Wow, oh wow, oh wow! I have just had the most amazing week! Well, a few weeks ago at Easter but it’s taken me a while to put this little post together and sort all my photographs out as there’s just so much to say about this place. 😍
Where have I been? I’ve been to La Isla Bonita……………………otherwise known as La Palma.
La Palma is one of the Spanish Canary Islands………………it gets the name ‘La Isla Bonita’ from the people of this group of islands who will tell you hands down that La Palma is the beautiful one of the Canary Islands, and they are not wrong! I walked through Gran Canaria last year, it was gorgeous; Tenerife I’m not bothered about, too many British; and all the others like Lanzarote and Fuerteventura just look a bit brown and dessert like to me, and I like green. However, La Palma’s beauty just blew me away, it’s breath-taking.
So where is it? It’s off the north west coast of Africa and is the most north westerly of the group of islands. It is the one with the most tropical climate………..it rains a lot compared to the other islands and therefore is unbelievably green. It is also small compared to the other islands, ranking 5th out of the 8 islands in terms of size.
It’s quite difficult to get there from the UK, and not as well known, which means that for a whole week, other than on the flight out there, I did not encounter anyone from the UK or further west, which was great, because not only does it allow that disconnect from everyday life, it also made me practice my Spanish. Particularly in the places I visited, which were well away from any of the few hotels on the island. English is not as widely spoken on La Palma as the other islands, but you will get by.
You can fly there directly from the UK but there are just two flights a week, both on a Thursday, one from London and one from Manchester, and they are expensive to book on a ‘flight only’ basis, as they are with one of the major tour operators. I had limited time…………..working in a school and with the flights being midweek, I could only go for one week, during a two week school holiday, unless I went in Summer, which I suspect would be too hot for me to enjoy what I wanted to do. So to make the most of my time, and because I’ve been wanting to visit for such a long time, I did fly direct for one week during this last Easter break. If you can take your holidays whenever you want and aren’t constrained for time, cheaper options would be to fly via Spain, or fly into Tenerife and take the 2 hour ferry across to La Palma, as there are numerous cheap flights to Tenerife.
So why would you come here? It won’t be to everyone’s taste. You’d come here if you like nature, adventure, disconnect, walking, gorgeous beaches, dense forests, stunning volcanic landscapes, stargazing, beautiful little towns, slow pace of life, natural volcanic swimming pools, birdlife, flora and fauna, millions of butterflies, good food, nice wine and lovely welcoming islanders. Don’t come here if you want to lie on a golden sand beach……………….the beaches are gorgeous fine sand but they are black sand…………………..the island is a volcanic island. There are two major areas of volcanoes and around 10 volcanoes in total, making up most of the surface area of the island. And just like on Tenerife these volcanoes are active volcanoes. Many of them have not erupted for a number of years, however there was a huge eruption in 2021 which I’ll tell you about in a moment.
Don’t come here if you want to party, I’m talking adventures of a different kind. There are a couple of ‘resorts’ but they are very small, quiet and quite upmarket, usually just containing a few upscale resort style hotels. You are not going to find the equivalent of ‘Veronica’s’ and ‘The Strip’ here, stick to Tenerife if you want that. La Palma is for those who want an away from it all, disconnect in nature, to explore an incredible island. The only place I can liken it to which I’ve been to before is Madeira………………if you like it there you will love it here, it’s like Madeira but twice as beautiful and much safer and easier to drive around. Although the roads are steep and mountainous, they are maintained very well and the standard of driving here is very high.
I’d recommend you hire a car. There is a good bus service on the island but to see all the best parts of the island you really do need your own wheels to make the most of it. Car hire is cheap and the island is easy and safe to navigate.
If you come here to walk the only thing to be mindful of is that it is not flat…………………..it is ‘the steepest island in the world’.🥵 You are not going to find a walk here that will not leave you huffing and puffing a little. To say it’s such a small island it goes from sea level to it’s highest point, just below 2,500 metres above sea level very quickly. You don’t have to go to the top though, there are plenty of walks with manageable height gain, but it’s definitely somewhere to pack the poles if you have any sore joints or don’t want to have any by the end of the holiday.
