Markets

The letter M provides us with a fairly large number of popular collecting themes: variations on Military, or on Motor, Monuments, Music.

I have a large collection of Maps, but I may have done them to death so I'll stick to Markets.  I've recently started a collection of Medieval art, but it is a fledgling collection so far.

Here, then, are my markets:

Russian Market

An oil painting by the Russian artist, Sergey Sochivko (1959-).  Although the card says it's a detail of the original, in fact there is very little missing.

Sergey Sochivko is from Omsk and well known for his love of the old, and the spirit of the Omsk Siberian Cossacks. His paintings are views of the city of Omsk with its historic buildings and street scenes as a backdrop for fantastical stories.

Vietnam

Taking bananas to market, my first ever card from Vietnam, I think. It's one of the many places I would love to visit.  The list grows longer all the time.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.
 

The fish market in Hamburg

The traditional fish market in Hamburg is held early every Sunday morning beside the Elbe river in the old town of Altona, west of Hamburg.  You can buy not only fish, but practically anything that can be bought and sold.

Hamburg, on the north coast, is the second largest city in Germany and the second largest port in Europe.

The card not only shows the market but has the added bonus of a map!

Arches and domes

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the centre of Milan is four storeys high, two arcades each with a glass vaulted roof.  Where the two arcades meet, they form an octagonal glass dome.  The Galleria took 12 years to build, from 1865 to 1877, but the card is more recent, probably 1915-1920.  Nowadays the shops sell luxury goods, plus some cafes and restaurants.  McDonalds had been one of the tenants for 20 years but the city of Milan refused to renew its tenancy in 2012.

While on the subject of arches and places to buy things, here is a card from Lugano in Switzerland, the Portici (arcades) di Via Pessina.  Again these date from the 19th century.  Nowadays the road is entirely pedestrianised and the shops sell mainly crafts, jewellery, and delicatessen foodstuffs.

This is a post for Sepia Saturday.  A click on the button will take you to the site.

Street seller in Salvador

A woman selling something called acaraje on the streets of Salvador in Bahia, a state in the north east of Brazil.  Acaraje is a speciality of the area but is also found in Nigeria, Benin, and Ghana.  It's a type of fritter made from black eyed beans, deep fried and then split an served with a spicy filling.  It sounds delicious!

The sellers of acaraje are women who wear white dresses like the one shown on the card.  They are known as Baianas.

Fruits from Cambodia

A wonderful surprise arrived for me today, wonderful in a number of ways:

The card followed me here from Cambodia and then from France thanks to a kind neighbour who forwarded my mail.
It shows one of my favourite themes - a market stall with mouth watering fruits.
It comes from our good friend, Sreisaat, at Postcards Crossing.
AND it has the date stamp: 12-12-12!!!

It lifted my spirits. :)

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Aix la Chapelle 1668

On a card showing the flower market along the banks of the Seine in Paris, dated 1968, comes this stamp commemorating the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle.  The Treaty ended the War of Devolution between France and Spain.

I really knew nothing about the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle but I'm glad I looked it up.  There is some significance to those of us who collect postcards of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  The war of Devolution  was fought between France and Spain when France invaded the Spanish Netherlands.  Many of the French gains were returned to Spain (including areas we now think off as in France: St Omer, Cambrai) but some were retained.  In these places, Vauban set about creating strong fortifications, now protected by World Heritage Site status.

In spite of two brief holidays in those areas, I still haven't managed to find any postcards showing the Fortifications of Vauban.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Christmas markets

Two Christmas markets, both sent from Germany, but the top one shows "one of the most beautiful Christmas markets in Germany" in Chemnitz, while the second shows one in Alsace, just over the border in France.

I don't often have the chance to see a Christmas market but I do love to visit if I can because they have such a wonderful atmosphere.

A fruit market

Mouthwatering displays of fruits on a roadside in Uganda.  Although I think I can identify some of the fruit - magoes, watermelon - most are unfamiliar to me.

Bird garden, Hong Kong

A street stall in Hong Kong selling birds as pets.  According to the person who sent this to me, it is shut down whenever a case of avian flu is discovered, which is a "scarily frequent occurrence".

Fruit and vegetables

"Fascinating lively market at Kota Bharu in Kelantan, selling every imaginable form of produce".

I could spend hours looking at a place like this.  I would travel to Malaysia for this alone - almost. :)

Salamanca Market

From the back of thois card recently arrived from Australia:

"Salamanca Place is famous for its historic Georgian warehouses dating back to the 1830s.  Every Saturday some of Tasmania's best arts, crafts and flowers are on sale at Salamanca Market".

It looks like there plenty of vegetables too.

Food

To counteract all the fresh vegetables being sold at the market, the stamps I have found some cake and something I thought might be sausages but may be pancakes.  All are from Finland.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Temple Street Market, Hong Kong

Temple Street Market is one of the most famous markets in Hong Kong.  It's open from 4:00 pm until midnight but really it comes alive after dark when the lights turn it into a magical place.  The whole of the street is filled with market stalls on the pavements in front of the shops.

Beemster cheese

Children dressed as cheese carriers at a market, outside a cheese museum.  The cheeses are Beemster cheese, some of which is aged for 26 months.

The name Beemster comes from the Beemster Polder, an area in North Holland.  It was the earliest of the reclaimed land in the Netherlands, first drained in 1609, and now lies over 3 metres below sea level.  It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1999.

St Jacobs

"The Mennonite communities of St Jacobs Country add to the idyllic and historic feeling of the marketplace", so says the text from the back of the card.  The person who sent to to me lives not 20 minutes from the community in Canada and tells me that the Mennonites still travel in a horse and buggy.

They sound rather like the Amish people and in fact, when I investigated further, the Amish denomination was founded after a schism with the Mennonites.  They originally came from the German and Dutch speaking parts of Europe and many emigrated to North America to avoid persecution.

St Jacobs is in southern Ontario and was originally called Jacob's Settlement after the Mennonite farmer who developed the town.  It has a year-round farmers' market where a great range of food and crafts are sold, often by Mennonite farmers.

Cheese market at Alkmaar

The cheese market at Alkmaar in the Netherlands is a tradition going back to the 16th century though there was a weighing house there as early 1365.  At one time, until World War I, about 300 tons of cheese was sold on market days.  The tradition is continued but now with less than 10% the quantity of cheese.

It looks a lovely spectacle and I know it's popular with tourists.  Apparently as many as 100,000 people arrive to see the market each year.  The cheese carriers wear traditional costumes as you can see on this postcard.  The colours on their hats denote the different groups (or vemen).

One other piece of odd information about Alkmaar - there is a museum dedicated to the Beatles because John Lennon's first guitar was made in the town.

This card was sent to me by Deirdre of Mail Corner.  Thank you Deirdre!

Being fruitful

A delicious selection of fruits and other produce at this Sri Lankan market.  Lemons and limes I recognise (I think) and of course the bananas, but as usual there are others that are a mystery to me.

Tomatoes

Fresh tomatoes from Italy, from Sicily to be exact.  Quite inexpensive, and they look lovely.  We very rarely see them like that in the UK.  Ours tend to be uniformly shaped and uniformly tasteless.  I think at least some of these may be a variety called Fiorentino.  The postcard was sent to me from the Netherlands.