N° 014Paris
France · 1962
“The light on the Seine at six in the evening. I thought of you.”
Est. 1958 · A private collection
Letters from
everywhere
and nowhere.
Three hundred and forty-two postcards, gathered over sixty years, from strangers and lovers, harbours and hillsides. An archive kept quietly, offered gently.
Paris · Kyoto · Havana · Marrakech · Reykjavík · Hanoi · Buenos Aires · Alexandria · Prague · Cape Town · Lisbon · Santorini · Paris · Kyoto · Havana · Marrakech · Reykjavík · Hanoi · Buenos Aires · Alexandria · Prague · Cape Town · Lisbon · Santorini · Paris · Kyoto · Havana · Marrakech · Reykjavík · Hanoi · Buenos Aires · Alexandria · Prague · Cape Town · Lisbon · Santorini · Paris · Kyoto · Havana · Marrakech · Reykjavík · Hanoi · Buenos Aires · Alexandria · Prague · Cape Town · Lisbon · Santorini ·
The Collection · 342 pieces
Every card a small door
Hover a card to lift it from the shelf. Each one carries a message on its reverse — copied here, verbatim.
N° 01401
N° 027Kyoto
Japan · 1978
“The blossoms fell like a slow, pink snow. Silence, everywhere.”
N° 041Santorini
Greece · 1985
“White walls, blue doors, and a sea that never quite ended.”
N° 058Marrakech
Morocco · 1971
“An arch, a lantern, the scent of orange blossom in the courtyard.”
N° 072Venice
Italy · 1969
“Fog on the lagoon. The gondolier hummed something in dialect.”
N° 089Lisbon
Portugal · 1974
“The 28 climbing the hill, all yellow warmth against cream stone.”
By region
A quiet atlas.
The archive travels widely. Some corners are dense, others still waiting for their first arrival.
- 01142 cards
Europe
- 0287 cards
Asia
- 0334 cards
Africa
- 0461 cards
Americas
- 0518 cards
Oceania
The archive
Kept by hand, offered by post.
Poste Restante began with a single card mailed to a name at a general delivery counter in Marseille, 1958. Its recipient never came. It was kept.
Six decades later, the collection numbers three hundred and forty-two — pressed carefully into linen boxes, each with its date, its sender, its silent journey.
This site is a slow window onto that archive. New cards are added on the first Sunday of each month.
342
Cards archived
68
Countries
1958
First arrival
Card of the month · July
A yellow tram, climbing.
Postmarked Lisbon, October 1974. The sender, one M. Alves, writes in a slanted, unhurried hand. The card travelled twelve days by sea and one by train before it came to rest here.
“The 28 climbing the hill, all yellow warmth against cream stone. I bought bread, I sat, I did nothing at all — and it was everything.”
Lisbon
Origin
Oct ’74
Postmark
13 days
In transit
Six decades, slowly
A quiet chronology.
Moments the archive keeps returning to — the beginnings, the arrivals, the years the boxes grew heaviest.
Chapter 01 · 1958
A card, unclaimed.
The first postcard — a view of the Vieux-Port — arrives at Marseille’s general delivery. Its recipient never comes. It is kept in a linen box.
Chapter 02 · 1969
Fifty cards.
The collection outgrows its first box. A second is lined with tissue paper and set beside the window.
Chapter 03 · 1984
The Kyoto letters.
A bundle of thirty-one postcards from a single sender in Japan arrives, tied with a length of grey silk ribbon.
Chapter 04 · 2003
Ledger begun.
Every card is transcribed by hand into a leather ledger. The work takes two winters.
Chapter 05 · 2024
342 and counting.
The archive opens a slow window online. New cards continue to be added on the first Sunday of each month.
Voices from the ledger
What the cards say when read aloud.
“There is a light here I have never known. I keep meaning to write more, and then the sea is loud again.”
“Tell mother the oranges are as she remembers. Tell father nothing; he will only worry.”
“The train is late, the coffee is bitter, the mountains are exactly the correct shape. All is well.”
Notes to a sender
Before you write.
A few gentle answers to the questions we most often receive at the delivery counter.
- Where should I post my card?
- To Poste Restante, 12 Rue de la Loge, 13002 Marseille. Any stamp will do, provided the address is legible.
- Do you return the original?
- No. Each accepted card is pressed into linen and kept in the archive. We send a printed acknowledgement in return.
- How are cards chosen?
- Quietly. We look for a certain honesty of handwriting, and a small, true thing said well.
- May I visit the archive?
- By letter of introduction only. The linen boxes prefer dim rooms and few voices.
Correspondence
Have a card that ought to be kept?
Send it, and its story, to the archive. Every letter is read; the best find their place in the collection.