Not a Great Day

Not a great day today, so I think I'll take the advice of Nancy and her card from Germany, who sent this via Postcrossing:  "Sometimes we have to relax."  

P.S.  It's Postcard Friendship Friday.  Check it out.

Hermannsdenkmal, Germany

Hermannsdenkmal is one of Germany's major tourist attractions, standing almost 174 feet tall (about 17 stories). It was completeled in 1875.

The monument commemorates the victory of the German tribes over three Roman legions in 9 AD. It was a huge loss for the Romans, but did not deter their geographic expansion at the time. Check out this and this for information on the Roman empire. Interesting to revisit - one of those subjects I remember studying in high school history but haven't had reason to think about in a long while.

Dresden 1903

These postcards from Dresden are from my great grandfather's collection, sent from Europe in the early 1900s. Specifically, these were sent in late August 1903. Notice the postal marks on the last picture below. Not only do you see the postmark from whence the card was sent, but also the postmark of the destination address. It appears that even in 1903 a postcard from Germany took about two weeks to travel to Stockton, California. Pretty impressive. What's hard to see in these pictures is the embossing on a couple of the cards. If you enlarge the images, you may get a better sense of that.

It's very possible that many of the places featured on these cards no longer exist, due to the bombing of Dresden in 1945.