The Power and the Glory

On Friday our TV came and Gerrit got it mounted to the wall bracket.  We should have checked this before we put down our debit card, but the energy consumption of this model is the worst it gets on the TV rating chart: 70 kWh per 1000 hours of use.  "Dang," we thought, "and with electricity so expensive in Portugal!"  Then we wondered, how bad is it really?

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information out there, but an authoritative source says "the final price of electricity in Portugal for household consumers is in line with the EU-27 average".  It's not "the most expensive in Europe" as you sometimes see.  Portugal's energy from renewable resources is also impressive, quoted anywhere from 65% to 95%.

Electricity prices are fluctuating a lot in Europe right now, but something like €0.25 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for a year-around average is probably reasonable (we just got our June bill, at €0.17 / kWh).  At this rate, even if we watch 2 hrs of TV a day on our energy hog set the cost will be about €13 a year.  We're definitely saving that on wine alone, so it would be appropriate to watch TV with a glass of wine.

On Saturday we were tethered to the apartment waiting for an Amazon delivery (they won't deliver unless someone is here), but it arrived before noon so we decided to take a little outing after that.  We headed southeast into the rural area around Porto again, this time a little further north.  The weather cleared up nicely and it was a beautiful drive.  

Portugal is known for its tolerance.  Outside our home town of Gaia we saw a gay couple walking hand in hand, completely unselfconsciously.  It was so refreshing in its complete normalcy.

We stopped for a delightful rustic lunch at a local restaurant just outside the little town of Rio Mau (Bad River), on the Rio Mau itself.  The young waitress spoke English quite well, but we were also able to try out some Portuguese with her.  Gerrit asked her about the name of the river and town.  Before flood control the river would occasionally flood the countryside causing heavy devastation, thus the name.  Inside the restaurant they had painted a red horizontal line about 4 feet up from the floor and labeled it "1962" as a grim reminder of how high the water rose that year.  Cripes, our roast pork would have been underwater!

The restaurant was such a nice, unassuming place, family-run, and had been there for many years.  The people were friendly, relaxed, and curious about us.  They had a wall dedicated to the visit of "El Presidente" some ten years ago, of which they were very proud.  The waitress told us that El Presidente had enjoyed one of the lunches that we ordered.  We wish we had asked, "El Presidente of what?".  It sounds Spanish.  In Portuguese it would be "O Presidente".

The customers who were seated when we arrived were conversing in German, and as they left the man had a nice fluent conversation with the waitress in Portuguese.  Pretty impressive!  That's the way we want to be, comfortable in both languages.

The countryside we drove through was just beautiful: forests, farms, grassy open space with stone walls, and dramatic outcroppings.  (As usual, you can click on any photo to enlarge it, scroll through them all, and click in the black area outside a photo when you're done.)

The destination of our trip was Parque Eólico da Serra da Freita, a stunning and beautiful wind farm named after the Serra da Freita mountain peak nearby.  The wind farm is on a high, flat, exposed ridge.  The turbines were huge and majestic.  The area was beautiful and spare, many rocks shiny with mica, and a nice narrow paved road which led through the park.  On the other end was Refugio da Freita, which looked like a summer camp.  There were groups of youths there, a little market, and a campground.  A little further on we found a nice little picnic area with stone picnic tables and grills nestled in the trees.

Just beyond this we saw a traditional goatherd with his flock.  We tried to wave sweetly as we took his picture from the car, but he looked like he was thinking "malditos turistas!" (damn tourists!).

And we went grocery shopping on Sunday.  We thought we'd look for a bread with low carb and high fiber in the bakery there, and we selected a dense and chewy looking loaf.  Pat spied a DIY slicing machine, and after puzzling through the instructions a little we watched the spinning blade zip our bread into our chosen 12 mm slices in 30 seconds, like a sawmill chopping horizontally through a log.  Brilliant!  The bread was still warm, and as chewy and flavorful as it smelled.

Home