de Coura is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 138.2 km² and a total population of 9,367 inhabitants (2006).

The municipality is composed of 21 parishes and is located in the district of Viana do Castelo.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Maria !

Sent on: April 28, 2014

Received on: June 3, 2014

#631 Portugal

Vila Nova de Famalicão is a municipality in the district of Braga, in the north of Portugal. It is composed of 49 parishes.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Joana !

Sent on: May 27, 2014

Received on: June 3, 2014

#482 Portugal

Porto (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpoɾtu]) is the second-largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon, and one of the major urban areas in Southern Europe and the capital of the second major great urban area in Portugal. Its administrative limits (an area of 41.66 km²/16 sq.mi) include a population of 237,584 (2011) inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes. The urban area of Porto, which extends beyond the administrative limits of the city, has a population of 1.3 million (2011) in an area of 389 km² (150 sq mi), making it the second-largest urban area in Portugal. The Porto Metropolitan Area includes an estimated 2 million people. It is recognized as a Gamma- level global city by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group, being one of five cities on the Iberian Peninsula with global city status, (the others being Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon and Valencia).

Located along the Douro river estuary in northern Portugal, Porto is one of the oldest European centres, and registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996. Its settlement dates back many centuries, when it was an outpost of the Roman Empire. Its Latin name, Portus Cale, has been referred to as the origin for the name "Portugal", based on transliteration and oral evolution from Latin. In Portuguese the name of the city is spelled with a definite article as "o Porto" (English: the port). Consequently, its English name evolved from a misinterpretation of the oral pronunciation and referred to as "Oporto" in modern literature and by many speakers.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #755

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 1996

Date of Issue: May 9, 2013 | Europa 2013 "The Postman Van"

The mail delivery in the Azores is ensured by a 125cc motorbike, that best suits the characteristics of each Island.
Posteurop.org

Thank you, Sara !

Sent on: January 23, 2014

Received on: February 3, 2014

#476 Lisbon, Portugal

Óbidos is a town (Portuguese: vila) of approximately 3100 inhabitants and municipal seat of the municipality of Óbidos, located in the Oeste Subregion, of the Estremadura Province, in Portugal.

The name "Óbidos" probably derives from the Latin term oppidum, meaning "citadel", or "fortified city".

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Rita !

Received on: February 3, 2014