Austria: Old Postal Routes

Last Monday I got two postcards from Austria.

The first of them shows a cute postal-themed illustration.

Used for postage was Austria's EUROPA stamp of this year (issued 08-05-2020), which was cancelled with its First Day Special Postmark. The theme of this year is Old Postal Routes and Austria goes with this stamp back to the location of the beginning of regular mail services in Europa. Back in 1490 it was King (and later Emperor) Maximilian I who initiated the first postal route between Innsbruck and Brussels and thus laid the foundation for the postal service of the Family Thurn and Taxis in the coming centuries. The stamp shows the Palais Fugger in Innsbruck, which was bought by the Family Thurn and Taxis in 1784 to be used as residence and post office. I really like this stamp!

In combination with this card let me also show you the German EUROPA souvenir sheet of this year (issued 07-05-2020). This is by far my favourite EUROPA stamp for this year! Beside the nice illustrations of Basel, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Rheinhausen and Vienna it also shows an interesting map of the postal routes of the Thurn and Taxis Post in 1627, which includes many big cities like Brussels, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Prague and Zurich and also my home town. I think it is very interesting to see on various EUROPA stamps of this year the (postal) connections between different countries on the continent.

Thank You very much for the card Anita!