Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Back on Tenerife

@brittarnhild

 

We are back on the Canary Island Tenerife.
For two weeks.

 

I might blog. I might now.

Time will show.

 

 

Before the plane take us home

@brittarnhild

The last day has arrived. In the afternoon a plane will take us away from our two weeks in the sun, back to winter in Norway.
We don't have to check out until noon, so we go for a walk in the morning and stop for a cup of coffee along thew way. It is Sunday and many cafés are closed, but finally we find an open one.

Back at the hotel we pack, fill up the dar with our suitcases and drive to Los Abrigos, a finish village on the way to the airport. It is much more quiet here than in Los Cristianos. We aften go here for coffee and a stroll, but today lunch in one of the many small restaurants on the way down to the harbour is our goal.

We are lucky and get a table just before the restaurant fills up, and we feel even more lucky when the paella arrives. Wow, what a feast. Now we are prepared and ready for the long travel home.

 

The Valley of the Almond Trees

@brittarnhild

If you travel up in the mountains northwest on Tenerife you might be lucky and find the valley of the almond trees. With even more luck you find the trees in bloom.

The legend tells about a farmer falling in love with a Nordic girl. They married and she moved to his remote farm high up among the volcano stones. The air was filled with love, but after a few years the farmer knew that something was not quite right. "I am missing the snow of my homelands winter" the woman cried. The man thought long and hard and one day he came up with the perfect solution. He filled the black valley with almond trees. They bloomed in January and when his wife danced under them the petals fell, covering her just like snowflakes.

   

We go up there every January when we are in Tenerife.
The lovely blooming inspires me, to photograph, to write, to paint, to live.....

Evgeny Kissin

@brittarnhild

Terje had his birthday last week, and part of my birthday gift (actually it is also part of his gift to me) is a concert in the great concert hall in Santa Crus, on Tenerife. We have been in Santa Cruz several times and always been almost kind of star struck when we pass the concert hall. It is so beautiful. One year we even went inside and had coffee in the little coffee shop, but this year it was time for the final step, a concert.

     

We came early and found a parking spot close by. Somebody had told us to make sure to look at the stones down by the sea. We did and this is what we saw. Quite a few portraits of world known musicians.

     

Then we did a walk in the city. We had coffee, we had dinner, we strolled around and we even did some exercise, in our "best clothes". And had a lot of fun of course.

And finally the time for the concert had come.
A piano concert with Evgeny Kissin!

We had not heard of him, but I sent a message to my youngest brother, the musician/conducter and he could tell me - he is world known.

He played for two hours, Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Shumann, Tchaikovsky
 and more.......and it was mesmerising. Absolutely mesmerising. The applause would never end and we were given three extra pieces.

Kissin is now on my list of favourites on Spotify and if I ever get the chance, I will go to more of his concerts.

 

Welcome to Maipas del Güímar

@brittarnhild

Welcome to Maipas del Güímar, a volcanic territory of extraordinary beauty!

We discovered this track along to coast, with a view directly over to Grand Canary, a few years ago, and found d it a perfect place for hiking. I think today was our third visit here, with the sun, the blue sky and the sound of the ever dancing waves.

As we start the hike, we pass a few houses built more or less like caves into the lava stones. I wonder how it is to live like this.

But soon we are out in the loneliness.

     

I love it when there are signposts set up to teach us about what we see alone the hike. Like this information about plans.

And to learn about how people lived centuries ago.

     

Look, I even found a nativity.
Probably set up on top of some memorial.
May be a shipwreck.

 

 

Coffee under the poinsettias

@brittarnhild

Two cities, up on the northern coast of Tenerife, La Orotava and Puerto de la Cruz. I call them the flower cities, because of the much climate you find flowers everywhere here.

We started in. La Orotave, the smaller of the two, and the steepest, situated down, ur up, a hill. We had coffee under huge poinsettias. Back home the poinsettia is very popular around Christmas, we call them Christmas Stars, and we find them big if they have three "flowers", red groups of leaves. Here they are like trees.

