Greetings from Belgium

Today's Greetings from postcard comes from Belgium, from a swap with Lara. The card looks ok-ish on this scan I think, but it's pretty badly mangled at the bottom for some reason. I hope it's not because my postman didn't approve of it...?? :P I had to tape up the bottom left corner to try and keep the card in one piece.

I did not know Audrey Hepburn was Belgian! That's one of the reasons I like this series; I'm learning new things with them and I love random little facts like the one about BMI here. ...I was kind of expecting something about fries here as well, though.. :P

Brussels, Belgium

A very nice official I received earlier this year, showing Brussels from a slightly different angle.


BE-92626

Brussels is the de facto capital of Belgium and of the European Union. It is also the largest urban area in Belgium, comprising 19 municipalities.

Brussels has grown from a 10th-century fortress town founded by a descendant of Charlemagne into a metropolis of more than one million inhabitants. The metropolitan area has a population of over 1.8 million, making it the largest in Belgium.

Since the end of the Second World War, Brussels has been a main center for international politics. Hosting principal EU institutions as well as the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the city has become the polyglot home of numerous international organisations, politicians, diplomats and civil servants.

Although historically Dutch-speaking, Brussels became increasingly French-speaking over the 19th and 20th centuries. Today a majority of inhabitants are native French-speakers, and both languages have official status. Linguistic tensions remain, and the language laws of the municipalities surrounding Brussels are an issue of considerable controversy in Belgium. ...this reminds me, my sister visited Brussels some years ago but had to leave pretty soon because most people only spoke French and she doesn't speak/understand it, and she preferred Amsterdam anyway :p On the other hand, I used to have a penpal who lived in Brussels, and the image she gave me of the city was completely different. I guess it depends on who you are and where you go...



The stamp is the very common flower definitive issued in 2009.

Lighthouses, Belgium

I just realised that I haven't posted any postcards from Belgium in this blog yet. ...and it's not THAT rare a country, even if I don't receive postcards from there all the time. Well, this is remedied now with this nice official that arrived a while ago. This might well be my first Belgian lighthouse postcard, actually. :)


BE-80994

These lighthouses are all located in West Flanders, the westernmost province of the Flemish Region, also named Flanders, in Belgium. It borders (clockwise from the North) on the Netherlands, the Flemish province of East Flanders and the Walloon province of Hainaut in Belgium, on France, and the North Sea. Its capital is Bruges (Brugge). Other important cities are Kortrijk in the south and Ostend along the coastline. The province has an area of 3,125 km² which is divided into eight administrative districts containing 64 municipalities.



The stamp is from a set of two Christmas stamps issued in 2010.