Some island cruising - The Canaries and Sicily, then Milan

[RooFlyer]

Dinner on the outside terrace of the main a la carte restaurant.

Tonight's menu



And here is part of the wine list for purchase. I have a lot of credit to get through! (Although I ended up buying a bunch of clothes as well). I get a 25% status discount on anything I buy on board. @Daver6, @TheRealTMA (or anyone) - comments?





I bought this on the sommelier's recommendation. Amuse bouche




Sardines; and finishing off the Riesling I bought before.



Duck margret



Cheese plate and a rum baba.



Sitting quite contented afterwards. The view was clear until this monstrosity reversed into its berth, behind us.

 

[SYD]

Note the absence of a centre line.

View attachment 503223

Centrelines? Luxury compared to driving around Cornwall - single lane roads, 12ft high hedge rows either side, blind corners and ridiculously high speed limits! Exciting stuff - SYD+1 begged to disagree .

I now want to go back to the Canary Islands and do some road trips!

 

[SYD]

Duck margret

View attachment 503253

One of my favourite Spanish dishes!

Something they do particularly well and obviously not the same ducks we get here. The first time a had it on BCN, I thought it was sirloin! Yum.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Dinner on the outside terrace of the main a la carte restaurant.

Tonight's menu

View attachment 503245

And here is part of the wine list for purchase. I have a lot of credit to get through! (Although I ended up buying a bunch of clothes as well). I get a 25% status discount on anything I buy on board. @Daver6, @TheRealTMA (or anyone) - comments?

View attachment 503246 View attachment 503247

View attachment 503248 View attachment 503249

I bought this on the sommelier's recommendation. Amuse bouche


View attachment 503251 View attachment 503250

Sardines; and finishing off the Riesling I bought before.

View attachment 503252

Duck margret

View attachment 503253

Cheese plate and a rum baba.

View attachment 503254 View attachment 503255

Sitting quite contented afterwards. The view was clear until this monstrosity reversed into its berth, behind us.

View attachment 503256

Looks very nice.
Nice wine list. Jealous!

Suggest.
Mendoza Chardonnay
Pouilly-Fuissé
Bouchard Père & Fils Meursault
Andre Brunel Les Cailloux Chateauneuf du Pape

 

[Pushka]

"Sélection de glaces et sorbets"

Always sounds so much nicer than ice cream. Menu looked fab.

Do we get to see the new clothes?

 

[RooFlyer]

This morning we are at Santa Cruz de Tenerife and I'm looking forward to a bus trip up to the mountain that dominates the island - and those around it, El Teide or Mount Teide or Pico del Teide and which used to be called the Peak of Tenerife. (BTW, anyone familiar with Frenchman's Cap in Tasmania might know that it was originally called 'The Peak of Tenerife' ).

Looking out my suite window in the morning showed just a tiny part of Santa Cruz, which has a wider urban population of about 500,000.





Our route.



After we left the urban area, we entered a forest of Canary Island pine, Pinus canariensis. It has several characteristics - the needles are in groups of threes (usually two), and get very long (up to 20cm) but most significantly, they are fire resistant and regenerate after being burned. Most pines die in a fire and the forest takes decades to re-establish. We are here



A fire went through in 2022 I think, and you can see not only the forest still alive, but the trees re-shooting.



A shot for the botanists out there.



Then at a stop - El Teide. We will be going up to where it flattens out at the very far centre left of the photos. Early this year was very wet in the Canaries, so there was a lot of snow on Teide, hence a lot surviving until now.





And around the corner, we see the cluster of observatories taking advantage of the elevation.



View a bit further on - we drive right through this landscape to the foot of the peak.

 

[RooFlyer]

We entered the Canadas caldera which semi surrounds El Teide - caldera is the 3/4 circle structure W, S and E of the peak, which has the dark lava flows draping off it.



The peak, with lava flows stopped in their tracks. Wikipedia:

Its summit at 3,715 m is the highest point in Spain and the highest of any island in the Atlantic Ocean. Measured from its base on the ocean floor, Teide reaches a total height of 7,500 m, making it the third-tallest volcano in the world; UNESCO and NASA also rank it as Earth's third-tallest volcanic structure. Its elevation above sea level makes Tenerife the tenth-highest island in the world.



