#Corfu Beer Brewery | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theblondegoesabroad · 5 years

Text

My European Bucket List - draft 1

If anyone is curious - here is the start of my bucket list for a few countries that I am lusting over at the moment. It shall definitely be added to! Let me know if you have any other ideas!

Belgium

1. Go to visit the Musée de la pierre in Sprimont

2. See the famous Atomium in Brussels

3. Laugh at the Manneken Pis in Brussels

4. Walk the comic strip Route in Brussels

5. Enjoy the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken (near brussels)

6. Explore the fairytale castle of Gravensteen in Ghent

7. Roam around the historic center of Bruges

8. Go climbing/bouldering with Benoit

9. Taste the authentic Belgium waffles

10. Taste the delicious Belgium Chocolate

11. Taste Paul’s pizzas

12. Drink a beer at one of the oldest monk brewed breweries in Europe – Val Dieu. (Possibly try all the Val Dieu beers at Val Dieu)

13. Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai

14. Eat a salade de chreve chaud

15. Check out the Reading Between the Lines artwork in Borgloon

16. Walk around the carpet of bluebells at the Blue Forest – The Hallerbos

17. Relax in a hammock at Stavelot

18. Visit the beautiful chateau de l'amblève

19. Be confident biking everywhere

20. Make shampoo with the famous Karine

21. Take a photo of the diver diving into the liege river

France

22. Go bouldering at Fontainebleau (or watch bouldering at Fontainebleau)

23. Revisit my host families

24. Have a beer (probably a despesrados) at the edge of the world in Angers

25. Wander around Carcassonne Medieval City

26. Eat fondue in a fancy French restaurant preferable near the alps

27. Get a sunrise photo over the lavender fields in Provance

28. Have an espresso and croissant on the cobble stone streets of Paris

29. Ski in the French alps

30. Check out Notre Dame – Paris

31. Get lost in the Louvre Paris

32. Visit the Palace of Versailles and its gardens

33. Explore the banks of the river Seine Paris

34. Take a photo of the arc de Triomphe

35. Climb the Eiffel tower

36. See Sacré-Cœur Basilica, Paris and explore the painters quarter beside it

37. Get some photos of rue crémieux in Paris

38. Visit Mont Saint-Michel

39. Explore the Loire Valley

40. Explore the colorful streets of Menton

41. Visit the village of Rocamadour and the monkey forest

42. See the Viaduc de Millau

43. Ponder the construction of the Pont du Gard

Italy

44. Take a gondola ride through the canals of Venice

45. Get hit on by an old Italian man

46. See the biggest cathedral in the world in Milan

47. Visit the colosseum in Rome

48. Throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain in Rome (and hopefully then return to Rome)

49. Look through the Aventine Keyhole in Rome

50. Go to Naples – eat pizza

51. Go visit the tower of Pisa and eat pizza

52. Eat a Gelato shaped like a flower

53. Take a selfie with the Duomo in Milan

54. See Juliet’s house in Verona

55. Visit Portonovo beach

56. Explore the old town of Siena and get pasta

57. Marvel at Siena’s cathedral

58. Have a spritz anywhere in north-eastern Italy

Scotland

59. Wander around Edinburgh’s old town

60. Visit the Edinburgh Castle

61. Have some fun at Camera Obscura and World of Illusions in Edinburgh

62. Search for Nessie at the Loch Ness lake

63. Explore the Isle of Skye

64. Visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

65. Take a selfie with a fuzzy highland cow

66. Discover Fingal’s Cave at the Isle of Staffa

67. Take a train photo of the Glenfinnan Viaduct aka the Harry Potter bridge

68. Drink a single malt at a distillery

69. Dance in the rain and enjoy it

70. Stare out over the cliffs of Scotland and dream of Uthred

Spain

71. Eat tapas in Spain

72. Visit the sagrada Familia

73. Get lost in the bustling la rambla in Barcelona

74. Check out the incredible mosaic work in Barcelona

75. Visit the Dali Museum

76. Enjoy the architecture of the gothic quarter in Barcelona

