Nostalgia

Two lovely cards from Beatrice from Lithuania.

Postcrossing meeting in Vilnius

 

This beautiful card comes from Rita. She sent it to me after a mini postcrossing meeting – she says there were only 3 people on that meeting. But the idea is what matters! 😀

The card pictures Pilies Street (literally, “Castle Street”). It is one of the main streets in the Old Town of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It is rather a short street, running from Cathedral Square to the Town Hall Square.

Out of several locations across Vilnius used by market traders to sell the wares of folk artists, Pilies Street is the most popular. The street is also known for the Kaziukas Fair, when folk artists from all four corners of Lithuania gather here to display and sell their latest merchandise.

Speaking of festivals, if something is being celebrated in Vilnius, Pilies Street is usually an excellent vantage point – most processions will make their way through here at some point. This is true whatever the festival – be it Christmas, Easter, the day of Restoration of Independence, or just a spontaneous celebration.

 

Trakai

 

This card comes from Monika who’s originally from Poland but was on a trip to Lithuania. 🙂

Trakai Island Castle is an island castle located in Trakai, Lithuania on an island in Lake Galvė. The castle is sometimes referred to as “Little Marienburg”. The construction of the stone castle was begun in the 14th century by Kęstutis, and around 1409 major works were completed by his son Vytautas the Great, who died in this castle in 1430. Trakai was one of the main centres of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the castle held great strategic importance.

Labas from Lithuania

Beautiful card from Jolanta from Lithuania. 🙂 She has written the card in Lithuanian – we had a bet, we wanted to see if we could understand each other’s languages (with the help of google translate, of course). Well, I couldn’t… 😦

The card shows a little bit of everything – views from the biggest cities, as well as some resorts. I just want to saw a few words about the picture in the bottom right corner. This place is called Kryžių kalnas – The Hill of Crosses. It is a site of pilgrimage about 12 km north of the city of Šiauliai, in northern Lithuania. The precise origin of the practice of leaving crosses on the hill is uncertain, but it is believed that the first crosses were placed there in 1831, after an uprising against the Russian tsar. Over the centuries, not only crosses, but giant crucifixes, carvings of Lithuanian patriots, statues of the Virgin Mary and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought here by Catholic pilgrims. The exact number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 55,000 in 1990 and 100,000 in 2006. More pictures you could see here.