Merry Christmas 2013
Have a wonderful Christmas, (or whatever else you celebrate). I hope 2014 brings you whatever you most hope for.
La Palma
The Christmas Road Train
If you were shopping in Santa Cruz last week, you might have seen a road train full of infants, grinning and waving, and shouting out “¡Feliz Navidad!” The road train belongs to the local bus company. It’s available for hire all year, but it seems to be pretty solidly booked in the last week of school term. The school where I used to work had a regular routine. We put…
Nativity Scenes
Christmas trees are a newish thing here, although probably most houses have one now. The main traditional decoration is nativity scenes. Some just show the stable, but some public ones are so elaborate that they include the whole village, and it’s always a Canarian village. Obviously that’s historically inaccurate, but no more so than all the English nativity scenes where Mary and Jesus are blond. This one was on display…
The Famous Balconies
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…
Where’s the village gone?
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…
Puntagorda Market
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’…