A small rock in the Atlantic

You see a lot of flags on La Palma. Most English visitors will recognise the flags of Spain and the European Union.

But the Canary Islands are an autonomous region within Spain, and they have their own flag too. You see it a lot, especially around May 30th, which is Canary Day.

And then each island has its own flag. Here's the flag of La Palma:

And as if that weren't enough, La Palma has 14 municipalities, of which twelve have their own flag.


Santa Cruz	Breña Baja	Los Llanos

El Paso	Barlovento	Breña Alta

Garafía	Mazo	Tijarafe

Puntagorda	Puntallana	Tazacorte

(The other two municipalities are San Andres y Sauces and Fuencaliente)

Labels: Barlovento, Breña Alta, Breña Baja, Canaries, Canary islands, El Paso, Flags, fuencaliente, Garafía, La Palma, Puntagorda, puntallana, San Andres y Sauces, Santa Cruz de la Palma, tijarafe

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Monday, 28 April 2008

Taking the Hump

Crater of St Antony's Volcano. You can see people on the skyline at the right.

The most recent eruption in the Canary Islands was Teneguía, in 1971 (see Thursday, 21 February 2008 Which Planet Are You On?). It's a nice place to visit, but you have to be fairly fit.

St. Antony's Volcano (Volcan San Antonio) is nice in a completely different way. For one thing, it looks like a volcano should look, and you can walk halfway around the spectacular circular crater. You could even get a push-chair most of the way. For another, there's a car park, and a visitor centre with a café, shop, and a rather good exhibition.

The last eruption was from November 13th 1677 to January 31st, 1678. There were earthquakes, sulfurous gases and thirteen lava vents, one of which buried the hot spring that gave the borough its name - Fuencaliente. This left the spa town without a spa, and did the local economy no favours at all.

Crater of St Antony's Volcano looking back towards Los Canarios.

If you fancy taking the hump, you can ride a camel along the path for 6.00€. The sign says they start at ten, but when I went there, they still hadn't arrived at 10:30. So no photo. Sorry.

The catch is that you have to pay. The car park is 3.50€ for visitors and 1.75€ for residents, but this includes the visitor centre.

Coffee with milk (cafe con leche) was a startling 1.70€. In most places it's between 1.00€ or 1.20€. So I didn't try the cake, although it looked good.

So does the view from the crater.

View from the crater, north towards Las Indias.

To get there:
The easiest way is in a hire car. Take the main road to Los Canarios and follow the sign from the village centre. Alternatively, bus L3 will take you to Los Canarios, and you can walk downhill from there (perhaps 2 km).

You can also continue your walk from St. Antony's volcano down to Teneguía and the coast. Bus L31 goes back from the lighthouse to the village.