Where did I stay? I wanted the freedom to come and go as I please and not be constrained by meal times. I also wanted to get away from it all so I rented an apartment, in a block of four, in the lovely little traditional town of El Paso, a couple of miles from the West Coast of the island. It was around 30 minutes drive from Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital, and the airport, which are both on the East coast of the island. It was a relatively new apartment, built in 2021, with a gorgeous roof terrace for chilling, and a small pool for if you wanted to take a dip. It was owned by a local gentleman who lived in the town and the communication was really good. It was spotlessly clean, with a nice little welcome pack on arrival and had everything you could need and more. I’d rented one of the apartments on the upper floor as it had an amazing view over the sea and the west coast, to allow me to watch the most glorious sunset with a glass of wine on most evenings.
The flight and journey there was quite straightforward, and I have to tell you that my favourite flight sweet, the Marks and Spencer ‘Percy Pig’ now come in a ‘Percy Pig Goes Globetrotting’ edition! How cool is that……………..perfect for all your travelling needs and helping to make your ears pop on the flight when you too are going globetrotting!😍😂
This was a holiday with Mr Fitness. The important thing to do before you go anywhere with him, not just on holiday, is to manage his expectations, otherwise it just turns into an extreme physical challenge and competition ……………especially when you are heading off to somewhere that is just like an adventure playground for him. 😦
I had had an extremely stressful half term. It’s the term I get the school budget allocation and have to somehow miraculously make the funds cover the projected expenditure, which it never does, and I spend an awful lot of time being creative with numbers and spending hours in meetings trying to match the figures to the school strategic plan…………………………we got there in the end but I was mentally tired and needed to build in a little rest time too.
I did want to explore and adventure, that’s what life’s about, but rather than spend the entire holiday in my playing out clothes, which is what normally happens with a Mr Fitness itinerary, I had said to him that I wanted to plan my time wisely so that the exploring was done by afternoon so I could dress up in my nice clothes, go out for dinner and enjoy a glass of wine, read my book and watch the sunset. I needed an element of relaxation. Sometimes I get fed up of being all dirty in my playing out clothes……….in reality at home I am 50% Dora the Explorer and 50% Disney Princess but mostly you only get to hear about Dora on here, as this blog tends to be all about my adventures! He looked a little crestfallen as I pulled out my own little pre-prepared itinerary and I’d got visions of going out to dinner on my own, but once I’d explained the concept of ‘compromise’ he looked like he’d understood and he thought he may just be able to manage it!😂 So here’s what we got up to.
It was a late flight getting us there just before 11pm so I’d planned an easy first day with just a steady afternoon walk. I got up and the sun was shining. I pulled on my equally sunny dress and headed of to the supermarket to buy breakfast and picnic making provisions for the next few days.
One of the first things I noticed about La Palma was its absolutely fantastic traffic roundabouts. Every roundabout is maintained gorgeously and will have some elaborate statue on it, a theme, or something akin to a whole botanical garden on top of it. This one was the first one that greeted me in El Paso………it is a Graja, or Calder Crow which is endemic to La Palma and North West Africa. It has a red beak and legs and is more similar to a raven than a crow. This one is made entirely out of sticks in the middle of the roundabout and I risked my life taking its photo. 😂 There are some really elaborate constructions to see.
I found the bakery and had a lovely cinnamon and nut swirl and my first café con leche! That first Spanish café con leche and pastry always gives me an “Ahhhhh” feeling…….like I’ve arrived home.
El Paso has a lovely little square and park in the centre…………………..
…………………and some lovely street art representing the main economy of the island……………………agriculture.
After buying my provisions, I made my little Iberico Chiorizo, Spanish sheep’s cheese and cucumber bocadillo picnic sandwich (yummy) and off we went for the little short adventure that I had planned for that afternoon.
