La Palma, Canary Islands

Just at dawn, we pulled into the port of Santa Cruz which is on La Palma, one of the seven Canary Islands.  We were up early since our tour for the day began at 8:15.

The first stop was the Santuario Virgen di Las Nieves.  This church was built in the 16th century.  One of the things that I found most fascinating about this church was it’s courtyard.  More specifically, the pavement of this courtyard.  Two designs in the pavement can be seen above.  Those are all sea rocks that make up the design.  They were all carried to the site of the church by parishioners and those making a pilgrimage to the church.  The flat round stones are set on their side and placed to create the designs.  They are quite smooth to walk on (unless you are wearing high heels).

Our next stop was the Caldera de Taburiente National Park.  Although it is called a caldera, in actuality, it is not.  The ravine resembles a caldera, but is punctuated by crests formed by erosion of volcanic materials.  It was a harrowing drive up and down in the big bus as the road is not one way, but is only one lane wide.  The tour guide suggested we write out our last will and testament as we took this journey.  :)

Depending on what side of the mountains you are on in La Palma determines the weather.  The national park is in the center of the island which has sunny blue skies.  When you head back east over the mountains to Santa Cruz and the coast, the skies become cloudy and the humidity increases.  You can see how the mountains are shrouded in clouds.

It was pretty cloudy as we returned to the ship.  The rectangular area on the left of the picture is the swimming beach.  The beaches have black sand because of the volcanic material.

 

This evening we attended the Ice Odyssey.  There is an ice skating rink on board, and tonight professional skaters put on a very good show.  I’ve never been that close to professional skaters before, and really enjoyed the performance.  We now have six days at sea before we reach Nassau, so we’ll be investigating the ship more.  Several people have asked about the food on the cruise, so I’ll have time to talk about that in the next six days.  :)

 

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy