This took a while -- but we may have started the blog:

Our apologies for the delay. The attempts to start this blog on Wordpress were so frustrating. They even gave me several one-on-one sessions to help but we kept hitting roadblocks. Wordpress was neither intuitive or simple. Finally, after an hour or so with our daughter, we set this blog up on Wix.com and it seems much easier, as evidenced by the fact that you are actually reading this.

Over the next few weeks I will try to capture some of our time (and photos) of July in Cascais and our first two weeks in Madeira. But let me start with where we are: in Sao Martnho, a close suburb of Funchal, the main city of Madeira. Funchal has a population of about 110,000, while the whole of the island approaches 250,000. The island is ridiculously beautiful, with views of the water from everywhere except in the mountains.

Madeira is not typically a beach vacation, although there are plenty of swim areas -- most of them are concrete areas with access to the ocean. The main beach, Praia Formosa, is a stone and pebble beach with some black sand edges at low tide. We try to time our beach times with the low tide to get some sand to lie on, but have found that lying on warm rounded stones is not so bad. Susan likens it to a hot stone massage.

Stone beach

Lido Beach/Swim Area

The ocean water in Madeira is beautiful with a temperature of about 73 degrees in August. The

water in Cascais was 65 degrees, and no matter how beautiful the beaches, jumping in and out just to get cool was the most I could manage. Susan's swim record in Cascais was 12 minutes and we had to re-strart her heart when she came out of the water.

Susan's step-brother-in-law connected us with friends from Amsterdam who had come to Madeira four years ago and fell in love with the place - so they bought a farmhouse in Estreita de Calheta, up the coast to the west about 40 minutes from where we are staying. Frans and Maurice had smiles on their faces that would not go away. They love this island. They go back and forth between Amsterdam and the island, getting here whenever possible. They told us to go see more of the island so we spend two magical days in Porto Moniz, which is known for its "natural swimming pools" -- which is where the lava from ancient eruptions met the ocean and created formations that lend themselves to jumping in the water. We also hit Seixal, a few miles away, which is reputed to have the "3rd Most Beautiful Beach in Europe". It is gorgeous.

So here is the first of what will hopefully be a couple of blogs a week as we travel. Please forgive any typos, misplaced photos, etc. I am still learning...but this is a bit of progress. Love and enjoyment to all.

Seixal beach - one of the few natural black sand beaches on Madeira, surrounded by cliffs that

are green walls of beautiful vegetation.

Porto Moniz natural pools near sunset. Susan took this photo - nice work!