Sammallahdenmäki - Bronze age burial site

Sammallahdenmäki is a Bronze age burial site in Finland in Lappi municipality. It was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1999, and includes 36 granite burial cairns dating back more than 3,000 years, to 1,500 to 500 BC. It is located on a hill in a remote area off the road between Tampere and Rauma. Originally, it was near the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, but the land has risen so it is now 15 kilometers from the sea. It is one of the most important Bronze Age sites in Scandinavia.

Four of the cairns were excavated by archaeologist Volter Högman in 1891, including Kirkonlaattia ("Church Floor"), an unusual rectangular cairn covering 16 x 19 metres with a flat top, and Huilun pitkä raunio ("long ruin of Huilu"), which is surrounded by an ancient stone wall.

The Bronze Age cairn cemetery of Sammallahdenmäki in Lappi was the first Finnish archaeological site to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in December 1999. Sammallahdenmäki was chosen to the list as the finest Western Bronze Age site in Finland and Scandinavia.

Thank you Ella for this card.

Aphrodite's Baths

Akamas, is a promontory and cape at the northwest extremity of Cyprus area of 230 square kilometres. Ptolemy described it as a thickly wooded headland, divided into two by summits [a mountain range] rising towards the north. The peninsula is named after a son of Theseus , hero of the Trojan War and founder of the city-kingdom of Soli.

Until the year 2000, the peninsula was used by the British Army and Navy for military exercises and as a firing range. Under the 1960 Treaty of Establishment, the British Army was allowed to use the Akamas for exercises for up to 70 days a year. 

At the southern end of the peninsula is the town of Pegeia and on its northeast side the town of Polis.

Due to the mountainous nature of the peninsula there are no roads running through its heartland. Furthermore some roads marked on Cypriot road maps of the area are not tarmaced. Visitor attractions in Akamas include a loggerhead turtle sanctuary and the Baths of Aphrodite where the goddess is said to have bathed, near Polis. As the area is therefore relatively inaccessible, there is a large diversity of flora and fauna there. Indeed the European Environment Agency noted that it was one of only 22 areas of endemism in Europe. This however looks like it may be threatened by tourist development and the planned A7 motorway between Polis and  Paphos; organisations such as the Green Party of Cyprus, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are taking action to protect the area.

This natural beauty spot is steeped in the myths and legends of Cyprus. Set in a pool grotto, surrounded by greenery, the site is said to be the place where Aphrodite, goddess of Love, bathed. According to local folktale, bathing in the pools water, could reduce your age by about 10 years, although eels have been placed in the water in the past to stop people from getting in the water. Legend also has it that Aphrodite met her most famous lover, Adonis at this spring. Thank you Merja for this pretty card. Lucky Adonis ;-))

Church of Petäjävesi

These two cards show the two views of this famous church in winter and in summer. The Petäjävesi Old Church is a wooden church located in Petäjävesi, Finland. It was built between 1763 and 1765. The bell tower was built in 1821. It was inscribed in 1994 on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The church is located about 1 km to the west of the centre of Petäjävesi. The church went out of use in 1879 when the new church was built. The old church has retained its original appearance and its interior decoration exceptionally well. It is a popular church for weddings in the summer, and there is a church service on most Sundays.

The church was built as the chapel for the area of Petäjävesi, which has belonged to the congregation of Jämsä. The local people had been given the permission to build a graveyard and a small village church at their own expense by the crown as early as in 1728 because the trip to Jämsä was long, howewer it took about 35 years until the construction began. The church was planned and built by Jaakko Klemetinpoika Leppänen, a church builder from Vesanka. In 1821 the windows were enlarged and the sacristy was moved from the northern part of the church to the east. The bell tower was also added by Erkki Leppänen, the grandson of the original builder.

