On The Road Again - Eye To Eye With The Local Postal Authority

Thank you, Bendix. Your descriptions of your journeys make up one of my favourite threads.

We recently had a rather understamped postal item. Let's give the Spanish postal service another chance. 100 km to the east, on the border between Galicia and Asturias, lies the small town of Ribadeo. There the following card found its way into the letterbox.

And to make up for the non-stamping in Coruna, it got stamped twice, once by machine and once by hand, because the machine didn't catch everything. I like it. The stamps are from the loot at the post office in La Coruna.



As you see, we are moving along the coast. Time to honour the Spanish navy. The Spanish postal service itself did this lavishly with an extensive series in 1964, as I realised when I bought a remainder collection (EUR 80 for 25 years - approx. 1,500 mint stamps, i.e. about 6 cents each - an amount that doesn't overstrain). Outstanding quality in intaglio printing.



And they didn't just do it for collectors. I keep coming across special stamps from the 1960s that appear to have been cancelled on occasion of normal postal processing. Very pleasing. The print runs of special stamp series from this period were usually between 4-6 million.

Another 200 km to the east, at the post office in Ribadasella (population 6,000), there was also some modern forage. For once, the postwoman didn't hold back, but dug out what the stock books had to offer and the selection was more plentiful than in the big city of La Coruna. That was enough for the rest of the journey and to return home with some presentable spoils. One example:



One block of many with some blue bloods on it? Possibly, but note the stoic seriousness of the male family members and the gracious smiles of the female ones. Clearly distributed roles and very Spanish, so my impression.

By the way, I can tell you exactly how much I bought stamps for back then, because the envelope in which Christel (from the post office – German nickname for postleresses) or better we call her "nuestra senora de la oficina de correos" (and thus make her a saint, because being so well supplied with special stamps in Spain is a miracle) carefully stowed the stamps has survived (all the travel documents from back then are in there today - opened for the first time in over 20 years). I'll show you a section of the postal stationery, because the A4 format is large.

Santillana del Mar, Cantabria: It was afternoon when I arrived in this small historic town with the plan to stop for the night. It was packed with visitors, reminded me of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria (infamous for its attraction to tourists). After securing a room in a historic inn and heading out for dinner in the evening, the town could suddenly be found completely quiet and clear, as if the people had been conjured away by magic.

Well, the town however is famous for the nearby Altamira cave with its cave drawings, of which there can be found quite a few in the area. Let me show you this (conveniently, the Spanish postal service has regularly honoured local artists in its annual "Day of the Stamp" series - including those from the Stone Age).

It was a full belly that was particularly important to our ancestors. When they were lucky enough at the hunt, they held a festivity, took intoxicants and made those cult drawings, I once learnt from a TV report.

I can well understand this, having roamed the village like a hungry wolf myself. Dinner in Spain, by the way, not before 21h00. I got my meal, but refrained from decorating my room with pictures glorifying my dinner, even though the food would have been worthy of such a tribute and the wine would have provided an inspiring buzz.

Better to report home now and use one of the newly acquired special stamps. By the way, there was no European friendship rate in Spain (in the sense of the same price as a domestic letter), the international postcard to Germany (EUR 0.50) cost twice the domestic rate (EUR 0.25) - tourism is business and it is too important an industry for Spain to sacrifice this source of income for political gestures.

And soon we are in the Basque Country, an industrialised economic heavyweight in Spain. The people seemed special to me and appeared a tad darker in hair and appearance than their neighbours.

Here is a view of Bilbao, the Guggenheim Museum was a clearly visible landmark.



By the way, did you know, that the Basque Country is a cycling region, teeming with racing cyclists. What got on my nerves, however, was the invocation of local nationalism. I sometimes found strange bull-men painted on houses, destroying / strangling their enemies in form of a snake, if I interpreted it correctly. Everywhere - even in the neighbouring provinces - you see graffiti claiming that this is Basque and that is Basque.

I made quarters in a small Basque town, Azpeitia, a place of pilgrimage - the founder of the Jesuit order (Loyola) was born there. Overnight accomondation in a Spanish rural village might mean a short night's rest. Often these villages are teeming with chicken and roosters. And what do they do when the sun rises? That's right, the roosters start to crow, one nights I heard ten different voices.



I think that in addition to a small stamp album, you should always have something to read with you when on holiday. I had such a small book in my luggage. Kindly lent to me by my local library. The book is still on the shelf there today - twenty years later. I borrowed it again briefly for this article.

Spanish writers from five centuries (640 pages, 14x9 cm fits in every travel bag, even in every jacket or trouser pocket, can only be found in antiquarian bookshops or libraries these days - the copyright holder Bertelsmann is of the opinion that it is no longer worthwhile to publish). Here is the table of contents for philatelists (yes, it was a fabulous hit rate - I found a portrait of 50% of the authors in my stamp collection, apparently the publisher had the right touch).



