La Palma

The Spring Equinox

Comet Pan-STARRS Credit: Science@NASA
March 19, 2013
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  The astronomical viewpoint at Fuencaliente has three (modern) standing stones, where the shadow of the setting sun points to another stone at (respectively) the summer solstice, both equinoxes, and the winter solstice. Tomorrow night (Wednesday) there will be a free activity run by Cielos La Palma at the viewpoint, starting at 6:30 pm to watch the sunset, followed by astronomical observations including another chance to see comet PanSTARRS through…

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Tazacorte Church

The outside of the church of St Michael the Archangel, Tazacorte On Thursday I was in Tazacorte, so I popped into the church. I’m not religious, but most of the churches on La Palma are beautiful, and worth at least a quick look. Even if the building itself isn’t special, there’s often a beautiful renaissance statue. In this case, I’d recently translated a text that said the church “was built…

March 17, 2013
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The Banana Museum, Tazacorte

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…

March 10, 2013
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La Palma Newsletter

La Palma’s tourist board have started a newsletter about the island. You can read the first issue here. And you can sign up for future issues a: http://www.visitlapalma.es/contenido/newsletter

February 3, 2013
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The Salt of the Earth

Well actually, it’s the salt of the sea. Almost all salt on La Palma is sea salt, made at the southernmost tip of the island. You can visit the salt pans by taking a number 203 bus from the centre of Los Canarios to the lighthouse (Faro in Spanish). There’s a bus every two hours for most of the day. It’s a simple process. The salt water is pumped into…

January 18, 2013
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Blessing the Animals

Friday is the fiesta of San Antonio Abad (St. Anthony the Abbot) in Fuencaliente, and at midday the priest holds a special, traditional service to bless the animals in the church square. I was curious, so a few years ago, I went. I didn’t know whether to expect pets or farm animals, but there were both. At twelve promptly, the priest came out, gave a short sermon on looking after…

January 14, 2013
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