Island Hopping 2024: Canary Islands; Mount Teide Stargazing

Reading, looking up to enjoy the spectacular scenery, dozing off, then reading again.  This is our cycle of life while at the villa.  We spend most of our time on the balconies.  I like to move from one place to another. Sandy has found a chair in an alcove of the lower balcony that she has made her own personal nest.  

Together, beneath the golden caress of the Canary Islands' sun, we found solace on our weathered marble balcony.  Its timeworn stones, warmed by the day's embrace, cradled us in our individual daydreams. The undulating whispers of the Atlantic winds, are a constant companion and to me, at least, weave tales of ancient mariners and distant shores.  This is the magical feel of this place and this island.

In the evening we booked a stargazing tour to the top of Mount Teide.  The tallest mountain in all of Spain, Mount Teide, towers above the Atlantic Ocean offering an unparalleled vantage point for observing the cosmos. Its elevation minimizes atmospheric interference and its island isolation reveals a pantheon of celestial wonders, from distant galaxies to the dance of neighboring planets.  The telescopes at the top of the mountains revealed planets, nebulas, galaxies and binary stars to us.  Photos from the Hubble Space Telescope have spoiled us in terms seeing many of the wonders of the universe in color.  Yet, there is still something special about staring through the eye piece of a telescope and seeing first hand the Orion nebula, albeit that the light I am seeing through the telescope lens actually left the nebula 1,344 years ago (about the time the vandals were sacking Rome).  Still, it was new to me!

Constellation Orion taken with iPhone.  Tip of the dagger is where the Orion Nebula is, and where baby stars are born

Mount Teide

Sun Setting over Tenerife's sister island of La Gomera

Canary Island Pines found only on Canary Islands

Mount Teide, a volcano, is a little over 12,000 feet above sea level.  Atop this mountain  looking up at the stars the temperatures were cold, Icelandic cold.  As much as we appreciated the stargazing we were very happy to get back into the nice heated van.  We got back to our villa about midnight.  It was a good day in the Canary Islands. 

Bundled up for Stargazing

Island Hopping 2024: Canary Islands; Royal Garden Villas

 While the Canary Islands are only 62 miles from the African coast, and about 1,180 miles from Madrid, they are still part of Spain and have been since 1496 when King  Ferdinand and Queen Isabella acquired the islands through exploration and conquest.  

Today these islands are a vacation paradise.  The vast majority of the travelers we have run into at the Villas have been British.  I scheduled this leg of the trip for Sandy.  I felt that she was such a good sport about going to Iceland with me that I owed her some warm weather and a place that is simply dedicated to rest and relaxation.  

And rest and relaxation is exactly what we did today.  After a gourmet breakfast, (I concentrated on the Spanish ham, jamón) we drove down to the Supermercado to buy a few groceries.  After that we spent the day relaxing around our villa and some of the public spaces.  I used the plunge pool followed by the outdoor bathtub (at lobster boiling temperatures).  Of course much of the time was spent just relaxing, reading, and gazing out at the scenery. 

Island Hopping 2024: Traveling from Iceland to the Canary Islands

 What a difference a day makes.  Stealing that line from Dinah Washington’s Grammy winning song could not be more appropriate for today’s travels.  We started the day working our way through packed ice which, in Iceland is also called the airport parking lot, and ended the day on a tropical island that rightly bills itself as the land of Eternal Spring.  

Me scarfing down some bacon and crumpets at the Saga Lounge Keflavik, note the glass table top embedded in the glacial rock

Our last view of Iceland

The Canary Islands are another story of mantle plumes (hot spots) and plate tectonics.  As the African Plate inexorably drifts over the mantle, colliding into and then under the European plate, the hotspot remains fixed, continually building up pressure until it finally pokes a hole through the earth’s crust of the ocean floor in the form of a volcano.  And there, forms an island.  Eventually the volcano cools down and the African plate moves on, until again pressure builds up again and the process is repeated forming the archipelago of the Canaries.  Today, this archipelago and the Island of Tenerife, the island on which we are staying, stands as a testament to the relentless forces that shape our planet.  Even some Pleistocene glaciation played a part in these islands landscaping.  That said, it is also a fine place to sit back and vacation with style and comfort.

Views of the Island and Mount Teide from the air

String of side vents lower on the island

We are staying at the Royal Garden Villas.  While we have not yet explored the entire complex our villa itself is beautiful and a good place for Sandy to thaw out. 

 

First Floor

Outdoor Dining Space

The Outdoor Bathtub

Lower Balcony

Heated Plunge Pool and Day Bed

Island Hopping 2024: Iceland; A Travel Day

 Sadly we will leave Iceland tomorrow.  So today was set aside to move from the Hotel Rangá to an airport hotel.  We did not want to take the chance of being too far from the airport with an early flight tomorrow morning.  So, we had to say goodbye to our new friends from London, Nick and Eleanor.  We packed up our Iceland clothes and had them sent back to the U.S., scraped the ice off of our car and headed back to the Keflavik Airport.  

Usually we do not appreciate rainy days when we are on vacation but today it was a blessed rainy day!  The roads were the clearest we have experienced in Iceland and it made our two hour drive almost pleasant.