After the new church was built, the old remained abandoned for a long time. Only the cemetery around the church and the belltower were in use. In the 1920's an Austrian art historian Josef Strzygowski noticed the architectural and historical value of the church and since 1929 it has been restored several times. In 1994 it was approved in the UNESCO's World Heritage Sites representing typical eastern Scandinavian wooden church tradition.

Thank you Ella for these lovely cards.

James Bond

One of the most famous scenes in the James Bond series is the golf match in Goldfinger. The wine-coloured V-neck sweater is the main piece here, with it’s yellow Slazenger panther logo on the chest. Underneath the sweater Bond wears a light grey long-sleeve polo shirt. Bond’s trousers are wool with frogmouth pockets. I’m not certain, but believe the trousers are navy blue. Bond has a red and white glove for his left hand, and when he isn’t golfing he sticks it in his left pocket. The shoes are brown kiltie Norwegian derbies with metal cleats on the sole. Bond’s hat is a grey straw trilby with a narrow brim, C-crown and front pinch. The large hat ribbon is black with 2 bands of white and red stripes. This was a very nice description of James Bond as he strokes his way to a win over Goldfinger. This wac courtesy  Matt Spaiser a graphic designer located in New York.

The card shown was sent to me by Lothar.

Bellapais Abbey

My friend Merja sent me this nice card about the Bellapais Abbey in Cyprus. Now, Bellapais is a small village in the Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, about four miles from the town of Kyrenia. The village was the home for some years ofLawrence Durrell, who wrote about life in Cyprus in his book Bitter Lemons. He mentions passing the time drinking coffee under the Tree of Idleness in the village and there are two places which lay claim to being the spot. Unfortunately his book did not identify it completely, or perhaps fortunately, because two establishments can now profit from the name. His house, up a very steep climb, has a plaque on it and one can have the pleasure of returning by a not-quite-so-perpendicular way that passes by old olive presses.

The jewel of the village is Bellapais Abbey or "The Abbey of Peace”. Built by canons  regular of the Premonstratensian Order in the 13th century, it is a most imposing ruin in a wonderful position commanding a long view down to Kyrenia and the Mediterranean Sea.

Most of the monastic buildings surround the cloister. In Britain these would normally be built on the south side of the church so to some extent protect the living quarters from the cold air from the north. At Bellapais, the monastic buildings are on the north, probably to be cooler, although occasionally the lay of the land dictated position.

Today the site is a museum, which also hosts a restaurant and a cafe.

Suomenlinna - World Heritage Site

In 1991, the Suomenlinna fortress was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a unique monument of military architecture. Other World Heritage Sites include the pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China. Suomenlinna is one of Finland’s most popular tourist attractions. At the same time it is a suburb of Helsinki, with 850 people living in the renovated ramparts and barracks.

Suomenlinna is unique in that although it is a bastian fortress, it is irregular in shape as a result of being built on a cluster of rocky islands with highly variable terrain, requiring a very free adaptation of the theory of fortifications developed in central Europe. The Suomenlinna World Heritage Site currently includes seven islands.

Another special feature of the fortress is that in the course of its history it has served in the defence of three realms: Sweden, Russia and Finland. Moreover, it continues to be a living, tended and inhabited district of the city of Helsinki.

Suomenlinna is to a large extent historically authentic, i.e. consisting of original structures. Several significant layers of historical development in fortifications and shipyards may be seen on Suomenlinna. The dry dock  at the heart of the fortress, with galley basin, lock gates and paternoster device, was the state of the art in 18th-century technology. There are also dozens of historical underwater sites around the fortress.

Thank you Ella for this nice card.

Illinois

Far from the hustle and bustle of the third largest city in the USA, Illinois small towns and rural areas beckon visitors with their changing seasons, prairie lands, and crops. The round silo for farm storage was first constructed on a farm in Spring Grove, IL. Corn, soyabeans, wheat, oats, barley, rye and sorghum are the leading crops. Cattle is a major industry in Illinois.

Thank you Frank for sending me this lovely card.