Thurn and Taxis (T and T) is name after a European family credited with creating the model for the international postal service.
In T and T each player is trying to replicate their deeds in Europe.
The board depicts cities in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland and it is in these cities that the players must build postal houses.
On a player's turn they must draw a card (from one of the six face-up cards or the draw deck) and then add a card to their current route.

Each card represents one of the cities on the board.
Once a route reaches three cards or longer, a player can choose to end their turn by claiming the route.
Claiming a route allows a player to place their postal houses onto the board, but there is a catch.
The board is divided into seven different regions.
A player can only place a postal house in every city within a single region or in one city per region that their route traveled through.
These decisions are crucial as each region holds a number of bonus point tokens, which are awarded for having a postal house in each city in a given region.

So the players are always trying to find the fastest way to secure an entire region.
To give the players even more to think about, bonus points are also awarded for having at least one postal house in each region and for completing routes that are five, six or seven cities in length.
It is also possible to take advantage of special roles during a turn.
These roles allow a player to draw two cards, play two cards, draw six new face up cards or acquire a carriage for a lesser cost.
Carriages are earned for completing routes of given lengths and award further victory points.

The game ends when one player places their last postal house or a player earns their fourth carriage.
All in all, T and T is a game that is simple to learn (one play is usually all it takes) but still offers its players a wealth of options.
In addition, T and T includes some of the most visually appealing artwork I have seen in a game.
The board is vibrant and each city even has an accurate drawing of an historical building from that city.
The game play, combined with these little touches, helped T and T win the Family Game of the Year (Spiel des Jahres) in July.
It is a worthy winner, highly recommended.