I would also have liked to show a philatelic tribute in respect of the story of Lazarillo de Tormes, whose story was also in the book, but unfortunately I have not found anything in my collection. Lazarillo is the hero of an early picaresque novel. He repeatedly gets into grotesque situations through confrontation with his respective masters: a miserly beggar, an ungracious churchman, a destitute nobleman. Belongs to the canon of Spanish literature, from 1554. Author: anonymous - banned by the Spanish Inquisition for many years.

Speaking of old stuff. The Spanish postal service has issued several stamps in one sheet addressed to schoolchildren, on which historic moments are quoted by means of caricatures on stamps. Here is one of the blocks - tour loot from the fishing trip at the post office in Ribadasella. Good entertainment, I think: to make one smirk and at the same time the issue is instructive.

A stamp commemorating "El Lazarillo del Tormes" was issued 8 May 1997, Edifil 3483.

The letter-writing miniature sheets promoting letter writing to school children include some pretty hilarious stamps. My favourite is the one referring to the Gothic tribes that settled in the Iberian Peninsula.

@NSK: Thanks for your hint in regards of Lazarillo de Tormes, a nice issue which I look forward to add to my collection one day, when I will come across such a piece..

So, next stage - this could go where? I'll give you a hint.



From the fantastic "Bullfighting" series from 1960 - 16 values in total. The value in the middle depicts the bullfight in Pamplona (incidentally, I recently saw a mint set on an auction platform for a dime per stamp – affordable high end design I dare say).

I leave that sort of thing to American tourists (quite famous: Ernest Hemingway, who is said to have written about his experiences in Pamplona in his novel 'Fiesta').

I visited the post office instead (without finding it boring).



Excellent postmark quality? I did it myself (the female postal clerk was so annoyed by my cancellation demands, she handed the stamping device over).



By the way: did you know that Navarre and the surrounding provinces are real rebel strongholds? It is said to be the home of the Carlist party, a particularly conservative group (religion and family come first - liberal and socialist ideas are rejected) that really destabilised Spain in the 19th century. They rallied around a counter-king, who was always called Carlos, and used Salic hereditary law (exclusively male succession) to justify their actions. Civil war, that ended in favour of the republic and the subsequent revived (constitutional) monarchy.

Here is the winner, Alfonso the XII (please do not confuse him with the Quarter to Twelfth, who was the King of Morrowland from the Jim Button books, German children's literature which has as well been exported worldwide), who was killed by tuberculosis at the age of 28. Stamp from 1876, it is also still defective. Worth EUR 0.05 - what the heck, it did its job as a cue today and, so I hope, entertained us well.

Jaca – we are at the bottom of the Pyrenees.



But before we set off on the ascent to the Somport Pass, let's take a look back. Don't worry, I won't bore you with private pictures. Instead, the Spanish postal service produced a series of impressive works of art here, the Sights series, which was issued from 1964 to 1987. I counted altogether 97 stamps.



Gourgeous illustrations and, in my opinion, excellent suggestions for possible destinations. Of course, you can only make use of the stamps in that regard if you own them. So don't be afraid of a Spain collection. And why limit yourself to the classics? The modern issues are the more substantial cultural ambassadors. Perhaps you still have something like this lying around as a fragment, then take a look - the entertainment value is great, as I once again found out when working on this series of articles.

NSK honoured a number of the issues of the remarkable series in detail here in the forum under the title "Espana: Spain: Paisajes y Monumentos". Worth taking a look.

Thank you as always, Bendix. Great fun!

Before we put ourselves on the road today, we visit a local place of worship and take a look at frescoes in churches in Jaca, I add a stamp in honour of Aragon.



When leaving Jaca, the road climbs up into the mountains in wide, green hairpin bends in the direction of the pass. Anyone who lives in the mountains knows about the dramatic views that open up there and amaze people from the downs.

Taking this route, one will pass the palatial and completely oversized Canfranc-Estacion railway station, which is supposed to be the largest in Spain. The dimensions here were misjudged; they had expected significantly more traffic with France, which has not maintained the line on its side (I read in the Financial Times that a luxury hotel has opened in the station in 2022, they usually know where it's prefeable to stay).



One quickly reaches the Candanchu ski resort and soon arrives on the Somport Pass (1.640 metres).

Now we are leaving Spain. What can I show you in addition, the country is so proud and diverse.

Then I remembered that postcards - which many of us may have received from there in the course of one's lifetime - very, very often feature the head of state and still do that until these days. Then Iet me show you one.

Alfonso the XIII. (you may have guessed it: the son of the XII.) is considered a co-founder and promoter of modern tourism. He became king as an infant due to the early death of his father and is well known for this stamp design from 1889 (which was also issued for the Philippines and Cuba).



The pass is the cultural, linguistic and national border with France.
Now every reader is probably asking himself the following crucial question: and where was the first post office on the French side? Here is the answer:




And of course, all French stamps (with few exceptions) are still valid for postage today - where should there be the problem? Here are my oldest unused stamps, ready to perform the service for which they were paid (though admittedly the one in the middle is one of the few exceptions).



Félicitations! As a Prussian (who at times feel so superior, however in the aspect of stamp validity we are clearly not), I can only bashfully take my hat off.