Vacay part 4, Canary Islands!

7/26/15

I don't even know where to begin with the Canary Islands! We did three stops, each on a different island.
1. Lanzarote City
2. Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
3. Tenerife

Here are some of the highlights of each of the islands.

Our first stop was in Lanzarote.

A famous artist, Cesar Manrique, lived here. Not only is his artwork displayed all throughout the island but he also convinced the town to paint all of the buildings the same shade of white and to use only blue or green paint as trim accent. Blue for by the water, green for inland.

Our favorite excursion was Timanfaya National Park, which gave us a good look at the volcanic aspect of the islands. Views were breathtaking and you could feel the heat of the volcano, the park rangers gave quite an interesting demo. My favorite part though was driving through the lava fields.

We also were able to stop at a winery and along the very rocky coast. Water was brilliant blue and looked gorgeous against the dark rocks.

The second stop was in Las Palmas which was equally as beautiful.

The caldera is the crater below the Bandama, an extinct volcano. Sadly, photos don't do justice as to how beautiful the view was.

Teror was a small town that we were able to visit and walk around. All of the roads up to it were very twisty and narrow. The bus ride was very scary! The town itself was a marvel. The town square was beautiful. Everything was very clean and the people were welcoming.

Arucas was home to this gorgeous Gothic cathedral. All day (as we drove around) we were able to see bits and pieces of it. Stunning!

Las Canteras beach. One of the many statues, El Atlante, this was one of my favorites.

In the port area, Joe loved seeing the military drill and I fell in love with the statue and garden of the cat lady...

Our final island stop was Tenerife.

This was our view as we headed off for our tour. We saw these tunnels on all the islands. I don't know why, but I thought they were very cool...

 

 

I had this great idea to do a cultural tour that included a museum. Figured that way we would experience a different aspect on each of the three Canary Islands. The only downside to this was that everything in the museum was in Spanish and our tour guide was MIA for most of the tour. Group kept getting separated so we ended up wandering around inside and outside and just being sure to be back at the bus at the designated time. The multi-colored cars in the picture are street cars. 

 

The second part of the tour was in a small town, beautiful buildings and a market area. Again, she walked way ahead of the group and most of us ended up wandering alone and then meeting up with the group back at the bus. I took dozens of pictures of buildings, very unique doors, windows and flower boxes. Statues everywhere!

Just a few ports left before we head home so I'll wrap them up in Part 5!