Las Palmas - Columbus museum

We made a lot of walks around Las Palmas and last Wednesday we decided to visit Columbus museum in old part of the town. It is quite a walk, it is almost 4 km away from marina. The town of Las Palmas is not particularly pretty, too many big buildings without charm. Luckily every now and there there's a park, a water feature...

...interesting building...

...old pavilion...

...or gazebo.

I had to make a photo of this cow, we saw one just like this one in front of the shop in Ponta Delgada, Azores on our way back over the Atlantic. That time it was Captain and Tadej that were posing with the cow.

After almost an hour we reached the old town. We visited the cathedral...

...but only one of it's towers.

There were nice views over the town...

...to the main square...

...and over the rooftops of old town with more churches. What caught my eyes was of course bright pink Bougainville bush.

We walked around for a while and saw again many nice balconies.

This is back side of the cathedral.

And this is old governor house that is now a library and Columbus museum. The house itself is stunning.

In the museum there's replica of Columbus' cabin on his ship Pinta. He was the only person on the ship that's got a cabin, everybody else just slept on the deck. And probably preyed for good weather, I guess.

And this is old manual auto-pilot - you just tie the tiller so that the boat is going exactly in the direction you want.

There were so many interesting things - details of the routes, Columbus' letters, old charts, of which some just had ocean West of Europe and then there was India.

But just as interesting was the house itself, we were particularly impressed by the carved wooden ceilings.

Old dresser

Inner court with parrots

Door to the next part of building

In the crypt there were some tombs...

...but also many artefacts from pre-Columbian middle America.

And then there were more wooden ceilings - just imagine the work that went into that!

This is an astrolabe from around 1500. It is a predecessor of a sextant and was used for calculating position in respect to sun and the stars (among other things). Old Greeks were already using them 200 years bc.

It was all pretty amazing, otherwise we wouldn't have stayed in there for three whole hours. After that we walked around the old town some more...

...and checked some restaurants - we were quite hungry and tired by now.

We consulted internet and found a restaurant where there were only locals eating, and we had another ropa vieja for late lunch. It was different than the one in Teror, this one had some pieces of sausages and bacon as well and it had more wintery flavour. But it was just as good as the first one we had.

Sun was already setting when we returned to marina.

I love the soft evening light, even the palms along the highway looked romantic.

We were quite tired when we returned to the boat. Plan for next day was to visit the aquarium, I just hoped my legs would have enough rest till then.

Gran Canaria part 3

From Teror we drove to the hills again and again stopped at every place convenient. The views were great...

...and vegetation as well. This part of the island seemed to be much moister than South and West.

It really looks lush and green...

...we even found the trees with moss growing on them, like in swamps.

We drove through a part that must have been burnt down. It really looked sad, all the trees black, and even the road seemed to be damaged at some places, maybe from landslides.

But the nature is fighting back - there are lots of weeds already growing on burnt land...

...beside burnt bushes...

...and a close look revealed that trees were not entirely dead, but are sprouting new growth near the trunks.

The short mountain gras was inviting, if it was a bit warmer, it would make for a great picnic place.

We were driving through the hills some more, admiring the views - this is the view to the West towards town of La Aldea.

The hills reminded us a lot of Slovenija.

And this is Roque Nublo, viewed from the North, the small pointy rock to the left is where we hiked the day before.

We drove slowly down from hills to SE, to the shore where the big supermarkets are. We stocked up on lots of heavy stuff, that is difficult to transport without the car - beer, wine, milk. Then we returned to the boat. It was another good day.

Gran Canaria part 2

Our next stop was Roque Nublo. We found a parking space and started walking along the path between the pine trees. The views were great, and it wasn't even the main attraction yet.

Looking to the East we could see the Pico del Nieves, the highest hill in Gran Canaria, that would be our next stop.

Roque Nuble looked pretty in late afternoon sun.

Other rocks nearby were just as pretty. Down somewhere to the right is the captain's head.

The hike was rather steep at the places and not very short. When we came about half way, we figured out that if we hike all the way to Roque Nublo, we'll not make to the Pico del Nieves in the daylight. So we took some more photos and returned to the car.

In 20 minutes we were standing at the highest hill in Gran Canaria. The hike was very easy, as there is a  military post up there and the road very good and parking lot is just several meters below the peak. The views from up there were breathtaking, we could see all around the island. This is the view to SE...

...and this to the West. The rock on the left is Roque Nublo, and the peak above the clouds is Pico del Teide in Tenerife.

We drove down on the SE side of hills and while we expected the temperature to not be high in the hills, we discovered it was even lower in the shady valleys. We stopped several times and the coldest point was where I photographed this flower, it was only 5 deg Celsius.

We returned already in the dusk and were quite tired and hungry and we just grabbed some pizzas and beer in one of the bars in marina.

Next day we drove to the town of Arucas in the Northern part of the island. It must have been a wealthy and important town in the past, as it has lots of beautiful houses...

...with cute balconies, lots of parks...

...and a majestic cathedral.

Above the town was a small hill and we saw that there is a road going up there, so we figured there must be some pretty view from there. And it was. We had some troubles getting through the old part of the town with one-way streets, but finally we got above the town and above all the banana plantations around it. The visibility was even better than the day before and the entire island of Tenerife could be seen, not just it's highest mountain.

From there we drove towards the town of Teror. It was a great drive through the hills, with lots of eucalyptus and pine trees along the road.

I don't know how the town got it's name, but I can hardly think it has something to do with terror. It is far too pretty for that. There are all these old buildings with balconies...

...and great doors with all the decoration.

In the centre of the town there is a basilica...

...with enormous tree in front of it...

...and more pretty buildings around it.

We did found a house that was a bit shabby though, but I found it charming with all the plants growing on it's roof.

There were also some parks with elaborate benches.

We sat down at one of the restaurants right on the main square beneath the giant tree and ate some typical Canary dishes - ropa vieja (old rag), a meat and chickpeas stew, and stewed goat. They were both delicious and the price moderate, despite the location. The legend goes that ropa vieja got its name as father, who was so poor he didn't have any food to feed his children, out of desperation cooked his own clothes and because it was cooked with so much love and prayer it turned into delicious meat stew. Canary immigrants took the recipe with them to Cuba and other Caribbean island, where the dish was modified a bit, but is also very popular.

In early afternoon we left Teror and drove further towards hills.