Natural and Culturo-Historical Region of Kotor

Kotor is one of those places that I knew through postcards and now I'd love to go there

Kotor

This postcard was sent by Christina

Kotor is a coastal town in Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Gulf of Kotor.

Kotor has been fortified since the early Middle Ages, when Emperor Justinian built a fortress above Acruvium in 535, after expelling the Ostrogoths; a second town probably grew up on the heights round it, for Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the 10th century, alludes to Lower Kotor.

The city was part of the Venetian Albania province of the Venetian Republic from 1420 to 1797. It was besieged by the Ottomans in 1538 and 1657. Four centuries of Venetian domination have given the city the typical Venetian architecture, that contributed to make Kotor a UNESCO world heritage site. - in: wikipedia

Our Lady of the Rocks

This postcard was sent by Patricia from Spain

Our Lady of the Rocks is one of the two islets off the coast of Perast in Bay of Kotor, Montenegro (the other being Sveti Đorđe Island). It is an artificial island created by bulwark of rocks and by sinking old and seized ships loaded with rocks. The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rocks is the largest building on the islet; it has a museum attached. There is also a small gift shop close to the church and a navigation light at the western end of the islet.

The first known church was built on the islet in 1452. It was taken over by Roman Catholics and in 1632 the present Church of Our Lady of the Rocks was built. It was upgraded in 1722. The church contains 68 paintings by Tripo Kokolja, a famous 17th-century baroque artist from Perast. - in: wikipedia

Church of St. Anthony of Padua in Perast

This postcard arrived from Russia sent by Sasha

Perast is an old town on the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. It is situated a few kilometres northwest of Kotor and is noted for its proximity to the islets of St. George and Our Lady of the Rocks. - in: wikipedia

San Antonio Missions

The San Antonio Missions encompasses a group of five complexes built by Franciscan missionaries in the 18th century, situated along San Antonio River in southern Texas, as well as a ranch located 37 kilometres to the south.

Mission of San José

This postcard was sent by Susan

 Founded in 1720, the mission was named for Saint Joseph and the Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo, the governor of the Province of Coahuila and Texas at the time. It was built on the banks of the San Antonio river several miles to the south of the earlier mission, San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo).

San José, as it became known, was the largest of the missions in the area. At its height, the community contained about 350 Indian neophytes, sustained by extensive fields and herds of livestock. Viewed as the model among the Texas missions, San José gained a reputation as a major social and cultural center. It became known as the "Queen of the Missions." Its imposing complex of stone walls, bastions, granary, and magnificent church was completed by 1782. - in: https://www.nps.gov/saan/learn/historyculture/sanjosehistory1.htm

Mission Concepcion

This postcard was sent by Donna

Franciscan friars established Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña (also Mission Concepcion) in 1716 as Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de los Hainais in East Texas.

Mission Concepcion consists of a sanctuary, nave, convento, and granary. When originally built, brightly painted frescos decorated both the exterior and interior of the building. Traces of the frescoes still exist on the weathered facade of the building. Experts restored some of the artwork on the interior ceilings and walls of the convento in 1988. The Archdiocese of San Antonio completed another restoration of the mission's interior in 2010 which exposed more frescoes in the sanctuary and nave. - in: wikipedia

Mission Valero

This postcard was sent by Susan

The Alamo Mission in San Antonio, commonly called the Alamo and originally known as Misión San Antonio de Valero, is part of the San Antonio Missions World Heritage Site in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Founded in the 18th century as a Roman Catholic mission and fortress compound, it was the site of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. The Alamo is now a museum in the Alamo Plaza Historic District.

