The Island’s Museum is in the old convent of San Francisco. The building itself is lovely. It dates from the early 16th century; work started in 1508, just fifteen years after the Spanish conquest. (Forty years ago, it was the technical school, and my husband studied there. It certainly looks better than the concrete box I studied in.) The church is still a church, and the music school stands beside…
When I first heard there was a banana museum in Tazacorte, I laughed. But since about 40% of La Palma’s population works works in the banana industry (growing, packing shipping etc.) it makes sense. Besides, bananas are the 4th most important crop in the world, (after rice, wheat and maize), and this is the only museum about European bananas in the world. The museum contains lots of information panels in…
La Palma’s new airport terminal finally opened today, and so far it’s gone really well. All flights were on time, and the passenger flow was absolutely normal. The old terminal officially closed last night, although a few businesses are still moving out. The airport code is still SPC. Just make sure you don’t wind up in Palma de Majorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or Santa Cruz de Tenerife by…
A Blood red eclipse of the moon from Llano de la Venta viewpoint La Palma has beautiful dark skies, so I was hoping for a really good view of last night’s lunar eclipse. But looking at the low cloud along the horizon, I decided to drive up to the star party at Llano de la Venta, one of La Palma’s astronomical viewpoints. In practice, an astronomical vciewpoint means parking space,…
This photo was taken from the viewpoint at Los Andennes, where you get a spectacular view into the Caldera. From here you can see a dyke called La Pared de Roberto (Robert’s Wall). It’s about four metres high (13ft). [Volcanic dykes are formed when moulten lava fills a crack in the rock and solidifies slowly into very hard rock called basalt. Later on the softer, surrounding rock is eroded…
The castle on the hill above Santa Cruz (to the north) gets its name from the five-yearly festival where they bring the statue of the Virgin Mary down from Las Nieves into Santa Cruz. It’s not much used in between fiestas, but Wednesday 20th April is The World Night in Defence of Starlight, and Astrotour will be holding a Star Party there from 9 pm to 1 am. You’ll be…