Poland

This card of Polish folk art features a man and a women in traditional costumes using their well to get water.  

Poland

Storks - Józef Chełmoński

This painting entitled Storks by Polish painter Józef Marian Chełmoński features a man and child looking up to the sky as a flock of storks pass overhead.  In the distance to the left of the humans, you can make out a tall tree with a stork nest in the up at the top.  

Poland

Warszawa - Stadion Narodowy

Opened in 2012, the National Stadium in Warsaw features a red and white color scheme reminiscent to the Polish flag.  The Polish national football team plays their home matches here.

Poland

Krakow

This is an aerial photo postcard of Wawel Hill in Krakow.  The hill contains both Wawel Castle (on the right hand side) and Wawel Cathedral (the mostly-green-topped towers in the center of the photo.) 

Krakow was the capital city of Poland until the 1596.  It is telling that the royal castle is just a very short walk to the Cathedral.  Unlike Warsaw, Krakow was not destroyed during World War II.

A map with each of the places listed of Wawel can be found on Wikipedia here.

Poland

Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Discoverer of the chemical elements Polonium and Radium, winner of the Nobel Prize 1903, 1911)

Nobel-winning scientist Marie Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934)'s birthplace in Warsaw (the large picture) houses a small museum dedicated to her.  She remains the only women to win two Nobel Prizes and was the first women to do so.  She is also the only person to win Nobels in two scientific disciplines: Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911)

Poland

This Wycinanki-inspired card features a man and women picking apples as the women greats a horse. 

Wycinanki is a Polish folk art of paper cutting and the cards in this series, done by Ewa Jałoszyńska, are among my favorite kinds of postcards to receive.  Her cards can be found in Warsaw's Old Town and also online at http://www.nanaelo.pl/

Poland

Battle of Grunwald, 1878 (fragment) by Jan Matekjko 

This is a small portion of the massive work Battle of Grunwald by Polish artist Jan Matekjko (1838-1893).  Matekjo often chose topics for his paintings of notable moments in Polish history.  This painting depicts the victory of Poland-Lithuania over the Germanic Teutonic Order on 15 July 1410.

The painting was one of the top items wanted by the Nazis for destruction, both because of its depiction of a famous Polish victory over the Germanic Order and because the Nazis attempted to destroy all aspects of Polish culture after invading the country during World War II.  The canvas was hidden in Poland until the end of the War despite a 10,000,000 ReichMark bounty.  

The full painting can be viewed at the National Museum in Warsaw and on the painting's Wikipedia page.

Poland

Polska - Poland

This beautiful card features a drawing of a pair of white storks with their two babies in a nest.  Often, in the countryside, you can see where people have built nests for storks atop trees, on posts, or on top of their houses.  Storks are said to bring luck if one nests near your home.

Poland

Place of Remembrance and Monument with a "Fighting Poland" Symbol 

This card comes from the Warsaw Uprising Museum (or sometimes Warsaw Rising Museum).  It is of a permanent exhibit featuring three mock-graves similar to those that would have been used during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 when the city of Warsaw rose against the Nazi occupiers from 1 August – 2 October 1944 in an attempt to free the city.  

The exhibit features  a large number of back-lit photos (seen in this card as the specks of light) representing the 10,000 plus fighters and the 150,000–200,000 citizens killed trying to free the city.

Special Post: Announcement of Poland Postcard Extravaganza

Poland

This card features a young girl wearing a traditional Polish costume from the Silesian region.

This card begins a month-plus run of cards from Poland.  I purchased most of these cards while on a trip to Poland.  As postcards are often better than photographs to help keep memories, this collection of cards represents some awesome souvenirs I was able to bring home with me.    

The Poland Postcard Extravaganza will run from August 1, 2015 through September 15, 2015 (or so)

and will feature cards mostly from Warsaw and Krakow and starts out with a double posting today.