Saturday in Las Palmas was spent trying to find a pub that was showing the Ireland/Wales match. The first Irish pub I found looked as if it had closed shortly after it opened back in 1996. So I took a bus to the old town where I had vague memories of passing a Guinness sign the other day. I eventually found it. They had one small TV and no rugby.
Helpful as ever, one of the locals gave me another address to try – a sports bar where I could have watched everything from skiing to showjumping, but no rugby. So I went to Tourist Information and as a result of the helpfulness that is so part of the service/tourism culture on the island, I tried three other places. I eventually gave up and treated myself to a cod and asparagus lunch in the shadow of Santa Anna cathedral – trading one religion for another.
I spent the day talking to myself; wondering where to go, what to do next. When it got a little too much, I stopped for coffee and a cava, marvelling at the occasional ‘old and lovely’ amidst the ‘new and not so lovely’. I stumbled across a few tiled masterpieces and some wrought-iron bandstands that were just crying out for a brass band. Away from the beach area, I began to get a feel for how the island used to be; a sense of what living here pre-tourism must have been like: stylish and genteel.
While Las Palmas has its share of high street shops that have become part and parcel of cityscapes across Europe, it also has its fair share of boutiques – designer stores that proudly display their ‘Made in Spain’ labels. I couldn’t quite get the hang of what appears to be a special shopping day when prices on the labels don’t seem to matter. But as the final bill was a lot less than my math made it, I really didn’t need an explanation.
My second (and only other item) on today’s agenda was to get mass. I’d scoped out the church earlier and arrived in good time to see the oddest thing in progress. A woman, carrying a large crucifix, followed by a priest holding a lit candle, headed a procession of candle-bearing mass-goers up and down the aisles of the church. This was a first for me. But lo and behold, 2 February in the Eastern Orthodox Church and some Eastern Catholic Churches is one of the twelve Great Feasts aka Candlemas. Apparently, this is also the day on which the Churching of Women happens (another new one on me): a ceremony where new mothers are blessed. The ceremony includes thanksgiving for the woman’s survival of childbirth, and is performed even when the child is stillborn, or has died unbaptised. And it was here, apparently, that Our Lady appeared in a pine tree. Loathe though I am to quote Wikipedia, it does have this to say:
The story of Nuestra Señora del Pino (Our Lady of the Pine) is a fascinating one. At the site of the present-day Basilica, the image of the virgin herself is said to have appeared in a pine tree on 8 September 1492 to the first Bishop of Gran Canaria, Juan Frías. Said to possess healing qualities, Nuestra Señora del Pino has become the patron saint of the island. On the steps outside the Basilica it is possible to buy wax models of every part of the human body that can be offered for healing. The figure itself is extraordinary. It is said that one side of the face is smiling and the other side is sad. The figure is bedecked with jewels, although not as many as there were before the robbery in 1975.
I went in the side door, so missed the body parts!
The Canary Islands were originally inhabited by Guanches, an aboriginal Berber people. On Gran Canaria, suicide was regarded as honourable. Whenever a new king was installed, one of his subjects willingly honoured the occasion by throwing himself over a precipice (as depicted by this statue in the grounds of the Santa Catalina hotel). [Spanish royalty apparently stay here when visiting the island and I wonder how many willing subjects they’d find to continue this tradition.] And it’s another first me for me: a monument to suicide.
It’s an odd place. It seems as if it’s not quite sure what it should be. Half urban beach semi-circled by tall hotels; half old world charm and beauty. Perhaps I just don’t ‘get’ Spain; I didn’t take to Madrid much either.
Mindyou, it’s been a lovely few days. The Hotel Verol is perfectly situated and the staff couldn’t be more helpful. That not so remarkable really as everyone (apart from the formidable, stylishly dressed middle-aged dowagers, hair-sprayed to within an inch of their lives) is helpful. They’ve certainly got the hang of this tourism lark.
Saturday, 2nd February, 8.39pm has come and gone. Now let’s wait and see what happens next.
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