Finding Jesus in Madeira...

A taxi picked us up bright and early on July 21 to catch our 6 a.m. flight to Madeira. While I had previously thought Madeira was simply a type of wine, more importantly it’s an autonomous region of Portugal located in the north Atlantic 620 miles southwest of Portugal. After seeing photos from a friend’s vacation, we decided it would be the perfect place to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary, Veronica’s 21st and Ashlynn’s 18th and high school graduation.

Since we couldn’t check into our apartment until the afternoon, we had several hours to kill. Jimmy asked the rental car agent if she had any suggestions of places where it would be easy for us to park and she suggested that we head to Garajau to see Christo Rei (Christ the King), a 49-foot statue built in 1927. Although we aren’t usually drawn to religious statues, we figured it was as good as any place to start exploring the island.

The views were lovely...

 

...and we had our first glimpse of the capital city of Funchal. 

At the bottom of the trail was a giant boulder which Ashlynn just couldn’t resist climbing.

Veronica hung out with me and took photos while Jimmy eventually joined Ashlynn.