Living

in Chaves

There is great care taken to make the public gardens one of the most beautiful places in urban Chaves (photo by J.B. Cesar)

Portugal has become a destination for retirees in recent years.  Most go to the Algarve, in the south, with its warm winters, or to Madeira, the small island with the luscious vegetation and one of the best climates in the world.  

The north of Portugal is not usually a destination sought out by foreigners for retirement or for a new home.  There are though some islands of attraction such as the area near the mouth of the Minho River (Caminha and Valença do Minho) or the city of Porto.  In the north of the country foreigners, unless they are Brazilians, Eastern Europeans, or Chinese who come out of economic necessity, are rarely encountered.  Perhaps it is the climate with the cold winters and the hot summers, or maybe the absence of other groups of foreigners speaking the same language (English, German, and Dutch) .  

Living conditions are not high when compared to the majority of EU countries, but when compared to what they were twenty years ago a near miracle has occurred.  A region that had almost no doctors, no dentists, precarious communications, few telephones, almost no sewage system, and an inadequate educational system that mainly educated a small minority, has seen almost unbelievable change over the last two decades.   

In Chaves, for example, there are very attractive homes, usually on tree-lined streets.  One has only to drive to neighboring Verín, in Galicia, to see how drab urban life can be.  Chaves is much more colorful, with a variety of construction.  But the good has come with the bad.  In the last ten years there has been a surge of apartment construction, but little attention has been paid to gardens around these buildings and some of them take on a dilapidated look with time.  There is also the custom of building stores on the ground floors in order to get more profit from what might just be empty space, but often these stores are not sold and remain empty for long periods of time.

 

House in Chaves

In Chaves there are sidewalks on most streets and large areas for walking or jogging.  The town especially has a substantial green area for recreation near the river, which includes four tennis courts.  Other sports facilities are poor though.  There are almost no basketball courts—probably because it is not a popular sport—and the swimming pool is small and inadequate.  There is also no outdoor swimming pool so many people go to Spain to go swimming in the summer.  No one in town has thought to build a bicycle lane near the river or a path for joggers.  Perhaps in the future these might be built. 

A view of the Tâmega and the park on the eastern bank.  (Photo by Martinho)

In towns like Chaves and Vila Real there are large supermarkets and availability of almost all goods and services.  A large shopping center is being constructed in Vila Real with multi-cinemas.  There are high-quality restaurants, but there is obviously a shortage of international cuisine due to the lack of foreigners in the region and contact with foreign cultures.  So far the only international restaurants are Chinese, Italian, and American fast food.

In conclusion, we can say that the quality of life in a small town in the district is reasonably high.  There is no air pollution, and water pollution is being dealt with.  The crime rate is very low.  Although there is not the same excitement of the big urban center, or a variety of ways to spend your leisure time, there are also not the inconveniences of traffic jams, pollution, high crime rate, and accompanying stress.

Road Communications

These have improved dramatically over the last two decades.  Every small village, no matter how isolated is now connected with the outside world by a tarmac road.  Even though the area has seen the loss of the railroad the highways have got better and now it takes only an hour and a half to drive from the north end of the district at Vila Verde da Raia to Peso da Régua on the Douro.

The new bridge crossing the Vila Pouca valley on the A24 highway

Porto is now less than an hour away from Vila Real and about two hours from Chaves.  Lisbon is five hours from Chaves while Madrid is also five.  With the excellent highway on the Spanish side it is now possible for people in Chaves to be in Orense in fifty minutes to visit a hypermarket with lower prices than in their town.    

Telephones and Electricity

The telephone, which once was a luxury, has now become something common.  Ten years ago installation in the large towns took one to two months.  Now in Chaves in three to five days a telephone is installed.  Many people of course have mobile phones, even cleaning ladies or construction workers.  Service is excellent.

Electricity has now reached even the most backward hamlet.  Connection is  quick and efficient and there is a team of troubleshooters to solve any emergency at no cost.  In the larger towns many apartment blocks are now equipped with piped in gas for heating and cooking.  Many families still use bottled gas; electric cookers are rare, probably because gas is so much faster.   In large towns all houses are connected to sewage systems.  Chaves has already finished an ETAR (Unit of Treatment of Urban Residues) and the sewage no longer flows directly into the Tâmega.  Vila Real is adding the finishing touches to a massive sewage-treatment system that will finally make the Corgo River clean again.  

  
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