Xmas Cruise 2017 - La Palma Page

Friday 29th December 2017

Up at 7 for an even earlier start. It was a bit miserable to start with. As soon as the coach got going, a slight drizzle started. The 1st stop was at a 16th C church, “Our Lady of the Snows” (the what?). This was worth a look & had a baroque altar.

Then, on & over to the West side of the island, where the promised sunshine was in evidence. The road wound up, fairly narrowly, to a spot on the edge of the caldera, as they call it but it looks like a crater to me. This dominates the North end of the island & is over 2k metres high. You could drop Ben Nevis in it, we were told. Most of us went on a ramble round the inside for about a mile, to a so-called viewpoint but it was all viewpoints. A pair of very tame ravens greeted us, on the scrounge for snacks. We walked back. The path was quite wide (by Alpine standards) & rather rough. Then, we were taken to a Visitor Centre, which was quite interesting.