This was a short walk of 4 miles around the rim of the Caldera de Taburiente. This area is a National Park with limited parking so you have to book a car parking space online in advance, but they are free of charge, you just show your booking pass at the park gate. This was a lovely walk around a very small section of the caldera rim. The caldera is like a huge hole covering a large part of the north of the island, it is 10km across. It’s an erosion caldera, formed by landslides and erosion and not a caldera formed by volcanic eruption. It is really deep and the rim in places is 2000 metres above the caldera floor.
The cloud was down slightly but the views across the caldera from the look out points were spectacular nevertheless.
The steep walls of volcanic rock towered all around you and as you walked into the caldera you got a sense of just how lush and green the island is. Huge pines with amazing bark and a distinctive aroma reached out their branches above you, and with the low lying cloud it had a really mystical feel, with the occasional shaft of bright sunlight penetrating the cloud and making the green of the forest even greener. It was a lovely little walk and the perfect introduction to the island.
On the way back to the apartment we went to look at something quite spectacular geographically, but a bit horrific at the same time. If you ever go to La Palma you must go and take a look as it is difficult to describe the scale of it. From the apartment window looking inland I could see a towering, steaming mass of grey and orange rock around half a mile away. Jose, our host, advised me that this looming mass was the Volcano Tajogaite, which forms part of the Cumbre Vieja ridge, it is in the municipality of El Paso where we were staying. He finished building his apartment in summer 2021 and on the 11th September of that year Tajogaite erupted, the first eruption on the island since Vulcan Teneguia in 1971.
It erupted from 5 main vents for a total of 85 days and caused 863 million euros of damage. It destroyed the two neighbouring villages next to El Paso, destroyed around 3,000 homes, resulted in the evacuation of over 10,000 people, closed schools, impacted hospitals and flights and miraculously only resulted in the death of 1 person who inhaled toxic gases. Jose had recommended we drive right up to the edge of the lava flow to understand the scale of the natural disaster…………….so we did.
The lava flow is 6.2km long at 3.5km wide and stretches right down to the sea.
You can view it from the edge but you cannot walk on it without specialist equipment or a trained vulcanologist as it is still extremely hot in places and emits toxic gases. You can understand when you see it how it was impossible for anything in its path to have survived. There is nothing of the villages left to be seen, they are completely buried under a cooling lava flow metres high. The entire area is desolate. They have now built one road which cuts through the lava flow close to the coast to reconnect the south west of the island with the north west but other than that there is nothing. You can just see mother nature starting to do her work with shoots of new green plants miraculously sprouting from the lava flow where nothing else survives.
Despite this, El Paso is a safe place to visit and the volcano sleeps silently for now. The volcanoes on the island are active, but they are monitored constantly. The eruption was expected, hence the low number of casualties, with 22,000 small earthquakes of up to 3.5 magnitude being measured in just one week before the eruption. So it does have it’s own in built early warning system.
It had been a long first day so I changed out of my playing out clothes and went out to dinner at the lovely Tasca Barbanera in El Paso………..beef tenderloin, Roquefort sauce, Padron peppers and roast potato wedges………………oh and a lovely glass of wine to round off the day.
Day 2, I was up early and much better rested after travelling. The plan today was to do a circular walk around an area on the north east of the island called Cubo de Galga. This is an ancient laurel forest on the edge of a ravine and gorge. It’s around 6 miles long. It was drizzling slightly but warm and humid. This added to the atmosphere as I can only describe this area as ‘magical’. It’s like its own little enchanted eco-system. You don’t get wet due to the tree cover but it’s really humid, a bit like being in a rainforest in the Amazon I guess. There is bird song everywhere, water tinkling over mossy rocks and flowers and fauna all around.
All the walks we went on are in a book I took with me called ‘Walk La Palma’ its a ‘Discovery Walking Guides’ book by Charles Davis. It was an invaluable resource as it gives you a narrative and secret little d-tours. It is a must if you want to walk on the island. While other people carried on the main path it directs you to take a 50 metre d-tour off the path through a little wooded area. You emerge at the most spectacular waterfall. There isn’t a lot of water, but it is coming from a great height and forms a refreshing shower if you are brave enough. It’s the perfect place to enjoy your bocadillo in peace and quiet before continuing.
