Portugal

After a scorching summer, the freshness of autumn brings us pleasant and more moderate temperatures. It’s time to put away your short clothes, pull one or two jackets out of the drawers and rediscover some recipes for warming, comforting dishes. Chef Tiago Lopes’s vegetarian suggestions include autumnal colours and intensity, in a perfect combination of flavours for an early evening …

There it is in front of the door, and it looks like a completely normal car. Could even be a BMW. You don’t feel the difference until you’re sitting in it. On the dashboard, I find a 17” touch screen. It’s the car’s nerve centre. Roberto explains how it works. The computer (or the NSA) controls the navigation system, the …

Shaded by trees, the river Mira meanders lazily from Odemira to Vila Nova de Milfontes. For people wanting to spend their autumn holidays here with children and canoes, www.ecotrails.info offer a weekend tour in a leisurely paddling area. As the tide goes out, you paddle towards the mouth of the river, and you paddle back as the tide comes in. …

To tell the story of SolarImpulse – the first solar aero plane project – we have to begin seven years ago in Switzerland. Here the idea was born. This summer the initiators and pilots André Borschberg and Bernard Piccard flew with it across the USA covering more than 5.600 km despite being confronted with heavy weather challenges. SolarImpulse, the first …

Every day, thousands of cosmetic products are consumed, the majority of which contain some kind of chemical agent which tends to affect one’s health. It was with this concern it mind that the sisters Rita and Cátia Curica founded Organii, the first Portuguese company dedicated to organic cosmetics with personalised solutions for each skin. Products are cultivated without any use …

From people to people In the 1960s, New York had Andy Warhol’s Factory, of which John Cale said “every day something new”. This description applies perfectly to the LX Factory in Lisbon, which is similar in every way to a living organism. In the 43,000m² of this “Creative Island”, there are more than 200 companies where some 1,500 people work. …

Twenty steps lead up to the second floor of the sandstone stronghold that stands behind metre-thick walls. That’s where the five guest cells of the Catalonian Cistercian monastery Poblet are to be found. Brother Paco, aged 79, alias Francisco Martínez Soria, hands me the key. He shows me the bathroom, broom cupboard and the wall-walk around the monastery. He’s a …

Cardinal Peter Turkson grew up in simple circumstances in Ghana. Today he is one of the most influential men in the Vatican. In an interview with ECO123 he calls on Europe’s crisis states to reduce their demands. Pope Francis criticises an “invisible tyranny of the markets” and speaks of a “new dance around the golden calf”. Isn’t that a bit …

ECO123 spoke to the inventor of a completely new method of producing recycled paper, the biologist Dr. Philipp Althöfer (47). He studied natural sciences at the universities of Düsseldorf, Bonn and Cologne. The topic for his diploma thesis was: Biotechnical treatment of process-water using the example of a paper factory processing scrap paper in a large city. And his 2001 …

Many companies come into being to fill a need in the market, but there are others that emerge, quite literally, as a matter of health. This is what happened with Próvida, which started as a way of curing anaemia through nutrition. Founded in 1984 by Alcino and Cesaltina Sousa, this company produces and sells natural foodstuffs, and its philosophy is …