Day 7 P&O’s Azura makes her 4th stop, in La Palma

Well Azura’s next port of call was to be the furthest west of the Canary Islands that we were to visit. The island of La Palma.

It had been decided by the family, that I’d go off on a tour by myself on this island, camera in hand, and let Mel and the girls have time to look around the port town together.

I chose an excursion called the Heart of La Palma which was scheduled, according to the brochure to take about 4 and half hours.

So knowing I was going to be out until early afternoon I had a good breakfast before heading down to my coach for the day, for my tour into the Heart of La Palma.

The tour started with a short drive to Santuario Virgen de Las Nieves. It is the religious centre of La Palma and one of the oldest places of worship in the Canary Islands, dating back to 1423.

The Church holds a terracotta statue of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, the patron saint of the island.

She sits on a marble throne covered in silver as you can see in the above picture.

It is not a big church, in fact it is a very modest one in size, but it makes up for it in it’s ornamentation.

I’ve stitched a few photos together in this post to try and help you see either the panoramic view, or more of the interior or exterior of buildings.

We moved on from here in the coach, climbing higher and heading towards the centre of the island, stopping for a quick photo stop on route.

As we did our guide explained more about the island, it’s inhabitants it’s history, climate and eco-system.

What I did find on this tour was that unlike the other Canary islands La Palma is a lot greener…

We arrived at La Caldera de Taburiente, designated a National Park,

and headed up through the pine tree boarded roads deep in to the middle of it.

The National Park has been created inside a 5 mile wide volcanic crater. It’s rims reach right up to the mountain ridge that runs from the north to the south of the island.

There was time for a walk through the National Park, soaking in the grandeur of the setting, it was fantastic.

With the Canary Pine trees growing all around us.

Unfortunately it had to end and with one last look…

It was back on the coaches. We had a short comfort break at the visitor centre just outside the National Park. I was disappointed to find though that the visitors centre had no shop or cafe. There was nowhere to buy a souvenir or even a quick coffee. The only option you had was a drinks machine. So remember to take some change.

Part of the tour was a final stop at a little cottage for wine tasting with an assortment of chutneys. The coach stops in a very scruffy looking parking area, and the guide escorted us across the road in to a garden completely hidden from the road.

For those who didn’t wish to sample the various wines there was fruit juice and the option to wander around the gardens.

Before it was back to the coach and back to Azura…

It had been a fabulous excursion. The guide had been excellent, very funny and very informative. The scenery had been breathtaking well worth the money paid for the excursion. Well done P&O.

I got back on board just in time for the end of the BBQ on the open deck by the Coral pool and very nice it was too. I certainly needed something after my busy morning out as well.

Mel and I spent the afternoon just relaxing in the gorgeous sunshine on our balcony. The girls were busy with their various activities and friends around the ship so we didn’t see much of them during the day, but we all met up for our evening meal.

The dress code this evening was Semi- Formal.

Two of the ships Headliners theatre company put on their own stage set in one of the lounges at 8:30pm so we went to watch them following dinner. They were very good although Nyna was obviously very new as she was very nervous when not singing. As soon as she started to sing though all signs of her nerves vanished.

We rounded the evening off with Asa Murphy’s tribute to swing in the Playhouse Theatre. He certainly has a fantastic voice.

Another great end to a great day I hope you’ll agree. See you soon for more from Azura.

Continuation of Day 6 of Azura’s stop in Tenerife.

Readers of my blog yesterday will know, that I left you high up the top of the volcano in the middle of Tenerife, well now it’s time to head back to the coaches…

We soon started to head back down the mountain again, although we were still high enough to be above the cloud layer, so we could see right across the sea to the island of Gran Canaria in the distance.

 

We descended all the way down to the Orotava Valley where nestles the market town of Orotava one of the oldest settlements on the island. Here, after a short walk through the town, we visited the Casa de los Balcones or, the house of balconies.

In here they make and sell fabulous works in lace.

and pottery…

We headed back to the coach again and on to our next stop, lunch!

We expected it just to be in a restaurant but when we got off the coach and the guide started paying our entry through the gates of a park, we knew it was something different. When we rounded the corner we found out just what. They had recreated Tenerife in miniature, from its historical roots…

The Guanche.

The Settlers

and modern day Tenerife…

At the end of the miniature Tenerife experience was our Restaurant, with soup followed by half a chicken in a special Tenerife sauce accompanied by new potatoes. This was all followed by ice cream, a very nice lunch.

Following lunch, with of course the compulsory cup of coffee, it was back to the coach, to head on to the coastal town of Puerto de la Cruz just a short journey away.

Here we had some time to ourselves to just wander along the seafront, go in and out of the tourist shops or just sit and relax and watch the world go by in the sunshine.

There isn’t much of a natural beach in the centre of Puerto de la Cruez, it’s just a tiny bit of black sand…

To get around this they have created their own beach complete with secluded lakes and terraces right next to it…

Unfortunately you have to pay to get in to this bit though what a surprise.

Other than a few tourist shops and the promenade there wasn’t a lot to see in the town so we were glad we only had 45mins to spend looking around there.

From Puerto de la Cruz  the coach took us back up and across the island to Santa Cruz.

We went past the striking wave shaped Auditorium designed by Santiago Calatrava which is one of the top music venues on the island.

and back to where our ship the Azura was waiting for us.

It had been a long day out, but I’m sure you will agree, a really good one. The scenery had been stunning, the information given to us by the guide was brilliant and the weather had stayed perfect a great combination.

Captain Keith Dowds gave the order to cast off the lines that secured Azura and we left Tenerife aboard Azura at 5:36pm enjoying the sunshine as we went.