I discovered the area through Marianne North.
When I first read her books I came here, searching for "the" botanical garden, only to discover that the gardens are so many, we find new ones every time we come.

After the dry landscape south on the island, where we stay, it feels like paradise to come here.

Paradise, with paradise birds.

I buy seed packets with red and yellow hibiscus seeds and dream of my own hibiscuses at home.

And when we do our daily 5 kilometer + hike, down in Puerto de la Cruz, I stop all the time for photos.

 

I had a plan

@brittarnhild

During our first week in Tenerife I have finished knitting a pair of socks using tiny little skeins of left over yarn given to me by a friend. I love the bright yellow colours and got a plan to take them up to the almond tree valley where the lava stones are black and thousands and thousands of aeoniums grow directly up from the old lava.

It did not turn out as I had planned. Walking on the black stones was like walking on needles, I could not stand it for more than a couple of seconds.

I love the aeoniums. I have two at home which I keep in the greenhouse during the summer, in a kitchen window during winter.

Yes, I call this the almond tree valley, and we were lucky. The first almost trees were in bloom.
One year when we arrived here, the whole valley was in bloom.

 

From coffee to gluhwine?

@brittarnhild

Vilaflor, with an altitude of 1400 meter is the highest village on Tenerife. We always stop there for a coffee on our way up ti Teide, always at the same restaurant. Today we had no plans to drive up to Teide, but we wanted to drive up to Vilaflor anyway, for a cup of coffee at "our" restaurant. Arriving there, Terje took a wrong turn, and all of a sudden we discovered that the village was much more exciting then we had ever seen.  We drove through the village, up, up, up, found a parking place ands went for a walk. And a coffee of course.

There are two churches on the top of the village, one of them a monastery church connected to the saint Don Hermano Pedro. Inside I found a nativity, as we do everywhere on the island at this time of the year. The most amazing thing here was a fire with a coffee pot. It looked like Joseph had the coffee ready. For Maria?

Or may be for the Holy Kings?

I could not help myself playing with the idea baby Jesus got to turn the coffee into hot gluhwine, LOL

 

     

     

In an artisan shop I met a woman who worked with and told us about the local craft tradition, "rosetas", but that's another tale.

 

       

Not a day without a hike

@brittarnhild

We get daily weather reports from back home during our stay here. For the moment it is terrible cold, so we shower ourselves in the very nice temperatures down here in the sun, and make sure to do long walks while we are here.

     

We went back to the Reserve Natural on the southern tip off the island today, but before that we wanted to visit the market here in Los Cristianos, where out hotel is. The town has a market twice a week, and though we have talked about it many times, we have never visited it on our previous visits. I am not much of a shopper, and not at all a market shopper, but Terje found himself a new belt, ands a swimming shorts.

My feet felt very heavy on our hike today. But we managed 5 kilomets, which is our goal. I did not take many pictures, but managed to do some footage which I will use in my next video on YouTube.

In the afternoon we went back to the church for an afternoon Sunday service.

 

Rice porridge and orange juice

@brittarnhild

The Church of Norway has a "church" here in Tenerife, not far from our hotel. The Norwegian Seamen´s Church.  The church is open several days a week, among them every Saturday for lunch when they serve the traditional risengrynsgrøt (rice grain porridge).

The porridge is very popular and today we went there to have our share.
We do not go just for the porridge of course, but also to meet other Norwegian, have a cup of coffee, chat, and look through the rich bookshelves where you can leave your old books and buy "a new one" for one Euro.

In the afternoon Terje and I drove to a nearby village, Playa Las Galletas. For a stroll, for a cappuccino, or a glass of orange juice as I preferred today, and for some bird watching. 

We love bird watching when we are here. We always bring our binoculars, but for some unknown reason I left my camera at home this year. The camera on the cell phone is not good enough for  birds, still I can't stop trying.

Can you see which bird this is?

Some years ago I met an artist on the Holy Island Lindisfarne in Great Britain who painted the most amazing pictures of the ocean. Who do you do it, I asked, the water is always moving, how do you know what to paint? Well, I take pictures, was his reply. I also take pictures, but I have no idea how to paint the water.