You pass under little ancient aqueducts, through overhanging trees, across little streams with huge round mossy boulders until you emerge from the top of the gorge at a spectacular mirador over the sea.
It’s an easy downhill walk then, through agricultural land, passing through people’s smallholdings featuring an array of crops and animals, back to the car park.
For any nature lover, bird watcher or anyone who likes the idea of being in an enchanted forest a million miles from what’s going on in the rest of the world, I can’t recommend this walk highly enough.
We just had time to stop in the capital Santa Cruz de la Palma for refreshment on the way back and I might just have been tempted by a little glass of sunshine. 😂
First impressions of Santa Cruz were good. Bright colourful buildings, pretty flower filled squares in preparation for Easter, bustling cafes, statues, flower filled wooden balconies, old colourful doors and spotlessly clean. I vowed to come back and explore more later in the week.
The compromise was going well, back in time to get my girlie clothes on and out to the neighbouring town of Los Llanos de Aridane for pizza………………..
…………….after I’d also had time for a little afternoon nana nap………………at 54, I sometimes need one of those too now after a day of adventure!😂
There was the usual Easter procession taking place in the town and I love to watch a procession. 😍
Day 3 started with a little relax on the roof terrace………………
and a little bit of plant spotting around the garden………………………very pretty.
Today the plan was to do a walk from the town of Tijarafe where we would leave the car. We would then walk the circular PRLP12.2 path to the Cueva de Poris de la Candelaria then down the Barranco Del Jorado and then back up to the town. Whilst only 9 miles long this is a steep one with 1,000 metres of down and the same back up! For anyone with bad joints the good news is that there is also a road that gets you closer to the cove of Candelaria if you aren’t able to walk to it as it’s definitely worth seeing.
En route to Tijarafe you are likely to drive past the Mirador El Time. It’s a spectacular viewpoint looking over the west of the island. You get an idea of how high you have just ascended in the car………………………….and a plus point is that there is a café here which sells the most delicious home baked banana cake! So as you can imagine a stop was made for cake, coffee and to admire the view over the town of Tazacorte.
The walk to Candelaria was beautiful…………………………..different to the previous days as this is a coastal walk. Poppies and flowers were in bloom everywhere.
You get incredible views of the bright blue sea all around you.
But it is an incredibly steep downhill walk to start.
You eventually come to the parking lot and there is a nice path down to the Cueva de Poris de la Candelaria. This really is a magical spot. No pirates today. It’s a little fishing village built inside a natural cave. All the houses are white and blue. Whist fishing has moved on and out to the nearby port of Tazacorte the little houses still remain and are maintained by local families who use them as second homes, beach houses and just a respite form the world. There is no internet, phone signal, rubbish bin or anything. They have managed to bring electricity cables down from the town and water pipes but other than that there is nothing.
It’s really pretty.
While we were there, there were a few families, repairing and painting their homes for summer and a handful of walkers who like us, had gone to marvel at the pretty little cave village.
We had our picnic on the rocks, being careful to remove all traces of rubbish, and had a little sunbathe and then began our trek up and then down again into the Barranco del Jorado. This was a steep in and out, much steeper than the path to Candelaria. There is a lovely little beach at the bottom and a few little beach houses that have been erected by the locals as a respite from the heat of the town and somewhere to disconnect at the weekend. This gorge is also well know for its birdlife. We saw plenty of kestrels and choughs nesting in the rocks and lots of lizards running between our feet. It was a tough slog back up to the town though.
Knowing it would be quite a long walk I’d taken my dressing up clothes with me as I thought it would make more sense while we were out that way to stop for dinner on the way back and explore the lovely little town of Tazacorte. It’s a nice little town surrounded by banana plantations, but then again the whole island is full of banana plantations.