We were a little surprised how fast the government has taken poor little Grindavik off the grid.  This is the town that the latest volcano has swallowed up with its lava and earthquake activity that has destroyed roads to and from the town.  They just scratched off the town! 

We enjoyed going through a couple towns.  The churches are oftentimes quite interesting structures.  

With only a stop at a charging station to top off the car before returning it to Hertz we arrived at the airport in the late afternoon.

                                                                    Nick and Eleanor

We did not do all of the things in Iceland that we had hoped to, but we did have a wonderful time, and we did see the Northern Lights!  This was a good visit and we hope to return, though next time we will target a month with a little more dependable weather. 

Island Hopping 2024: Iceland; Another Day of Hunkering Down, Brunswick Pool Tables, Northern Lights

I was so determined to beat the weather today, come hell or high water …  Actually hell or blowing snow, I was going to make it to Vik or Flúðin (don’t try to pronounce it).  Finally, I decided to try to get at least to Hella, just a few miles down the road where there are some interesting Celtic caves.  We ran into a British couple in the restaurant who told us their paid driver in a big four-wheel off-road vehicle had canceled their travels today due to the weather.  That was a hint to me that I probably should not go out … but still, how often am I in Iceland.  As I was out cleaning snow and ice off of the car, a big wheel jeep-like truck pulled into the parking lot.  Again, I started doubting myself when all four passengers got out and started kissing the ground, or at least the foot of snow on top of the ground.  When I told them that I was going to try to drive the Tesla up to Hella, they politely said that they did not want to discourage me, but that I must be nuts.  I went back into the lobby to check the screen that keeps track of the road condition in Iceland and found that the road in both directions was ordered closed.  Our hotel is now technically an island in a sea of impassable snow.  We are hunkered down with a bunch of other international travelers.  This is not how I had envisioned our time in Iceland, but I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.

Red roads closed, blue road danger, snow and ice.

At one point, Sandy and I played pocket billiards (pool) to pass a little time.  I was pleased to find that it was a Brunswick Table.  

The history of Brunswick Pool Tables is a tale as rich and nuanced as a finely crafted cue stick. Picture this: It's the mid-19th century, and John Moses Brunswick decides he's done with building carriages and that billiard tables are the way to go. I mean, who wouldn't want to shoot pool instead of sitting at the south end of a north bound horse drawing a carriage?

Fast forward, and Brunswick becomes the rock star of the billiards world. They're crafting pool tables that are smoother than one of Sandy’s one-line courtroom retorts. It's like he looked at a beautiful slab of wood and some pancake flat slate and said, "You know what this needs? Pockets. And maybe some felt."

Through the roaring twenties, the groovy sixties, and beyond, Brunswick Pool Tables have been the centerpiece of man caves and pool halls alike. It's the kind of history you can't just chalk up to luck – it's a precise bank shot of innovation and craftsmanship. So, here's to Brunswick, keeping the world entertained, one perfectly aligned shot at a time.

More than fifty years ago my first job out of college was with Brunswick and shortly thereafter I was transferred to Marion, Virginia which is where all the Billiard Tables were made.  It was a thrill to me, that here, in a remote Hotel, on a lava bed on the southern coast of Iceland, was a pool table that was made in the little town (6,000 people) of Marion, Virginia.  Small world, big world, you never know where the connections will be found.  

The "Lancaster Red", Lining up her bank shot

Brunswick Tables, still the best ever made

Another cup of hot chocolate and some food from the bar made for one more good day in Iceland.  

But wait there is more. After settling down for the evening we got the “Northern Lights” call from the front desk.  That is why we scheduled Iceland in the middle of the winter...for a chance to see the Northern Lights.

In the vast theater of our planet's magnetosphere lies a mesmerizing phenomenon known as the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. Like cosmic ballet dancers, charged particles from the Sun, carried on solar winds, collide with Earth's magnetic field. These particles (broken atoms), predominantly electrons and protons, collide with and excite the atoms in our atmosphere, particularly oxygen and nitrogen.

As these atoms return to their unexcited state, they release that excess energy in the form of light, painting the night sky with vibrant hues of green, red, and purple. This dance of light is orchestrated by the altitude at which these collisions occur and the specific gases involved, dictating the varying colors and intensities we witness.

In the end, a symphony of physics unfolds—a testament to the intimate connection between our home planet and the Sun, encapsulating the beauty of nature's interplay with magnetic fields and particle physics, and it captivates our human spirit with its ethereal brilliance.

Tonight Sandy and I, and the other residents of the Hotel Rangá were so captivated!  As Northern Lights displays go, this was probably a 3 on a scale of 10, but that matters little.  We saw them!  And, witnessed first hand, this breathtaking interaction between the Sun and its third satellite out.

Following this celestial show we looked for our fellow travelers from London, England in the hope that they, too, were able to see the Lights.  At this time we really didn’t know Nick and Elanor, but to our good fortune, they turned out to be a very interesting couple who looked forward to future travel of their own.  Another big plus is that they are both accountants.  Can’t get any more interesting than that!  We enjoyed having a nightcap with them and a pleasant conversation despite the language barrier.  Sandy and I tried to get them thinking about Ohio as a future vacation destination. 

Brennivin

Served in a Lava Rock Shot Glass