Category Archives: vacation

At the conclusion of Monday’s article on our transatlantic Vision of the Seas arrival into La Palma in the Canary Islands, I was showing you our trek onto Santa Cruz d La Palma’s fun pedestrian street Calle O’Daly. Today we continue that northeasterly trek to where Calle O’Daly becomes Calle Real for a short stretch before changing names again to Calle Anselmo Pérez de Brito.

The street scenes here are lovely with brightly colored pennants, picturesque balconies, wonderful streetlights protruding from building façades, and cafés with umbrellas offering shade to patrons.

But as lovely as this street is, things get really interesting where it changes names to Calle Real. It is here that the street fronts Plaza de España with its Renaissance architecture and Iglesia Matriz de El Salvador (Mother Church of El Salvador) with her incredible stone bell tower. Here is the church entrance and a statue of Manuel Diaz Hernandez:

Let’s take another look at that massive red door:

On the westside of Plaza de España is what appears to be a brightly decorated open air altar:

But, wait… what am I forgetting? Oh, I know. I mentioned the beautiful stone belltower:

Disregard the clock on that belltower. It was still early morning when I zoomed in on the upper details:

Don’t forget to occasionally turn around to view from a different perspective the areas you’ve already passed. About three minutes’ walk past the church, well after Calle Real becomes Calle Anselmo Pérez de Brito, you’ll be able to capture the buildings from atop a hill:

Needless to say, looking east occasionally will give you charming views such as this mottled white and blue statue of a whale on the black sand beach from which Santa Cruz de La Palma is famous:

This week’s Fun Photo Friday will be the first of three dedicated to Santa Cruz de La Palma. See you then!

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

Ursula and I only recently got back from a trip that began with a flight to Fort Lauderdale on 27 April 2022, and didn’t see us return until 7 July. This was yet another transatlantic cruise aboard a Royal Caribbean ship, Vision of the Seas. Now, I love sea days, as it affords me the opportunity to play bridge. And play I did, twice a day every day at sea. But on 7 May it was time to get down to the business of photography as we made port in the city of Santa Cruz de La Palma on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands.

Now, Ursula and I have been to La Palma before, but we went into the interior on tour. For this visit we opted to hoof it into town and see the sights on our own.

So, early morning, we set out on foot. The sun was low in the east and clouds shrouded the peaks above the city.

La Palma offered me a lot of color, and I began taking advantage of this even before we left the pier:

One of the first images hovering over you as you leave the port for downtown is this charming church perched high above:

After exiting the port and making our way to the pedestrian street Calle O’Daly, we turned northeast and headed toward the sights. This is a great street to walk, take in the scenery, and enjoy the atmosphere without the traffic.

We’ll continue this walk on Wednesday, but for now I’ll leave you with images of the typical doors and wonderful balconies for which Santa Cruz de La Palma is known: