Madeira and Canary Islands Cruise - Part 3

Our next stop was La Palma and another trip booked, this time to the Silk Museum and (what was) Sugar Plantation (now a hotel).

It was another trip from one side of the island to another and the tour was led by an English woman who is married to an islander.  The western side of the island is well known for growing bananas and could be seen as far as the eye can see!  Our first stop was a the silk museum in El Paso in the middle of the Island between Santa Cruz de la Palma and Tazacorte.  Being Sunday morning it is normally closed, but the museum was opened just for the tour.

A mural on the building's walls showing the silkworm. By the town hall on the opposite corner was a small Christmas display.

Another stop on our tour was to the Hotel Hacienda de Ajabo which has a lot of antiquities and tapestries and lovely gardens and we spent time in the gardens with tea and cake.  David took a lot of photos but I didn't take many.  There is a small chapel in the grounds which is used by the hotel as a meeting/function room but what a place it was.  I've found a link here to have a look.

Not far from the hotel is a small village, La Manchas, with a plaza called La Glorieta.  If you think this is something you would see in Barcelona inspired by Gaudi, but it was designed by Luis Morera and a fantastic display of mosaics, basalt stones and lava flow rocks. We took several photos of this so here are two collages.

It seems I put in one photo twice - sorry!

On our way back to the port it was explained that going through a tunnel in the mountain that there are two different types of weather before going in it was sunny, coming out of the tunnel it was misty!

We explored the town briefly and as it was Sunday things were a little quiet.  I could not leave the island without taken a photo of these giant baubles on the roundabout.  I put a comment on Facebook wondering if there was a tree big enough for them!

On the Monday 10th we docked in Lanzarote. There were no trips booked this time, so we walked into the town, Arrecife.  There is a newly developed area from the cruise ships to the marina and crossing the bridge into the town itself.  We walked through the town to a cobbled bridge and a fortification, which was a museum.  It turned out the museum was letting visitors in but couldn't collect entrance fees because their internet and till wasn't working.  Being thick walls we couldn't use a mobile signal for our phones to use the QR codes that would have given us an English language guide, so David and I muddled through reading what we could of the Spanish language (our knowledge of Spanish is very minimal!).  Not a lot to see in Arrecife itself so eventually we went back to the ship and enjoyed the sunshine on the deck instead,

 The ship can be seen in the middle of the pic

A view from the fort across a causeway with Fire Mountain in the distance

That was Lanzarote - much more touristy and very arid compared with the lushness of La Palma.  Before leaving we went through the marina on our return to the ship and took Christmas photos, though there was a huge shadow which made the photos difficult.  We had to go for it.

Next stop after a sea day was Lisbon.  More about that in another post.