There is a cable car going most of the way to the top of the mountain!





Ultimately we reached the National Park visitor's centre, where there is also A Parador hotel, where we had some refreshments.





We had an hour or so here, to wander around, There are a number of rocky features and as usual, many tourists visiting.





Spoiler: Things are going to get geological - but near with me.

The red-brown is from an eruption from Teide in about 1790. The most recent eruption was in 1909. The mountains in the background are part of that caldera I mentioned earlier.



And a panorama

 

[RooFlyer]

And this is where it gets interesting - truly!

That caldera. A volcano caldera is usually shaped like a volcanic crater but unlike a volcanic crater, which forms by blowing stuff out, the caldera forms after stuff is blown out, and the volcanic cone collapses down on top of the empty magma chamber below, leaving a ~circle of raised edge.

A Canarian volcanologist worked out what has happened here.

The caldera, now 10km across and up to 2km deep (!!) - or the remaining 3/4 of it, formed after the collapse of a volcano which formed 4 million - 0.5 million years ago and was much higher than the 3,700m high Teide. About 200,000 years ago, the north side of the entire complex collapsed, creating a massive landslide into the sea. Something like that happening today is unimaginable.



So, I lied again. The Canadas caldera isn't from the collapse of a volcano upon itself, but the wholesale slide of the guts of the volcano down to the sea.



Then, about 170,000 years ago, the Teide stratavolcano started forming, building on the remnant of the Canadas caldera and its lavas have re-filled much of the caldera depression.

File:Teide 3d - version2.gif - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Some parting views



Frozen ~250 yo lava flows.

 

[SYD]

I was blissfully unaware how dramatic Tenerife actually is.

I’ve been to Gran Canaria and bounced through Lanzarote to get their but always equated Tenerife with the worst aviation disaster in history.

Tenerife airport disaster - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TheRealTMA]

Unfortunate event for some tourists .

One killed as bus full of British tourists plunges into Canary Islands ravine

British pensioner confirmed dead after tourist coach suffers brake failure while descending steep mountain road

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[RooFlyer]

Unfortunate event for some tourists .

One killed as bus full of British tourists plunges into Canary Islands ravine

British pensioner confirmed dead after tourist coach suffers brake failure while descending steep mountain road

www.telegraph.co.uk

That something like that happened doesn't surprise me, having seen the roads and terrain. One of our coaches didn't have seat belts, and I got up Ponant about that. (They don't organise the tours - its done through a third party who will hopefully be feeling some heat).

One the drive back to the boat, we passed the concert hall.









Lunch in my usual spot.



After a quick swim in the pool, I went for a walk into town. Greater Santa Cruz has a population of about 0.5 million and like Las Palmas, its roads, port etc is excellent. On the walk from the port, there is a long line of double-sided bollards with names and accounts of well known folk who have visited Tenerife. This is about 1/3 of the length. Darwin, Lyell, Agatha Christie, Kings, Queens, Bligh, Cook, Jules Verne. Anyone who was anyone, really.



I didn't see much, but by the harbour it is mostly pedestrianised.





How to stop people climbing on roofs thatcome to the ground.

 

[RooFlyer]

More of Santa Cruz near the waterfront.









The inter island ferries are large and numerous.

 

[RooFlyer]

Do we get to see the new clothes?

Not on me.

Now. Cheese.

French cheese - Cheeses of France - a short guide

The cheeses of France; different types of French cheese and where they come from.

about-france.com

We had a tasting of the cheeses of Ponant's supplier, Bordier Cheese. I didn't go to that, but the full selection was available after dinner.









Cheese was consumed.

Good night, Santa Cruz.

 

[SYD]

View attachment 503526

Fun fact. That’s an Australian made ferry!

I recognised the design and initially thought it was a Tassie Incat but it’s an Austal (WA) built ferry.

View attachment 503527

Drumroll. That’s an Incat - Tassie born and bred!

 

[RooFlyer]

Another day, another island. Its Easter Monday and we are at La Palma, and its capital Santa Cruz.



