January 21, 2018: Relocation Situation in the Island of La palma

Old Town Los Llanos in the business center of La Palma

"Lying in the West of the island, it is home to one of the chief tourist centres of the island, Puerto Naos. At the same time, it is proud of having two of the beaches on the island with the blue flag, Puerto Naos and Charco Verde. Besides, it is one of the entries to the Caldera de Taburiente National Park and it offers all kinds of services as well as an interesting artistic exhibition: the so-called Museo en La Calle. It consists of a kind of open-aired museum (contemporaneous art on building’s sides) The historic centre is also quite interesting and it is home to valuable social and religious buildings."  LaPalma Tourism Board.

So today, we had a leisurely morning at our hotel in Santa Cruz de La Palma, then trekked to the airport to meet the group from EXPLORE! and made our way to Los Llanos.

Santa Cruz de La Palma is the capital of La Palma and has a tremendous heritage and charm. But Los Llanos, forty minutes west, is the financial hub of La Palma. There are some historic buildings in this city, but generally it is quite modern. The historical buildings hold all the charm but it's obvious that there is an effort to keep the city clean, beautiful and all is done in a homage to the past.

Government building Plaza de Espana

The quality of the woodwork on these centuries old buildings is stunning.

Paul and I wandered around and found a grocery store. Blaine and Jean found WINE!

The plaza de Espana is a lovely area with dragon trees, restaurants and the local cathedral . It's truly beautiful. The craftsmanship in the neighbor hood is outstanding.

Jesus and the chicken-- a Paul Parris fixation

After touring the main cathedral, we headed back to the travel group with instruction from the guide about the week ahead. Then off to dinner with the group---mostly Brits with a small East Tennessee contingent.

Most of the group are Brits

The food was local and authentic. Here we have the mixed house salad.

This is the restaurant bar. Maybe they are a little too committed to the caveman theme?

We met a lot of really nice people who will be our hiking group and look forward to tomorrow's hike to the Caldera.

Paul's Ponderings:   Another odd day, more or less, mostly involved with getting from Santa Cruz de La Palma to Los Llanos.   Once arrived, we found a lovely, but Sunday sleepy, town.   We did get time to walk around and check out the square(s) and enjoy the climate, which is very different from the Santa Cruz area.   This island has a number of micro climates and this one seems to be "dry and sunny".   

After meeting up with our group, led by one of our fave Dutch/Spanish humans, Bert, we had a great dinner at a local restaurant near the hotel.  The hotel itself is basic but we don't plan on spending a lot of time here, so all is good.  Tomorrow it is off for the first hike in the volcanic area, so the real action starts then.   No doubt there will be much more to come blog-wise.