The town is split into two. There is the main town a mile or two inland and then the port area which has a few hotels and a lovely beach. We went to explore the town first. It’s very colourful and we found a lovely restaurant called Los Lavaderos which was situated in some former wash houses. It was a lovely meal. I had a lovely Campari Spritz whilst deciding what to choose and had a little rest. We started with a very traditional Canarian dish…………Volcanic Papas Arrugadas with Mojo Rojo. These are wrinkled baked Canarian potatoes, baked in a fire so they are black and have a bit of a charcoaly taste on the exterior. The potato inside is really sweet and the red mojo sauce has a little kick to it, containing red peppers and paprika. Really tasty!
Then one of my favourites……………………….fried fresh squid………………..I ❤️ squid! And there is nothing like some fresh fried squid by the sea.
I didn’t have dessert because I wanted to go down to the port to sit on the harbour wall and watch the sun set as it looked like it was going to be a lovely sunset……………….and I’d also read there was a fantastic Heladeria (Ice Cream shop) down there.
It’s a pretty little port town, quite busy and you can climb up onto the harbour wall and walk all the way along to the little lighthouse at the end.
Then pick your perch on the wall and get ready for the most gorgeous sunset.
And what better way to finish off the evening than a visit to the Heladaria……………….which I can confirm is amazing! This is Amarena Cherry flavour…………………YUMMY! It tasted just as good as the Fabbri Amarena Cherries in the blue and white jar………………I get a jar of these at Christmas as a treat and have to try so hard not to just eat them with a spoon out of the jar. 🤭 Another lovely day.
Day 4………………I needed a rest day, much to Mr F’s absolute dismay! 😂 So there’s not a lot to tell you about Day 4. I was saving myself for the big one on day 5. I felt like a beach day! So after a lazy morning it was a trip to the fine black sand beach of Charco Verde. It was lovely. I chose this one because it does not have any towns nearby so it’s nice and peaceful. You can only get here by car but there are toilets and a fantastic little chiringuito at the back of the beach . It serves great fresh seafood, croquettes, tapas, cakes and has a bar. I was very comfy on this beach reading my book for the afternoon. There were a few people around but not too many.
The chiringuito was good. I made two visits……………once for banana cake and coffee and once for beer. There’s nothing like a Dorada in the sunshine listening to the waves crashing in! Perfect little spot if you are all adventured out and need a rest.
So Day 5………………..the BIG ONE!!! This was epic and if you are fit enough to do this one walk on La Palma then this is the one you must do……………the highlight! It’s called Ruta de los Volcanes or Route of the Volcanoes. It goes from a recreation area called El Pilar in the middle of the island all the way southwards along the ridge, which forms the backbone of the island, to its southernmost tip at the Faro de Fuencaliente (lighthouse). In its entirety it is 17 miles with 800 metres of ascent. And if you miss the bus back to town, as we did, it’s an additional 4 miles and another 680m of ascent to the next nearest bus stop in town to get back to your start point. 🥵
It runs all along the ridge of Cumbre Vieja passing a large number of volcanic cones, craters and lava flows created by these active volcanoes. It is truly spectacular.
We’d waited for the perfect weather window………………..a blue sky day but with some cloud, with the base of the cloud at around 500m.
It’s good to have cloud because if you take the ‘over the top’ route, over the peak of Volcan de la Deseada at 1945 metres high, you get the most spectacular cloud inversions below. The cloud literally tumbles and crashes over the rims of the volcanoes………….it is amazing to see.
One minute you are running through dense pine forest, the next you are on a barren ridge surrounded by nothing but volcanic ash.
It’s not a particularly difficult walk navigationally …………………….it’s well signed. But it’s quite steep and long and once you’ve committed to it, whilst there are some escape routes off the ridge, they are long ones. So it’s important to go prepared. You need lots of layers, waterproofs, food, lots and lots of water, a head for heights (mine is getting better) and a sense of adventure!
I took absolutely hundreds of pictures and although this was meant to be a slow and long training run, I stopped so many times it was anything but a run.
It’s a bit of a tricky day trip logistically because it is point to point, not circular, from the middle of the island to the southern tip, so at one end you will need transport.
