Thursday is the feast of St John the Baptist. On La Palma, they have the very sensible custom of holding the party on the night before the public holiday, so that everyone can sleep late the morning after. Since fiestas often go on until the early hours, sleeping in next morning is delicious. In Catholic countries, people celebrate the feast of St John with bonfires. (Any similarity to pagan midsummer…
Mazo in La Palma is one of the best places to be at Corpus Christi. Of course, Catholics all over the world celebrate the fiesta, but in Mazo they make the most wonderful archways and carpets decorated with petals, leaves and seeds. Each village of the municipality makes an archway with a carpet and a little altar. During a normal Catholic mass, the host is put into a special vessel…
The people who lived on La Palma before the Spanish arrived in 1493 called the island Benahoare, and themselves Benahorita. (Or according to some people, Benawara and Benawaritas. They insist their spelling is correct. I find this odd, because to me the correct spelling would be the one the people themselves used, only they didn’t write.) The Benahorita probably arrived on La Palma somewhere between 1000 BC and 100 BC,…
Vegetables on La Palma tend to be good, as long as they’re grown on the island, because anything local is fresh. And because the island is so full of micro-climates, the variety of fruit and vegetables grown here is astonishing. I haven’t found gooseberries here yet, and rhubarb is scarce, but I’ve found just about everything else. But the organic veg is the best of all. I wanted to hold…
Belmaco cave, Mazo Before the Spanish invasion, Belmaco Cave was the home of the kings of Mazo. The first rock carvings were found in the 18th century, which was the start of archaeology in the Canary Islands. Today, it’s open to the public. The entrance where you pay (€1.50 for a resident adult) is also a handicraft shop. A little farther inside, there’s a small, two-story building housing various artefacts,…
The table cloth on the stairs La Palma has a long tradition of gorgeous embroidery. As I mentioned in my previous post, the embroidery museum is upstairs in the Red House, in Mazo. This gorgeous tablecloth in broderie anglaise is halfway up the stairs. Assisi embroidery, a form of cross stitch. About the only thing in the museum I could see myself making. Now I’m fairly good at cross stitch,…