The Canary Islands

This was our hotel the first night.  It was called El Patio and it was the old villa of a banana plantation.  There are lots of banana planations on the islands.  It was a bed and breakfast.  They did serve bananas.

The colors of all the buildings were beautiful.  Depending on how recent the buildings were they would either be built of stone masonry or concrete block.  Then they would plaster the outside.  They used all colors.  This one made a nice contrast.

Roofs were tile, no matter how old or new the building was.  Here was a small villa that was particularly old on Tenerife in Taborno.

This was a whitewashed old house, the last on the road beyond Taborno.  The old lady came out to say hi to us.

Of course, the cities were different.  Well, not really.  These resort areas don't really count.  This is Las Playas de Las Americas.  It's all Germans and English who stay here, therefore the culture here is more of a 24-7 continental European lifestyle.  No siesta in Las Playas.

This was a townhome in Santa Cruz de La Palma, the capital city of the island of La Palma.  Again, colors are really nice.

This was on La Palma as well, but at the top of a 8000 peak.  There was an astrophysical observatory that was funded by Spain, EU, and the US.

I particularly liked the architectural style of La Palma.  During the plastering, they would leave the cornerstones on the building's edges bare.  It really gave it a nice touch.  Plus the colors...

Once again, we have a major resort.  Of course, this is not the traditional canarian way of life.  You could have this in Bora Bora, Maldives, Qatar, or where ever...

Ask any builder in the Canaries and I'm sure you could get a lesson on retaining walls.  The land is definitely not flat.

This was in the town square in a little village called San Andres on La Palma, just north of Santa Cruz.  It had the nicest restaurant/cafe that we had enjoyed on our whole stay.

This is also from the town square in San Andres on La Palma.

This is the town square in a village on Tenerife called Vilaflor.  This is in the upper part of town.  The small cubies are for market vendors.

This is a remnant of the old style way of life.  There was no road into this small village called Las Palmas in the Anaga Mountains on Tenerife.

There were plenty of caves and people seemed to burrow into places to make small sheds and even houses.  Here is a small shed near a vinyard in the Anaga.

Next Pictures...  Flora and Fauna...