We left the hire car in Santa Cruz. I had arranged a taxi via Whatsapp to take us up to El Pilar up in the mountains (40 Euros and half an hour drive) and then after the walk there is an hourly bus back from Los Canarios (the town above the Faro de Fuencaliente) to Santa Cruz (really cheap at 2 Euros 60). The bus takes around 50 minutes.
Our taxi driver Ignacio, was so informative. All the way up to El Pilar he was explaining, very slowly in Spanish for me as he spoke no English, about the topography and agriculture of the island. I understood that as far as you can see, whichever way you look you can see banana plantations. However, Ignacio advised that the island has an abundance of avocados and mangoes too. The push at the moment is to plant avocados as the price of bananas has slumped. He advised that bananas fetch 1 Euro a Kg, mangoes around 3 Euros but avocados fetch 5 Euros and for that reason a lot of farmers are replanting some banana plantations with avocados.
When you get to El Pilar there is a visitor centre and I highly recommend you take a look before heading off. It will tell you all about the volcanoes you will pass, when they erupted and give you lots of tips as to what to look out for on the route.
Another aside is that you can finish the walk in the town of Los Canarios and make it a walk of just over 13 miles if you want. You don’t have to walk the last 4 miles to the lighthouse at Fuencaliente. If you don’t stop in Los Canarios and carry on like I did, I would still recommend stopping in Cafe ‘Mi Gusto’ on the main street. According to Mr F this serves the best home made lemon pie he has ever had. Yes, you heard that correctly…………….he had lemon pie…………..a huge piece!! 😂 I have committed it to my memory bank to remind him of the fact next time I get told off for cake eating!
We made it to the lighthouse (very windy) to find that we had just missed the bus which runs every two hours back to Los Canarios to get the onward bus back to Santa Cruz. Two choices – sleep in the bus stop for the night as we could not get a phone signal of any sort, or attempt to walk back to Los Canarios, 4 uphill miles in an hour and a half to get the last bus back. We chose the latter and made it with 10 minutes to spare. I needed half a bag of Bassetts Jelly Babies and we fell out a little because I may just have moaned like a baby intermittently on the way back!🤭 However, it did not spoil an utterly breath-taking day.
Day 6 was most definitely a rest day……………well, car tour day. I was not really up for using my legs! Nevertheless it was a very interesting day.
We drove up to the north of the island to the highest point…………the Roque de Los Muchachos at 2,426m……………..crossing the island from West to East in the car. I wanted to go up here to take some photographs for my eldest. It’s one hell of a drive up here and only for the confident drivers, which Mr F is, while I hovered somewhere between the gearstick and the footwell, jumping frequently.
The Roque de Los Muchachos is the location of the Observatory of the same name. It is the location of the largest optical infrared telescope in the world and the centre for astrophysics in the northern hemisphere of the world. There are another 20 more huge telescopes here. You can have a good wander around them and you can actually apply for a visit if you have a particular interest, but the visits are very detailed and designed for astrophysicists so it would have been a waste of someone’s time showing me around, I would not have understood a word of what they were talking about, but I know it’s on my eldest’s bucket list.
It is still worth visiting though. You feel like you have stepped onto the set of a Star Wars movie and I had a special motive to be here. My eldest is an astrophysicist, and for his placement year he applied to come here for one whole year, in this barren landscape, doing astrophysical research. He got through to the final interviews and missed out, he was absolutely gutted. But I’d promised him I would get some photographs for him and some information.
I have to be honest with you, there is no way I could spend a year here! I would feel so isolated stuck up here with a bunch of scientists. But I guess we are all different and if that’s what floats your boat then so be it, but you are miles away from ice cream, cake and vino up here so it’s not for me. 😂
We arrived back on the east coast and decided to ease our achy legs (well mine anyway, because the bionic man does not appear to get achy legs) in the natural swimming pools at Charco Azul. These are lovely and are a safe way to swim in quite rough sea. They are pools formed with volcanic rock, creating a barrier from the sea. It was just the perfect amount of ‘rough’. The sound was gorgeous and the waves crashed over the top, creating an effect like a wave pool and a jacuzzi.
