It’s an easy drive back down to La Laguna – one road (albeit narrow) that leads right into town. We find the parking lot easily enough, although it is a pay lot and everything I saw said it was free – it is what it is. Then we commence to wander into town (after I unknowingly drop the parking ticket on the ground, and thankfully Ed sees it, so I can rescue it. That would have been a disaster!). We pass through the Plaza del Adelantado with its beautifully manicured trees and church on one side and monastery on the other. Crossing the street, we walk into the pedestrian area under a canopy of Christmas lights that ruin the effect of the 15th century buildings, but probably look gorgeous at night. The town’s layout was used as a template for lots of cities and towns across Spain and in the new world, and it does have a familiar feel to it – grand buildings lining cobblestone streets, huge churches on pretty squares and cafes with outdoor tables dotting the street.
Our first stop is the Cathedral De La Laguna, where a christening is being held. The interior of the church is immense with high white washed walls and gothic arches. The main altar, where the babies are being blessed, is surrounded by beautiful stained glass windows, and leads to the long center aisle that ends with a monstrous organ. A side chapel holds a gorgeous golden Jesus. Beautiful. Outside, the cathedral is the typical white and grey stonework design seen in most of these islands. Further into the village, we pass the Teatro Leal, then ending at the Iglesia de la Concepcion with its tall brown stone bell tower grandly presiding over the town. It’s a beautiful little town, and a nice walk, but oh boy is it crowded – and mostly with what appear to be locals. It’s a lovely Sunday morning, and obviously everyone is out for a stroll and maybe a bite to eat.
We’ve researched 2 restaurants here, both near the car park, but our first choice has conflicting opening times. Knowing we have options, we head back that way, finding a really pretty little church square directly across the street from the, yes, closed restaurant. They open at 1, but that’s far too late for us and our 3:30 all aboard time. Plan B time again, we walk to the next block to La Cava de Aguere, a wine bar that looks like it has good tapas. Success this time, as they are open, and completely empty – we’re their only customers so far today. A lovely older couple owns and operates the cafe, the wife front of house, hubby back of house. Taking a seat at a front table, the wife greets us and doesn’t appear to speak much English, which is fine, I can practice my broken Spanish! She does have English menus, which is a huge help, and we settle on a plate of sausage and 1/2 ration of cheese for Ed, along with the special “fried” artichokes with Iberico for me, adding a 1/2 portion of bread with which to wash everything down. Ed of course has beer, now I must choose the wine. I have my painful Spanish discussion, basically saying I’d like white wine, and can she suggest something. I also tell here I like everything, pero Chardonnay no! She asks if I want wine from the Canaries or from the peninsula, and I tell her either, so she brings over 2 to taste. Both are excellent, but I end up choosing the one from Lanzarote, which is quite good and has a really interesting bottle. We happily sip our beer and wine, waiting for the food. Ed’s comes out first of course, being easily prepared. Mine takes a bit longer, and when it arrives, the artichokes aren’t actually fried, but baked (actually microwaved – we wondered what Papa could possibly be cooking in the micro back there, now we know!), they are soaked (almost poached) in this excellent rosemary laced olive oil and literally melt in your mouth. So very good! After another round of drinks, we finish up our meal, and I decide to splurge on a bottle of Lanzarote wine (a whole 16 Euros!) to take back with me. I figure if they take it when we board, I’ll have it for Sanibel anyway.
The parking lot is only a block away, and we find the parking quite reasonable at a total of 1.05 Euros. We can even pay that in cash! The ride back into Santa Cruz is simple, as is navigating into the port. The only drawback is that it is Sunday and there isn’t a grocery store open on the island, so we have no way to stock up for the crossing, or buy gifts for the crew. That’s a little bit of a bummer.
Car turned in, walk back to the ship accomplished, we spend the rest of the afternoon on the balcony watching the comings and goings of passengers up and down the dock. There’s something going on with us, we must be missing someone, because we have officers on the dock looking toward the port gates and a guy on a phone, also looking down the dock. A shuttle bus pulls up about 5 minutes before we are scheduled to leave, but then quickly pulls away and we can see if anyone gets off or not. But, end up sailing right on time, so, who knows? Unless we can coax the information out of someone, we’ll just have a mystery on our hands.
We do have one mystery solved, though. When we arrived back in our room we had a note from a new butler telling us Rudolf, our original butler has left the ship due to a medical emergency, which of course concerns us, because he seemed fine, but we didn’t see him that often. Nemanja, who is taking over for Rudolf comes to meet us and lets us know Rudolf is being treated reportedly doing well. He has high blood pressure and diabetes and they were concerned about him staying on during the crossing. That’s a relief. We had a helicopter medical evacuation on Saturday, but that apparently was a passenger. There was an ambulance this morning at the pier, and that may have been Rudolf. To add to this medically challenged segment of the blog, one of the Cruise Critic folks disembarked today in Tenerife as well. He had high blood pressure issues and the medical staff were concerned about him crossing so he and his wife (who organized all the cruise critic activities) left and were flying home.
On that note – we are now sailing across the Atlantic, in a little bit of rocky seas, on our way to Nassau on Sunday!
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