Category Archives: travel

Yeah, it’s famous for the wine.  And, yes, it’s an autonomous region of Portugal.  But did you know that Madeira is also a very popular resort?  Or that the region of Madeira is actually comprised of several islands in an archipelago, an archipelago in which the largest island also goes by the name of Madeira?

This week is Madeira Week at RDougWicker.com, and I’ll be using my normal Monday, Wednesday, and Friday blog days to present to you some photographs I took of this little island wonder (mostly of Madeira’s capital city of Funchal, but other areas of the main island as well).  If you would like more information on Madeira, you can find it online at both this Wikipedia article and at this link to MadeiraIsland.com.  You can also access information on the capital city by clicking on this link to an article on Funchal.

So, sit back and prepare to enjoy a very colorful show starting today.  Look for the traditional thatched homes of Santana:

On Monday’s blog I posted a single, solitary photograph of one of the six monasteries situated atop the large sandstone pinnacles of what is known as Meteora.  Despite the short blog (or perhaps because of it—depends on whether or not you like my writing), that photograph generated a lot of interest.  One viewer, Victor Tribunsky, correctly guessed the location.  Victor authors his own travel blog, and I highly recommend that you drop by and give it a look because Victor’s photos are simply amazing.

Anyway, back to Meteora.  Meteora was one of the locations on Ursula’s Bucket List, so we hit it last year during our 54-day cruise aboard Holland America’s smallest ship, the MS Prinsendam (aka, The Elegant Explorer).  Fans of the OO7 movie franchise may also recognize Meteora from the film For Your Eyes Only (far from one of the best of the series, but probably the best of Roger Moore’s rather disastrous efforts at the role).  The specific locale depicted in that film was the Monastery of the Holy Trinity.

Meteora is a very important site within the Eastern Orthodox Church, which itself has a very fascinating history dating back to the St. Paul, but which really took hold when Constantine the Great became the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity.  Constantine was also the emperor who founded the Eastern (or Byzantine) Roman Empire, the final remnants of which disintegrated in 1453 when the Byzantine Empire fell victim to the Ottomans.  Isn’t history fascinating?

Anyway, enough with the words.  Here’s the pictures: