Cristo Rei

There's a giant Jesus statue called Cristo Rei across the Rio Tejo and Aaron's desire has been to go to the top for the big view. Since we missed it last time we were in Portugal, we hopped into a taxi with our non-English speaking (this is true for most of our cab drivers), female (the first, and only one we have seen) taxi driver. Now, our Portuguese is not so bad when we are speaking to somebody who speaks English, but when we are speaking with someone who doesn't speak English, we are pretty hopeless. Somehow we conveyed to her where we wanted to go but we couldn't understand any questions that she asked us and she couldn't understand us. As she weaved through the narrow streets, dodging violently back and forth to avoid potholes, she mumbled irritable Portuguese insults towards the whiplashed occupants of her taxi. That would be us. Luckily when we reached the giant Jesus statue there was another taxi cab driver there who helped us ask her to wait for us while we went up. The statue was inspired by a similar one in Rio de Janeiro and was completed in 1959. The construction was quite 'different' than what we had grown accustomed to. It was just a big conglomerate, concrete statue. The distinctly 1960's era chapel at the top had astonishingly bad art, and renewed our awe for old cathedrals. The view off the top, however, was first class and Aaron was delighted by the 360 degree panorama. 

Click aqui for photos.