OK - have you been paying attention? Spot the caldera. And being to the west, Las Palma is one of the younger islands, and the last eruption here was in 2021, that black strak just south of the caldera. It lasted 85 days, covered over 1,200 hectares, destroying roughly 3,000 homes and buildings, cutting off coastal roads, and covering crucial banana plantations, causing damages exceeding €843 million.



We were scheduled to go for a hike on this new volcano, but it was cancelled prior 'due to authorities putting numerical restrictions, which means we cannot go'. They replaced it with a hike on Teneguía volcano in the far south, which erupted in 1971 and the nearby San Antonio volcano, thought to have been seen in the 1600s but now thought to be a few thousand years old.

As usual, the roads were very good.



La Palma is said to be the steepest of the Canaries and one of the steepest in the world (peak - to coast). They grow Malvasia grapes for wine here, and Shakespeare mentions it (from La Palma) several times including drowning the Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward IV of England, in it.

William Shakespeare

www.malvasiamyth.com

And here are the vineyards.









Aspects of the hike, It was pretty easy, all downhill.

 

[RooFlyer]

Just boarded my Sicily cruise in Malta. Upgraded to a deluxe suite on the top deck. . Priority boarding, personal greetings from officers, Champagne in suite on arrival. Befitting a Grand Admiral with 5 future Ponant cruises booked.

Strong Anglo majority ( mostly Americans).

Going to have to get rid of those dirty rock chapters of this TR quickly and focus on this food and wine circumnavigation of Sicily.

 

[RooFlyer]

At the bottom of the walk, and of the island is an 'artisan' saltworks and lighthouses (old and new). And coffee shop. During the walk, I got chatting with the 'tail end Charlie' assigned to the hike (brings up the read, collects stragglers). He's from Hobart. Got a scholarship from a WA mining company that runs ships, so he's a very junior staff guy on the ship. Has spent 2-3 months around the Caribbean, then came across to do these runs. Not bad.









Back to the town, and in port is the huge Mein Schiff that we saw at the start. Our boat looks like its tender!

 

[RooFlyer]

After lunch, shore walk. Santa Cruz de La Palma is the capital .. town .. of the island with a population of about 16,000. Wikipedia:

The city was founded by Alonso Fernández de Lugo on May 3, 1493. It was located between a river which is situated by a cave named Tedote (now Cueva de Carías, located north of the city). The city, originally called Villa del Apurón, served as a port that connected routes to the Americas, exporting goods from the island such as sugarcane. The city was sacked by pirates and was later reconstructed and fortified against future pirate attacks. Famous fortifications include the Castillo de Santa Catalina and Castillo de la Virgen. The economic crisis that affected the agriculture sector brought the greatest loss of population in the city's history, which limited its expansion and caused the population to stabilize and drop to 11,000. The population did not approach its original 18,000 again for the next hundred years.

A wide black sand beach where they are playing soccer and volley ball





Houses along the 'Marine Avenue' with colourful balconies seems to be a feature of many of these towns.



The Royal Square, where several old and important buildings face.



The Mother Church of El Salvador (Iglesia Matriz de El Salvador) was begun in 1500 and has evolved since then, but essentially the same.

Iglesia de El Salvador, Santa Cruz de La Palma — Grokipedia

The Iglesia de El Salvador, also known as the Iglesia Matriz de El Salvador, is a historic parish church located in the Plaza de España in Santa Cruz de La Palma, the capital of La Palma island in Sp

grokipedia.com

Inside, the basilica-plan structure divides into three naves covered by an exceptional 16th-century wooden Mudéjar ceiling, renowned as one of the finest examples of Islamic-inspired artesonado work in the Canary Islands, characterized by intricate geometric patterns and vibrant colors. Notable interior elements include a glittering Baroque pulpit dating to 1750, a Neoclassical main altarpiece housing a 19th-century painting of the Transfiguration by Sevillian artist Antonio María Esquivel, and various religious sculptures such as a rare Gothic-Flemish depiction of Christ, alongside stained-glass windows and large portraits of Saints Christopher and Michael. The church also preserves Gothic remnants, including fluted pilasters, cylindrical columns of gray stone with Tuscan capitals, and a funerary slab in the crossing, reflecting a transitional style that survived historical threats like the 1553 pirate raid led by François Le Clerc.

The ceiling inside is exceptional -