So I’ve gone through all my received cards… but I’ve got plenty of older ones to share! I shared my first postcard ever, my oldest postcard, and my first PC postcard… now I’ll share my first postcard from when truly became a postcard collector! This one here is from Hungary! This precedes my first PC card by only a few cards. I have plenty of cards from this time period that have never been featured on APFY, so you’ll see many more of them! Anyway, the town shown here is Pápa, which is located Veszprém county (northwestern Hungary). It’s important to note that this country is divided into counties, which would be the equivalent of provinces or states in other countries. Dating back as far as the 11th century, Pápa is known for its history in religion, its baroque architecture (evident especially in the churches), and its thermal baths. One of the examples of Pápa’s baroque-style architecture is in the Great Church of the main square (church in the top-left, town square in the top-right), which was constructed in the late 1700s. While I couldn’t find much else on this church itself, I can say that Pápa served as one of the most important centers of Protestantism during the Reformation. As a little European history lesson, the Reformation was a Christianity movement in the 1600s that attempted to reform the Roman Catholic Church (which led to a split in the Church). This is where Protestant churches came about. I won’t get into the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, but I think it’s helpful to have this backstory. Oh, and it looks like “Pápa” translates to “pope” (my friends from Hungary, feel free to QC me on that!), which seems to make sense given its historical context. But for some reason my mind keeps going to “potato” in Spanish… not even the archaic term for “dad”. I must be writing this post while hungry. Anyway thank you so much for this card and for your friendship, Marci!
