Portugal

What country has the newest, smoothest roads and the cleanest, most futuristic subway in Europe?

I think it is PORTUGAL.

Portugal is blue, green, and white. You might think of falling-apart whitewashed houses and fishermen and endless crashing waves; you might think of the colonial empire that didn't make out so well as its neighbors, the economic bastard child; but this is only a part of Portugal. And a passing part...

Portugal today is gorgeous tiny tiles and palm trees, but also renewable energy plants and gleaming toll roads; it is up-and-coming, Portugal.

A wikipedia cut-and-paste:

In 2006 the world's largest solar power plant began operating in the nation's sunny south while the world's first commercial wave power farm opened in October 2006 in the Norte region. As of 2006, 55% of electricity production was from coal and fuel power plants. The other 40% was produced by hydroelectrics and 5% by wind energy. The government is channeling $38,000,000,000 into developing renewable energy sources over the next five years.

Portugal wants renewable energy sources like solar, wind and wave power to account for nearly half of the electricity consumed in the country by 2010. "This new goal will place Portugal in the frontline of renewable energy and make it, along with Austria and Sweden, one of the three nations that most invest in this sector", Prime Minister José Sócrates said.

I felt like I learned something about Portugal
from this mosaic on a seemingly-abandoned building
though I could not tell you what, exactly--
it just seemed to contain some essential Portugese truth.