77. Have a sangria on the beach in Valenica

78. Have as much sangria as possible

79. Visit a local restaurant and ask the chef to make you his favourite

80. Enjoy a paella on the beach in Valenica

81. Listen to music played by local musicians on Sunday at the Retiro Park in Madrid

82. Check out the biggest flea market – El Rastro – on Sunday in Madrid

83. Enjoy the pink waters of the Torrevieja lake

Greece

84. Marvel the Acropolis of Athens

85. Admire Hephaestus Temple in Athens

86. Discover Ancient Corinth

87. Marvel at the Epidaurus Theater

88. Relax on the pink sands of Elafonissi Beach, Crete

89. Wander around Knossos – the palace on king Minos in Crete

90. Take a beautiful photo of the Venetian Harbor in Chania, Crete

91. Relax at one of the hidden jewels of Crete – Skinaria Beach

92. Climb Mount Olympus

93. Enjoy the Sunset in Santorini

94. Photograph the classic white and blue of santorini

95. See the ruins of Delphi

96. Walk around the beautiful Folegandros island

97. Explore Mykonos Island

98. Get lost in the old town of Corfu

99. Drink a cocktail on the beach listening to Mama Mia

100. Take a boat ride out to one of the islands

Experiences

101. Skydive (in Queenstown)

102. Dive a shipwreck

103. Swim with turtles

104. Touch an elephant (in a place where they are not tortured)

105. Fly a plane

To Be Continued!

1 note · View note

scienceblogtumbler · 4 years

Text

How to go carbon neutral: Lessons from a Danish island

When fish stocks crashed in the Baltic in the late 1990s, the islanders of Bornholm, Denmark, realised they had to reinvent themselves. Their rocky outcrop, some 200km east of Copenhagen, had been in decline for years. Its 40,000-plus inhabitants needed a new path, and they chose to pursue sustainability.

Now they are more prosperous – but they have also propelled themselves into the vanguard of Green. Industries, researchers and governments flock to fund or study what they’ve done. And on 28 April the island was awarded first place in a new prize for its development of renewable energy.

Over the last two decades the islanders have erected more than 35 large wind turbines, as well as assorted household ones, and energy plants that burn straw, wood pellets and waste. They have installed smart meters that orchestrate their heating systems. Even fridges have been recruited to help balance the electrical supply.

‘Bornholm was in a kind of a crisis; we needed to find new ways to make jobs, to work to be self-sufficient, to make more worth and value and to make the value stay on the island,’ said Winni Grosbøll, who has since 2010 been mayor of the Danish municipality, which at 588 km2 is about the size of Corfu.

At the end of last century, the islanders obtained all their energy from a sub-sea cable from Sweden and from imported oil.

But over the years that has changed. Now, the cable supplies only a third of electricity, while wind supplies 40%, steam from a woodchip-burning plant 20%, a biogas plant 4% and solar photovoltaic 3%. In addition, 80% of households are heated with a water system fuelled by the burning of straw, biogas, woodchips and waste.

Achilles’ heel

One flagship project tackled the Achilles’ heel of renewable energy generation – how do you balance the electricity in the grid when there are bountiful quantities on breezy, sunny days but less when it’s dark or the wind drops? Smoothing out demand is one of the answers.

Some 2,800 households and businesses volunteered to take part in a couple of projects known as EcoGrid.EU and EcoGrid 2.0, in which their household electricity could respond, via installed controllers, to fluctuations in the Nordic electricity price, time of day, weather and the anomalies of each household.

For example, a householder could programme the system to permit a maximum drop in temperature, if power was expensive or needed elsewhere. Businesses allowed idling fridges to be directed to switch off if necessary, also to stabilise supply.

As a result, amongst the participating households there was a 30% drop in winter energy demand.

