On both the old boys walking week and our holiday we have been following walking routes in a book by Charles Davies and Jan Kostura called Walk La Palma. It has 37 different walks, six of which we did during the boys week and we have done five more this holiday, they have all been excellent. Each walk is coded from 1 (Very Easy) to 5 (Strenuous), during the boys week we did 4’s and 5’s and up until today Gill and I have stuck to 4’s (energetic) which is what we like to think we are.
Today, being a Sunday and the ‘Day of the Immaculate Conception’, we thought we would take it easy and do a 3 (average) and walk up to the Church of the Immaculate Conception pictured left.
It was anything but ‘average’, it was the toughest climb of the holiday and we were puffed out by the time we reached the church.
There were lots of old people in their Sunday best going in, I am afraid I was thinking of a quote in last weeks obituary of Clive James; “religions are advertising agencies for a product that doesn’t exist”.
The church is situated right above the city, the view was worth the climb, picture at the top of the page.
Coming back we walked past a long line of 16th century watermills which get plenty of mentions on the signposts and information boards but little in the way of hard facts and they were all rather derelict and sad. The water is fed in the top of a tower along a small aquaduct, drops 100ft and presumably drives a turbine of some sort but there were no drawings to show any details which is a shame. Especially when considering the huge sums of money spent on the archaeological museum we visited yesterday.
Tomorrow we will explore the city (more museums) and then we have to pack our bags for the journey home on Tuesday.