Greetings from Italy!

    A new service of the Swiss Post was announced in the January issue of the Swiss Postal Service magazine "La Loupe". The name of the service is Cartolina and it is proposed by a new unit named Swiss Post International.
    It functions in watering places in ... Italy, and promises to dispatch standard postcards  very fast (one to two days for the whole Europe), which can be considered  a very good performance from there. The correspondence is serviced for the whole world as first class mail, but only when  special stickers (see below) are used and when the postcards are put in special collection boxes and drop-off points of the Swiss Post International.
    The stickers are sold in booklets of 8 pieces, for the price of Swiss Francs 8.00 (about $5.50). They were designed by the Swiss artist Stefan Beutler, from Biel/Bienne. Each sticker displays the text: P.P., CH-Swiss Post, and A-Priority/Prioritaire.

	Top - down and from left to right: Palm, Venice, Milan, Naples, Rome

    A new and interesting field (Swiss post abroad) for stamps collectors, I believe. Next summer I will display on this place a postcard that I will send to myself from Italy the day of my departure from there. Will I get it no later then after two days? Knowing from own experience the quality of the Swiss postal service, I have no doubts.

   Note. Unfortunately I couldn't find the special collection boxes or the drop-off points of the Swiss Post International in Lido di Jesolo, a quite big place, situated near Venice. Was I out of luck there?