Lovely Little La Palma - And Past Volcanic Peril
La Palma is the little island with active volcano videos. The environment offers all kinds of excitement, both for the active and for the anxious who prefer to watch from a distance.
My husband and I were joining our annual hiking holiday group. Our destination was La Palma, where you can go hiking and see recordings of the most recently active volcano, lasting 85 days in 2021. A great museum about volcanoes shows videos taken every day during the last months-long overflowing of red hot lava.
La Palma Hotels
The Parador
A remote inland hotel is a parador hotel, part of the popular parador network established by the government to promote regional culture, food and tourism. This parador has an outdoor pool open to residents in the daytime (closing one hour earlier off-season) and a beautiful botanical garden.
The hotel will give you a picnic lunch if you tell them you are leaving before breakfast for a ferry or hike.
La Palma Vinery Visits
Bodegas Teneguia, La Palma
A large co-operative, with a huge courtyard entrance, and enormous numbers of Big vats or wooden casks and small barrels. Friendly like a family business. You look down on the working area below. Despite its size, we found it friendly, like a family business. Nikolas gave our hiking group a great tour.
Malvasia Grape
Book and buy the package of the tour of the Teneguia vineyard and learn about Malvasia, which was the sweet wine exported to England in William Shakespeare's time and praised in his plays featuring King Henry IV, Falstaff and the lady of the night who gets drunk on the wine. (You can find online on Youtube a video of the Royal Shakespeare Company performing this in 1990.)
La Palma is a great outdoors place with challenging hikes in the strong Westerly winds. Our group hiked down to the lighthouse, but the wind was so strong trying to walk back up that my husband, Trevor, had to hitch a lift from a passing car, and could hardly hold the door open against the wind to get in the vehicles .
Museum
But for non hikers see that fantastic museum on the recent volcanic eruption. Afterwards we drove to the nearby village for a light lunch in a small cafe.
From London our most convenient and affordable international flights were from Stansted into Tenerife where we stayed before and afterwards, catching a ferry to and from little La Palma with the car we had hired on Tenerife.
Shopping Options on La Palma
Down on the front, near the replica of the big boat of Christopher Columbus, was the El 99 shop. A huge section of underwear and separates. At first it looked cheap stuff. But helpful staff found me the cotton options. I was pleased with my purchases.
Along the road behind the waterfront cafes were small shops, boutiques selling new clothes as well as a great selection of second hand individual items, attractive, fashionable, colourful and original. Such a pity that our space in luggage was limited, although we had paid extra to Ryanair for a checked in bag. I could have bought and gone home wearing multiple layers.
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TERRIFIC TENERIFE And Mount Teide
Tenerife is larger. It has two airports, north and south. We flew to the north airport from Stansted.
Tenerife - large island with Mount Teide, massive triangular mountain, more or less in the middle but you seem to see it from everywhere. A cable car takes you to the top if you are prepared to pay the price.
Tenerife Hotels
The Parador - Parador Las Canadas Del Tiede
The 3 star parador hotel is isolated at the base with a secured car park for overnight residents, because the public parks are notorious for the thefts of belongings in cars and even the parts of the car such as the tyres. Next door to the parador is a handy shop and cafeteria.
The indoor pool in a side building closes early, and you have to take your towel back to the hotel's reception. For security most of the outer doors are locked, so I ended carrying a heavy wet towel, plus my costume and bag, up and down stairs and around long corridors. A whole nuisance.
However, as Shakespeare said, all's well that ends well. The hotel helpfully gives you a picnic lunch if you tell them you are leaving before breakfast for a ferry or hike. I didn't want ham, or any processed meat, nor pork. The parador had offered fish. When I said I was allergic to shellfish, I was offered chicken, and smoked salmon. That was a lovely choice. I took one of each. Great service.
The Melia Hotel
The group has more than one Melia hotel on Tenerife. The one we stayed at was near the beach, on the seafront.
It has an outdoor pool. We were given a voucher for the spa, for a 45 minute session in the pools with water jets. Very nice. Any longer would have cost a fee. You don't get a voucher per day, but once per person as an introduction to the spa. We were out and about so much no time to use it more.
We paid for an upgrade, for a sea view room. I signed up for the loyalty programme. We had the use of the Level, a ground floor private dining area. Less food than the buffet in the main room, but cooked breakfast main dish option, and longer hours so you could eat or snack earlier or later. I was happy with the benefit of help yourself to a glass or two of free sparkling wine for lunch and dinner as well as breakfast.
The Gran Hotel Taoro
A big hotel, which we stayed at because my husband was invited to a conference, The Island Wines Summit.
Swimming pool with sloping entrance for wheelchairs and those who don't like vertical ladders into pools.
Inconveniently, the courtyard entrance is completely pedestrianised, so many people in a hurry end up dragging their own suitcases on wheel to the front entrance from the open gate entrance with the staff who check you in and out.
The packed breakfast was satisfactory. But we had to choose between pork and vegetarian.
Vineyard Visits
The bigger island of Tenerife has five wine areas, each having different soil - colour and consistency, climate - sun and wind, height, grapes and grape blends and so important and distinctive that it has its own protected name of origin.
Big Free Museum
Casa Del Vino
The name means house of wine. Lots to see for free. Exhibits about the old farm building, growing and bottling wines. And a honey museum. So, something for all the family.
There's also a restaurant in one corner of the quadrangle, under separate management, with an indoor area beside an attractive outdoor terrace.
You will probably be tempted to pay for a wine tasting which includes food, at the entrance to a shop selling wines. They offer a kiddie tasting option.
Useful Websites For Tenerife and La Palma
Parador Hotels
https://paradores.es/en/parador-de-la-palma
Museum & Tasting
Post being written. Come back later for more.
