Tag Archives: Architecture

Київ – Kiev

By ilyani | Published 2 June, 2009

Whoa, suddenly I received many Ukraine postcards lately.. especially from the capital Kiev. I said suddenly because, I got the first Kiev postcard back in 2006, knowing that it’s one of the rare countries in Postcrossing it wouldn’t be surprising not to receive many cards from there.. but after a long break, I received at least 3 Ukraine cards this year!

From Katjafin. This fairytale castle-like monastery is the Kiev Pechersk Lavra (Kiev Monastery of the Caves), built in 1015.. and together with the Saint-Sophia Cathedral, it’s listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The word “lavra” is used to describe high-ranking monasteries for (male) monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This monastery is also one of The Seven Wonders of Ukraine.. wow, I wonder if there exists such a list as Seven Wonders of Malaysia :P I will investigate on it soon…

From Meleu. Another view from another side of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.. I can’t really put the two images together.. each gives a different color and atmosphere but at least you can guess this is one of the towers with the golden domes :)

From Anna. This is also part of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra… the Great Lavra Belltower!! This belltower measures 96.5 m tall and was the highest during its construction in 1731–1745.

From Orange_dreamer. More views of Kiev. Small pics from left: 1) Princess Olga monument. 2) Kiev cable railway 3) the Bohdan Khmelnytsky monument. And picture below shows the Mychael’s square.

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Belgian cathedrals

By ilyani | Published 31 May, 2009

I wanted to feature either one of these cathedrals in my previous Belgium entry.. but couldn’t really decide which so I didn’t put both. They’re from different cities in Belgium but what the heck, I can put them together in this post :) Sometimes I realized myself that my selection of cards to put in this blog is rather varied and easygoing, though I wanted to put a few cards with mutual theme, or place, or set, but that’s not THAT necessary actually.

Sent by drs_dolittle

Sent by drs_dolittle

The Saint Bavo Cathedral of Ghent was constructed during the 14th through 16th centuries. I love the color and light in this postcard.

sent by Marleen

BE-2112 sent by Marleen

And this is the Notre-Dame (Cathedral of Our Lady).. it’s a bit confusing me coz I realized that I have featured postcard of a Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris before.. then again there are actually several cathedrals with this name in other countries like Canada and Luxembourg. Well this Belgian Notre-Dame is located in Antwerpen, the second largest city of Belgium after Brussels. This cathedral was built in the 14th and 15th century.

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Köln am Rhein – Cologne

By ilyani | Published 17 May, 2009

I have received postcards of this very huge and tall cathedral in Cologne, Germany, not one but 3.. in some strange ways :) First, I received a postcard from someone, unexpectedly, who claimed he was replying to my postcard I had sent him a year before that.. though I couldn’t remember anymore, but nevermind. So I received  a postcard.. thing is I didn’t pay attention to what building was in the card. Well, some cathedral.. somewhere. And only recently, Relie wanted to send me a postcard.. and she mentioned Cologne Cathedral, and I was gladly claiming, “send me, I still don’t have postcard of that! ^_^”. And to make a story longer, her first card was misplaced somewhere for quite a while when it arrived here, making her again sent yet ANOTHER Cologne Cathedral card to me… thinking that she might have forgotten to send it. And only after I received the 2nd card.. I recalled that I HAD already got a postcard of this building!! What’s the name again?? Cologne Cathedral?? And there, I digged out the first card from that German guy, and shortly later, I found Relie’s 1st card, making me have 3 Cologne Cathedral postcards altogether without me knowing it earlier.. *happy sigh* Okay, end of unnecessarily long story.

From Daniel. Kölner Dom is a Gothic church built in 1248 -1880 (600 years!! Can you imagine??) and after the completion, it became the most tallest building in the world at that time, until the Washington Monument in USA was built afterwards. Still, this cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and having the tallest twin spirals in the world. The Cologne Cathedral was listed as UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994.

From Relie. This view looks same as the first card, only it was taken from the back (or, actually I don’t know which side is front or back..).. but here you can see the cathedral part with another green spiral sitting on its roof(?).. and from here it does look really huge compared to buildings around. Relie was here in 2007 during her Europe trip.

From Relie. A night view of Cologne, with the cathedral looking great with greeny lights here.

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