Mission Valero

This postcard was sent by Georgia

The compound was one of the early Spanish missions in Texas, built for the education of area Native Americans after their conversion to Christianity. In 1793, the mission was secularized and then abandoned. Ten years later, it became a fortress housing a military unit, the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras, who likely gave the mission the name Alamo. During the Texas Revolution, Mexican General Martin Perfecto de Cos surrendered the fort to the Texian Army in December 1835, following the Siege of Béxar. A relatively small number of Texian soldiers then occupied the compound for several months. They were wiped out at the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836. When the Mexican army retreated from Texas several months later, they tore down many of the Alamo walls and burned some of the buildings. - in: wikipedia

The missions (in red what I already have):

• Mission Espada
• Mission San Juan
• Mission San José
• Mission Concepcion
• Mission Valero
• Rancho de las Cabras

Mammoth Cave National Park

Mammoth Cave is the most extensive cave system in the world, with over 456 km

Mammoth Cave

This postcard was sent by Yvorne

Mammoth Cave National Park is a U.S. national park in central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system known in the world. Since the 1972 unification of Mammoth Cave with the even-longer system under Flint Ridge to the north, the official name of the system has been the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System. The park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941.

The park's 52,830 acres (21,380 ha) are located primarily in Edmonson County, with small areas extending eastward into Hart County and Barren County. It is centered on the Green River, with a tributary, the Nolin River, feeding into the Green just inside the park. With 405 miles (652 km) of surveyed passageways Mammoth Cave is by far the world's longest known cave system, being nearly twice as long as the second-longest cave system, Mexico's Sac Actun underwater cave. - in: wikipedia

Rock Art of Alta

This site contains thousands of rock carvings and paintings located at 45 sites in five different areas at the head of the Alta Fjord

Hjemmeluft, Alta

This postcard was sent by Jo

The Rock art of Alta (Helleristningene i Alta) are located in and around the municipality of Alta in the county of Finnmark in northern Norway. Since the first carvings were discovered in 1973, more than 6000 carvings have been found on several sites around Alta.

The carvings were divided into five separate groups by Professor Knut Helskog, of the Department of Cultural Sciences at the University of Tromsø. Using shoreline dating, the earliest carvings were dated to around 4200 BC; the most recent carvings were dated to around 500 BC. In 2010 researcher Jan Magne Gjerde pushed the dates for the oldest phases back by 1000 years. The wide variety of imagery shows a culture of hunter-gatherers that was able to control herds of reindeer, was adept at boat building and fishing and practiced shamanistic rituals involving bear worship and other venerated animals. - in: wikipedia

Bryggen

I really love this postcard. It has the wonderful colors of autumn. Bryggen seems to be a great place to eat fish and shrimp 

Bryggen

This postcard was sent by Cathrine

Bryggen is a historic harbour district in Bergen, one of North Europe’s oldest port cities on the west coast of Norway which was established as a centre for trade by the 12th century. In 1350 the Hanseatic League established a “Hanseatic Office” in Bergen. They gradually acquired ownership of Bryggen and controlled the trade in stockfish from Northern Norway through privileges granted by the Crown. The Hanseatic League established a total of four overseas Hanseatic Offices, Bryggen being the only one preserved today. - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/59

Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)

This is one of the very few UNESCO sites that I don't want to visit. Makes me sick just to think of the atrocities made in this camp against human beings

Auschwitz II - Birkenau

Auschwitz Birkenau was the principal and most notorious of the six concentration and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany to implement its Final Solution policy which had as its aim the mass murder of the Jewish people in Europe. Built in Poland under Nazi German occupation initially as a concentration camp for Poles and later for Soviet prisoners of war, it soon became a prison for a number of other nationalities. Between the years 1942-1944 it became the main mass extermination camp where Jews were tortured and killed for their so-called racial origins.

The fortified walls, barbed wire, railway sidings, platforms, barracks, gallows, gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz Birkenau show clearly how the Holocaust, as well as the Nazi German policy of mass murder and forced labour took place. - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31

Centennial Hall in Wrocław

It's a building like this that misses here where I live, for concerts, theater and sports that not ski or golf...

Centennial Hall

This postcard was sent by Ana

The Centennial Hall, a landmark in the history of reinforced concrete architecture, was erected in 1911-1913 by the architect Max Berg as a multi-purpose recreational building, situated in the Exhibition Grounds. In form it is a symmetrical quatrefoil with a vast circular central space that can seat some 6,000 persons. The 23m-high dome is topped with a lantern in steel and glass. The Centennial Hall is a pioneering work of modern engineering and architecture, which exhibits an important interchange of influences in the early 20th century, becoming a key reference in the later development of reinforced concrete structures. - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1165