Riga

The cable stayed Vansu Bridge (Vansu Tilts) or Shroud Bridge in English is over a kilometre long and one of five bridges in Riga crossing the Daugava River.  Opened in 1981 and originally called Gorky Bridge (Gorky Tilts) but guess because of his Bolshevik links the name had to go as Latvia reinstated its independence in the 1990s.

The shiny skyscraper is Saules Akmens or Stone of Sun built in 2004 for the Hansa Bank. Originally this was going to be 15 story high but was increased to the present 27 floors and became the tallest building in Latvia, and part of the plan to expand the centre of Riga to the west side of the river.  My card gives the address as 1a Balasta Dam and the date 2004, which I would guess is when this photo was taken because Hansa Bank, which had a presence in all the Baltic countries, was fully bought by Swedbank and the building rebranded at the end of 2008. A turbulent year for all the worlds banking companies.

So far so Latvian, but my card came with a Danish stamp, the sender is studying in Denmark, but missing her city of  Riga.

The stamp is one of two from photographs by Steen Larsen. This one is of Aarhus, Denmark's largest container port, and depicts the crane grab of a quayside crane unloading animal feed from the tall grain-house, the grey building on the left used to be a salt store but is now a general warehouse.

The postal services of the Nordic countries are issuing a three part stamp series entitled 'Nordic Coastline'.  All eight countries will be issuing stamps in this series in 2010, 2012 and 2014.  The theme of the first part is 'Life by the Coast'.  Living by a coast, so slightly obsessed, I was hoping someone from one of the eight countries would use one of these series. Only seven to go now!

Thank you Kristine for showing me your world. The card travelled 549 miles (883k) and took 3 days.