Santa Cruz de la Palma

Today, at around 7am, we arrived at Santa Cruz de La Palma, on the island of La Palma.

We’ve been here several times before, and because we’ve never seen beyond the town, we decided to book ourselves onto a ‘Panoramic La Palma’ bus tour.

The tour was due to depart after lunch, so we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and went ashore for a short walk around town. The last time we were here I bought a t-shirt from a fantastic little shop here, so that was where we headed… to buy another new t-shirt.

Our pottering about town was relatively short and sweet, and we were back on board ship in plenty of time for lunch. The meeting time for the tour was 12.45pm, in the Playhouse.

On-the-bus-off-the-bus tours can go either way. This one started out brilliantly, taking us right into the interior of the island and the National Park, where we were treated to some spectacular mountain scenery.

The roads in these parts were perilously narrow and quite hairy and tight whenever two oncoming buses meet. Fortunately, the bus drivers all seemed quite cool about this eventuality and handled the passing of vehicles without drama. I’m not sure I’d fancy driving along those roads though, particularly if there was a chance you’d meet a bus coming the other way.

After a brief comfort stop at the National Park’s main visitor centre, we continued on to our second photo stop, where we were meant to enjoy a good view of the islands main active volcano and extensive lava fields. Unfortunately, the clouds had started to roll in, making visibility poor.

Our final stop was a viewpoint overlooking the city before heading back to the ship.