Welcome to La Palma!

La Palma, the most north-westerly island of the Canary Islands and the third smallest, welcomes you with its extraordinary and diverse natural beauty, unspoilt cities and towns, warm-hearted islanders, and a treasure chest of possibilities for an unforgettable holiday. La Palma is also spoken of as “The beautiful island (La isla bonita)”, “The green island (La isla verde)” or even “The island of stars (La isla de las estrellas)”; you’ll find that none of those epithets are exaggerated: It is a small paradise that awaits you!

The climate that La Palma shares with the other Canary Islands deserves a special mention. It has rightly been described as “un clima benigno” (a benign climate): all year round it feels like spring with day-time temperatures ranging from 20-25 degrees Celsius and mild nights; rainfall is usually limited. At higher altitudes the air is cooler, but never cold. The driest places on the island lie in the South and Southwest, while the wetter and greener areas are in the North and Northeast.

Like the rest of the Canary Islands, La Palma is volcanic in origin and hence very mountainous. With its area of ca. 30 x 70 km, the small island’s highest peak, the Roque de los Muchachos, has an altitude of around 2400 meter. Steep slopes and deep valleys define the scenery. Especially impressive is the eroded crater of the “Caldera de Taburiente”, a cirque with a diameter of 9 km surrounded by slopes of up to 1200 m. The dry southern tip of the island features extensive lava fields and moon-landscapes, while the northern end is clad in dense cloud forests and pine woods and is home to unique dragon trees on account of the wealth of water in this part of the island. And of course, the sea is always present, either shimmering in the distance from a lookout of a few hundred meters or splashing in it on one of the beautiful black sanded beaches. Besides its two main cities, Santa Cruz and Los Llanos de Aridane, La Palma 12 towns and communities, some of which are still very rural.

The most momentous year in La Palma’s history was surely 1493, when it was conquered by the Spanish who were mainly interested in the Canary Islands for strategic reasons. Spanish rule brought to an end the culture of the island‘s original inhabitants, the Benahoaritas, who had lived on the island they called Benahoare for centuries in small groups. La Palma became a strategic staging post on the marine trade route to the Americas and Santa Cruz was, for a time, one of the most important ports in the Spanish Empire. The island faced the constant challenge of having to trade in order to feed its population, dealing first in sugar and wine, then silk fabrics and carmine, the red dye obtained from cochineal, and later its delicious bananas (plátanos) that are to this very day the main source of economic revenue, even surpassing tourism. Throughout the centuries, many Palmeros have had to leave the island because of the poor future prospects, migrating to Central and South America. Some emigrés returned wealthy to their homeland and built colonial-style homes and estates. Nowadays, around 80 000 people live on the island, including many foreign residents and immigrants.