Old fashioned thermal container

The cork oak (Quercus suber), native to southern Europe and most common tree found in Alentejo (the southern part of Portugal just north of the Algarve), is used since ancient times not only to produce corks for the local wine but to create several other objects.
This is a "tarro", it is basically a traditional food recipient that would allow taking hot food to workers in the cereal fields.
The craftsmanship is extremely simple: cut a section of the tree trunk, hollow it from the wood except in the bottom and voilá thermal insulation used even before the Romans invaded the Peninsula some say.

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Évora's Roman Temple. Or a detail of it, to be accurate.

Évora's Bones Chapel

A few pics of the Bones Chapel. One of Évora's ex libris.
Click on the picture to see details and to locate the place on a map.
Évora is one of UNESCO's World Heritage sites in Portugal.


And no, I do not get any kind of grant from the tourist board for trying to lure you all into visiting our country...

Portuguese delicacy

Delicious I tell you!
Although when you have foreign guests this can turn into something of a cultural clash... most people who have never had a snails snack seem to be grossed out by the idea of eating a snail.
But the choice of snacks available in most places is bountiful enough to please almost all tastes.

Lifetime experiences II

This weekend I've redeemed a voucher GH had given me as a present on our last anniversary.
See that little plane like thingy on the photo?
That's a glider and yours truly was on it!
She offered me a sail flight!

I'd flown on several planes and helicopters before, I'd done sky diving, but I always wanted to try a sail flight and never got to do it.
An experienced pilot got us up, made several acrobatic maneuvers (never thought I would ever do two loopings in a row without an engine, that thing really was amazing) and even let me fly the glider for a while.

Featured photo

This one was taken in Aveiro, a city sometimes called the Portuguese Venice.
Although at the time of this visit there was a book fair in town plus several other cultural events I must confess the reason for our visit was mostly gastronomical... you see there are this traditional sweets made of egg yolk and sugar that we just love and whenever we drive nearby we simply have to make a little detour.

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Lifetime experiences

GH's birthday present was really a present for the two of us.
We went swimming with dolphins.
For those who think it is bad luck to give or receive birthday presents before the actual b-day... oh well, guess superstition doesn't bother us and with our schedules and lack of free time we just had to make do with whatever chance we had.

PS: Today is the second anniversary of this blog. With the change of address I almost forgot it!

Where it all started

This is the castle of Guimarães. Traditionally the place where Portugal was born. The statue depicts Dom Afonso Henriques, or Afonso I of Portugal, son of Henry of Burgundy Count of Portugal. In 1120, eight years after his father's death he rebelled against his own mother and the king of Castile (tradition has it he beat up his mother and had her put in chains) and proclaimed the independence of Portugal.Of course the king of Castile didn't quite like the idea, war broke out. Things were hard, battles were won, others lost but finally in 1143 in the city of Zamora, Spain, a peace treaty was signed and Portugal was officially recognized as an independent kingdom.
Some say it is no wonder most of us have a bit of a bad temper, a nation that started with a son beating his own mom.

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A town full of temples

This is where the wedding was, it's Basilica do Sameiro, one of many churches you can find in and around Braga.









We stayed in a hotel near yet another sanctuary Bom Jesus do Monte.











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Tired, very tired actually...

An American friend arrived Saturday morning, we picked her up at Lisbon airport, raced to Braga (city in the northernmost area of Portugal) to attend the wedding of a friend of ours, made a slalom through several places in Portugal on Sunday as we headed back home and finally, today, we headed south to the Algarve (southernmost part of Portugal) so I could give GH her birthday present (given in advance...her b-day is only on the 15th).
And we drove back home again...
Too tired to make a decent post, but not tired enough not to share with you the laugh I had at our American friend's lipstick (click on the pic to enlarge it).

A little garden by the sea

That's what our people call this plot of land that is our country: um pequeno jardim à beira mar plantado.
A peaceful little place, where people are mostly gentle.
It seems we are the ninth most peaceful country in the world...

(if you want check how peaceful your country is)


This would sound a lot better if it weren't for the fact that violent crime is rising here too. If it weren't for the fact that although I'm not that old I still remember when people felt a lot safer than they do today.
Still this is a rather nice place to live in.
True we don't have color coded alerts to tell people how scared they must feel, but then again people usually don't feel frightened around these parts.

The feeling however gets a lot worst when I stop looking at my own belly button and start looking around, looking at the war thorned countries, at the countries where law and order are but a dream, where the only law is the word of those who hold the guns.

And even in countries that may seem mostly peaceful from the table, when I think of Ghana ranking 40th, my mind wonders to the slave children there...
Call me naïve if you want to, but I really believe it would be possible to build a better world where this ranking would make no sense, where all people could feel safe and where all children could play and go to school.

How's that for non-pollutant?

A former Formula 1 engineer, Guy Négre, has signed a deal with an Indian company (Tatra Motors) to produce an air-driven vehicle.
This car works on compressed air, thus having zero emissions.

A completely non-pollutant vehicle.

Or is it? Its air tank must be filled with an air compressor, either the in-built electric compressor or an industrial compressor.
So although the car by itself is environmentally friendly, charging it means you'll have to use electricity.
Now, you can have a windmill generating the electricity, or a solar panel, that way you won't be using fossil fuels to generate the electricity for the compressor, but then you'll have to spend energy to build the windmill or the photovoltaic cells...
Don't get me wrong, I DO think this car is great and I do think we must try and find environmentally friendly solutions. But the main issue remains in electricity. Most of the processes in our so called civilized world require energy, at some point or another. Nuclear power is dangerous and generates pollution. Fossil fuels aren't going to last forever and you all heard about the problems associated with them.
As for all the other sources of energy... they are not efficient enough to satisfy our needs for energy.
Without wanting to seem pessimistic, but assuming it will take a long time to solve our energy problems, maybe we all should really focus on the other side of the equation and instead try to reduce our need for energy. Walk instead of driving, use public transportation, turn off the lights when you don't need them, unplug all the useless electrical gizmos around the house. Electrical can opener? What for?
Off course this idea can also mean don't spend so much time on the internet, turn off the computer...

In the meanwhile, a big HURRAY!!! for Guy Négre for is contribution!