These are the famous sea-front balconies in Santa Cruz de la Palma. Actually these are the backs of the houses: the fronts look onto the Calle Real. When I first came to the island in 1990, the woodwork was all green and the plaster all white. For the town’s 500th anniversay, in 1993, the whole lot disappeared behind acres of black plastic sheeting for weeks while they were repainted…
Tourists sometimes go nuts trying to find the village of Breña Baja, or Fuencaliente. There’s a really simple reason why they can’t find them. They don’t exist. Breña Baja and Fuencaliente are municipalities, and their town halls are in the villages of San Jose and Los Canarios, respectively. It like driving all over the south east of England, looking for the town of Sussex. The map shows the 14 municipalities…
This weekend, Puntagorda market has a special attraction. Astrotour will be offering free astronomical observations of the sun, together with workshops and games for children. And on Sunday morning, there’s a workshop on solar energy. There will also be nighttime astronomical observations on the Avenida Almendos near Cafe Itaca. Puntagorda is a village and municipality in the north west of the island. Every Saturday and Sunday, they have a farmers’…
There’s a rather nice viewpoint in Puntagorda, on the main road at km 78. Its most obvious attraction is the dragon tree, leaning much further over than the tower at Pisa. > But when I was last there, I was charmed by a tame red-billed chough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax barbarus. They’re relatives of rooks and crows, but this particular sub-species only lives on La Palma where they’re called grajas. They’re something…
Wednesday was the Fiesta del Carmen, which is celebrated in Santa Cruz and Puerto Tazacorte. They have a special mass, and then they take the statue of the Virgin of Carmen out for a procession. So far, so much like most fiestas on the island. Only in this case, they take the statue of the virgin out on a boat parade, to bless the fishermen.These photos are fromPuerto Tazacorte. The…
This is one photo I didn’t take myself – I wish! As you probably guessed, it’s a NASA photo, taken from the Space Shuttle in 2008. If you want to see the high-resolution version, together with some text about the geology of La Palma, and how the image was taken, click here.