I can swim but I’m not the strongest so I thought I’d send Mr F in first, see if he survived without drowning, and then I’d maybe take a dip.😆
It looked gorgeous and I decided my little legs would thank me for it so in I got. I had a little splash around, listed to the roar of the sea and got thrown around a bit in the waves. It all ended when a rather large wave came over the top. That wasn’t a problem in itself, but it brought with it the hugest red crab with the most massive claws which decided it was going to swim alongside me and brush itself against my leg! So that was it for me……………I’m Ok swimming in the sea until I see a sea creature or feel something brush along my leg or foot, then it’s game over for me! But it was nice while it lasted.
Day 7 and unfortunately my final day on this beautiful island. The flight was not until 9:30pm that evening so we did have a full day.
I didn’t want to get too hot and sweaty so found a nice short walk exploring the area on the hillside just outside the capital of Santa Cruz. It was called the Ruta de Los Molinos………………..or the water mill route.
It’s sets off from the Plaza de Espana, which was gloriously bedecked in fresh red and white flowers for Easter.
It winds up the hillside through the agricultural back gardens and pretty squares until you reach the Mirador de la Concepcion where you have the most spectacular view of Santa Cruz and the port below.
You can take a little d-tour to the Real Santuario de Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. It’s a nice little church with a square and café. The church was the most beautiful I’d seen on the island from the inside……………….the smell of Easter flowers was beautiful and everything was gleaming.
On the way back down the hillside is when you pass the 5 water mills that the route is named after. It is here where they first experimented with producing energy using natural resources on the island by using the water tumbling down the barranco to power the mills.
It’s a really interesting little walk which allows you to see a bit of the agricultural life just outside the city as you walk past and through the land and gardens of the residents of the hillside.
Just enough time left for little wander around the capital, admire the street art, have some tapas and wine to round off a perfect little week of adventure.
So the verdict……………………………………..La Palma………………………………..if you like the sound of it then you must go! It’s gorgeous. I’ll definitely be back, I’ve only done 5 walks out of my 38 walk walking book! Lots more to explore! And if you discount the flight cost and have the flexibility to come via a cheaper method this one can really be done on a budget.
The book read of the holiday, if you are a book reader, was “The Lost Bookshop” by Evie Woods. I love a bit of far fetched fiction, I love books and I love a little love story. This one takes you on a journey through your imagination……………it’s for all the dreamers out there. I loved it……………..a nice easy read which I did not want to put down.
I’m back at work now, slaving away and working really hard. But that’s not a bad thing, I really do enjoy my work and my colleagues. And it’s my job and working hard that enables me to go on my little adventures. “Work hard……….play hard”, as they say. One week in Mr F’s company was enough……………..I’m not fit enough for any longer! 😂
I have a couple of big runs planned over the next few weeks but am struggling a bit with a niggly knee at the moment so we’ll see. Old age! 😂
The next trip away is at the end of May when I shall be having my relaxing week on a Greek island……………….this time the cosmopolitan little island of Skiathos with its lush pine forests, crystal clear azure blue waters and 68 sandy beaches to choose from……………………………..and no exercise other than a spot of yoga and swimming…………and no trying to keep up with Mr F. I like a bit of variety on my trips, I’m not all adventure believe it or not. There’s usually not much to report on this annual holiday as it is my one week where I go to a nice hotel, get looked after, read lots, move very little and RELAX, but I shall share a few details nevertheless on my return.
Then there will be one very busy half term until my usual month and a half summer in Spain where I have a bit of all sorts planned and you don’t hear from me for a couple of months as I take a long break from school.
So, enjoy the tales of La Palma and I’ll be back soon with a few tales of adventures closer to home and possibly a Greek adventure if I have time to write about it before summer. Otherwise I’ll update you on Greece in September after my usual summer hiatus! I’m thinking that maybe I’m in the wrong job………….I maybe should hire myself out as a holiday planner and guide! Bookings and suggestions being taken for 2026! 😂