Tonight's menu…

Tonight’s entertainment was a bit of a mixed bag. we went first to the Malabar lounge where Andrea Dickinson was going to be performing.

With it’s gold trim and palm trees the lounge has a very Eastern feel. There are lots of soft, loose cushions everywhere making it very comfortable too. We therefore got our drinks in and settled down to listen to the acclaimed Andrea Dickenson. Unfortunately when she did come on neither of us really appreciated her singing. Her style just wasn’t for us, so we decided to go up on to the deck and join in the Tropical night party. That was much better and we had much more fun up there. Although we were on deck it wasn’t cold, the atmosphere was good, with good music, good company and great surroundings. A great way to end the day.

Thanks for touring around Tenerife with me, please stay with me as we continue our cruise on-board P&O’s Azura and we dock at another of the Canary Islands.

Day 6 P&O’s Azura’s next port of call - Tenerife.

It was still quite dark as we arrived in port in Tenerife, the second of our Canary Island stops. That meant photos of the port would have to wait until we were leaving.

Today our itinerary was scheduled to be a very full one, as we had booked the whole family to go on one of P&O’s all day excursions. It was called, the Beauty of Mount Teide and was set to take about 8 hours.  An early breakfast was therefore called for up in the Verona restaurant, before heading down to the dock side, to board our coach. Although getting on and off coaches using crutches isn’t the easiest thing to do, P&O have a system of reserving the front seats of their coaches for those with mobility problems, so that helped getting on and off the coaches during the day.

The journey started by the coach snaking up through the Esperanza Forest, full of tall pine trees only native to the Canary Islands.

The landscape suddenly opens out from the trees in to light shrub land.

This in turn quickly changed to a landscape of lava, long hardened leaving a much more barren and sparsely vegetated terrain.

Our first stop was at the Ortuno Viewpoint, where we got our first good look at our destination, Mount Teide.

Mount Teide is the third highest volcano in the world with a height of 3718 metres (12,198ft) above sea level.

We continued on in our air conditioned coach higher and higher before stopping for some mid morning refreshment at the Restaurante Bamby, in the shadow of Mount Teide.

The coffee was lovely and Mel and the girls said the Hot Chocolate was really thick and creamy and very, very nice.

The tour continued with the guide giving information about the islands history, it’s people and culture, as well as its peculiar climate. All whilst we continued to climb through the dramatic landscape around Mount Teide.

We passed through to the inside of a massive volcanic crater presided over by the still domineering Mount Teide. The whole of the area inside the crater is now the National Park of Las Canadas.

If you want to get to the very top of Mount Teide then you need to use a cable car which unfortunately this tour didn’t have time for as it would have added another two hours to the day, just in queuing.

Instead we went just along from there to a spectacular viewpoint, where we could get out and take some pictures looking down into the crater or up to the volcano.

As you can tell there was a lot to see and do on this tour, too much I think for one days blog, so join me tomorrow for the continuation of our tour on Tenerife.

Day 5, P&O’s Azura docks in the Canary Islands.

Well did did yesterdays signpost point you in the right direction of which island we were going to be docking at in the Canaries?

It’s Gran Canaria. The second most populous island of the canaries it’s original meaning means Great Isle of Dogs.

This is the view we awoke to as we opened our balcony curtains…

We were just about to swing in to the island to head in to our port of call for the day, so we had timed it right.

Gran Canaria is certainly a lot more built up than Madeira had been. It has a large commercial port, which we passed through before docking at our berth.

Welcome to Gran Canaria…

P&O offer lots of excursions to help you to explore each port of call fully if you want to. Because of this, there are always a large line of coaches waiting dockside to whisk you away around the island.

We decided to make use of the local open topped sight seeing bus instead, which left from just outside the quayside.

The sight of the Azura towering over us as we walked out of the port was certainly a sight to behold.

The bus tour around the city of Las Palmas was very extensive. The one ticket allows you to hop on and off at various stops around the city, all day and there was a full guided tour via headphones as the bus journeyed through the streets. You could even choose the language suitable to you.

I would suggest getting to the bus stop early or alternately wait for the rush to die down a bit as the queue can get a little long …

The hills that surround Las Palmas also make up part of the city as they are covered in brightly covered houses.

We got off the bus in the old town district for a look around, and found the cathedral which really looked impressive…

The front of the cathedral was even more impressive though.

There are lots of places to buy souvenirs in Las Palmas but everywhere we looked they all seemed to want you to buy a souvenir lizard.

Lizards are plentiful on the Canary Islands, or so they say. Trying to capture one on camera is  a completely different story and these are the only ones to be had on camera from Gran Canaria today.

It was great to see palm trees lining the side of the road instead of the usual deciduous trees we are used to back in England, though as its an opened topped bus remember to duck when you go under some of them.

When we went back to Azura after touring around the city, there was still lots of options for us to do on-board the ship, or we could choose to just relax in the sunshine. We chose the latter.

Our Sailaway party was at 5:15pm as we moved away from Gran Canaria and headed towards our next port of call. Looking back as we moved out to sea you could see the hill of houses glowing in the evening light like a mountain of children’s bricks.

Tonight's dress code was Semi formal and tonight's menu…

and my choice from it…

All very nice dishes followed by the cheese board and coffee and macaroons.

The Headliners Theatre Company were putting on another big show tonight. this one was called “New York City Rhythm” from Broadway to Brooklyn a musical love story. The choreography music and dance was excellent a very good show.

Again there was lots of entertainment in the various lounges and bars around the ship to choose from, from lively to relaxing dependent on your mood. We chose the Planet Bar  which had  the relaxing type.

Don’t forget to come back for Azura’s next port of call.