In another project, a small fleet of electrical vehicles delivers electricity from its batteries back to the system as necessary when not in use.

For Daniel Barslund, co-owner of local brewery Svaneke Bryghus, greening has been expensive at times but he felt it was necessary.

‘It’s very important to learn from the best but do it in your own way.’

Winni Grosbøll, Mayor, Bornholm, Denmark

The brewery produces up to two million litres of organic craft beer annually, a third of which is consumed on the island, mostly by its many tourists.

He took part in EcoGrid and found his forklift truck being charged at night, when energy was cheaper and more plentiful. He has harnessed the heat from the beer production to drive a cooling system; and he has switched from oil to biogas. By the end of the year he hopes to be capturing the carbon dioxide that is a by-product of the brewing process for reuse and sale, for example to carbonate drinks or for flushing out tapping lines in bars.

He says that, despite the expense, the changes were in line with the island’s strategy, and he has benefited from its green reputation.

‘We made a lot of investment early on but it’s paying off now,’ he said. ‘We think this is a really important selling point … it’s easier to get new clients when you have the sustainable story as well.’

Essential requirements

For the green dream to work, there are some essential requirements, says Grosbøll.

‘First of all, we need to make the green way the easy way. If you want people to have an electric car you need to make it easy to drive one.’

The green way must also be ‘the cheap way,’ she said. ‘This is not a rich island, this is one of the poorest parts of Denmark … if you ask (inhabitants) what is most important they say: “I choose the solutions which are cheap.”’

Education is another vital element, she added.

For islander Helle Munk Ravnborg, the most important thing is that the desire for sustainability emanates from the islanders themselves.

Ravnborg works in Copenhagen, where she commutes weekly, and has had a house on Bornholm for 11 years.

‘As an island we have been very successful at doing a lot of the things that can be done centrally … but now we have to face all the decisions that require individual citizens and companies making decisions,’ she said, such as choosing climate-friendly vehicles or food products.

Tested

Grosbøll’s principles will be tested in the future.

She hopes the island will move away from producing energy from biomass, because of its doubtful contribution to cutting carbon emissions. Yet it’s quick, lucrative, stable and entirely local, so such a shift may be unpopular.

And there may be resistance to moving away from the waste incinerator: Bornholm plans to become waste free by 2032.

‘It’s easier to burn it and make (heat) from waste than it is to sort it and reuse all the fractions,’ Grosbøll said.

Another difficulty is that islanders – in common with other Danes – have objected to the construction of further onshore wind turbines. Since the island wants to be carbon neutral by 2025, Bornholm is looking at offshore turbines, which might ultimately create enough electricity to drive the production of hydrogen that could power Bornholm’s ferries.

Ravnborg, who chairs a citizen group seeking to establish such a facility, looks forward to that day, when her weekly trip across the Baltic will be greener.

‘There are many who are not very happy with a ferry that is very CO2-polluting,’ she said.

Meanwhile, Grosbøll has advice for communities seeking to replicate their success. ‘The most important lesson is that they should do it in their own way because no society is like any other.

‘It’s very important to learn from the best but do it in your own way.’

RESponsible Island Prize

On 28 April 2020, Bornholm was awarded first place and €500,000 in the EU’s prize for renewable energy islands, which was launched in 2019 to reward achievements in local renewable energy production for electricity, heating, cooling and transport on islands.

Bornholm was commended for the high share of renewable energy they’ve achieved, the clear socioeconomic and environmental impact of this, and for involving ordinary people and communities in the transformation.

The island of Samsø, Denmark, was awarded the €250,000 second prize and the Orkney islands in Scotland received the €100,000 third prize.

The idea behind the award is to show how small local communities can make the transition to sustainable energy systems and to inspire others to do the same.

source https://horizon.scienceblog.com/1264/how-to-go-carbon-neutral-lessons-from-a-danish-island/

0 notes