Santa Cruz de La Palma

The morning ferry from Tenerife noses into Santa Cruz de La Palma at 07:15, engines reversing hard against a stone quay built in 1570. From the deck you see rows of tea-wood balconies painted kingfisher-blue and sunflower-yellow, their owners already shaking out rugs while gulls wheel overhead. No apartment blocks, no concrete promenades—just three-storey houses that once stored sugar and cochineal, now converted into cafés where dockers argue over coffee and the day’s catch.

That first sight tells you most of what you need to know: this is a working port that happens to be beautiful, not the other way round.

Streets Built for Trade, Not Tour Buses

Calle O’Daly—named after an Irish merchant who married into island gentry—runs arrow-straight from the pier to the 16th-century church of El Salvador. The cobbles are slippery from centuries of use; lorries still squeeze through at dawn to supply the supermarkets higher up. Walk it slowly and you’ll pass Casa Salazar, its stone doorway carved with the Salazar family crest and a rather smug-looking lion. The door is usually open; step into the courtyard and you’ll find a single dragon tree in the middle of a Canary-pine balcony, the sort of detail guidebooks forget to mention.

Most shops shut between 13:00 and 17:00, so the street drifts into a siesta hush broken only by the click of dominoes in Bar La Placeta. British visitors sometimes panic at the closed doors, but it’s the perfect window to stock up on water (the tap stuff tastes faintly of volcanic minerals) and sit on the sea wall watching fishermen mend red nets the colour of London buses.

The Volcano in the Back Garden

Santa Cruz sits barely ten metres above sea level, but the ground rises so steeply that you can stand on the pier and see tomorrow’s weather forming around the Cumbre Nueva ridge. Behind the town, lava flows from the 1949 eruption stop just short of the first houses; the stone is sharp, black and still warm to touch after midday sun. A 40-minute walk up the old royal path—signposted “Sanctuary”—brings you to the Virgen de las Nieves hermitage at 620 m. The gradient is 1 in 5; most sensible people take the €6 taxi up and walk back down through pine woods that smell of vanilla from the surrounding resin.

From the mirador beside the church you get the full amphitheatre effect: red-tiled roofs funnelled towards the Atlantic, the ferry you arrived on now the size of a toy boat. On clear days Tenerife’s Teide floats on the western horizon like a snow-topped mirage. Cloud normally rolls in after 14:00, so morning visits give sharper views and kinder temperatures.

Black Sand, Blue Water and Cruise-Ship Tides

The town beach, Playa de Santa Cruz, is a five-minute shuffle from the main square. The sand is volcanic glass, so it glitters—and burns. Locals wear sandals down to the water’s edge; wise visitors do the same. A stone breakwater tames the swell, making it safe for children, but the drop-off is sudden and the undertow can whip around your knees when the ferry reverses out at 19:00.

Tuesdays and Thursdays between October and March bring cruise ships; 2,000 passengers can materialise at 09:00 and vanish by tea time. If you want the cafés to yourself, aim for 16:00 when the coaches roll away and the town exhales. For quieter swimming, hop on the hourly bus to Los Cancajos (€1.25, 12 minutes). The beach there has showers, lava-rock reefs for snorkelling, and a British-run dive school that hires masks without demanding a PADI certificate.

A Menu That Hasn’t Changed Since Nelson’s Sailors

Order vieja a la plancha in any harbour bar and you’ll receive a slab of parrotfish whose skin crisps like roast chicken. It comes with papas arrugadas—small potatoes boiled in seawater until their jackets wrinkle—and two bowls of mojo. The green version tastes of coriander and mild green pepper; the red one carries a cumin kick that sneaks up after three seconds. Locals mop the sauce with bread; Brits often reach for butter that doesn’t exist.

Puddings are unapologetically sweet: frangollo, a sort of cinnamon-laced rice pudding made with cornmeal, or bienmesabe, almond paste soaked in honey and rum. Helados Frape on Calle Vargas scoops palm-honey ice cream that melts fast in 24-degree February sunshine; eat it quickly or wear it.

When the Town Paints Itself White

Late February brings the Día de los Indianos, a festival that commemorates the islanders who emigrated to Cuba and Venezuela. Everyone dresses in white linen, Panama hats and painted-on moustaches; locals throw talcum powder instead of tomatoes. By midday the air is white, the beer is warm and someone will try to teach you the polka de la Palma. Accommodation triples in price and the Saturday ferry sells out, so book early or arrive the week after when the balconies are still decorated but hotel rates have crashed.

The bigger Bajada de la Virgen happens every five years (next in 2025). The island’s patron statue is carried from the mountain sanctuary to the town in a procession that lasts 12 hours and involves 30,000 people. If your holiday coincides, expect road closures, fireworks at 04:00 and a city-wide party that makes Notting Hill feel restrained.

Cash, Cards and Closed Doors

Santa Cruz is small enough that you can walk from one end to the other in 15 minutes, but steep enough that you’ll feel it in your calves tomorrow. Bring comfortable shoes; the cobbles destroy flip-flops and the lava paths chew up trainers. Cash is king: many bars won’t take cards under €20 and the two Santander ATMs on O’Daly sometimes run dry on Friday evenings. Shops observe the siesta faithfully; if you need sunscreen or plasters, the 24-hour pharmacy on Plaza de España keeps a bell-push after 21:00 but charges a €3 out-of-hours fee.

Car hire is useful for reaching the Caldera de Taburiente national park (45 minutes uphill) but a liability in town. Streets are single-track, parking meters swallow €2 coins only, and the local police ticket with enthusiasm. Most Brits collect a car for one day, do the volcano loop, then return it and revert to shank’s pony.

Leaving Without the Tourist Hangover

The 20:30 ferry back to Tenerive slips past the lighthouse at Punta Larga, giving a last view of Santa Cruz’s balconies glowing orange in the sunset. From the deck the town looks fragile, pressed between black mountains and the Atlantic, yet it has outlasted pirates, volcanic eruptions and the collapse of the banana trade. What remains is a place that functions first and entertains second—refreshing in a region where the balance is usually reversed. Bring an appetite for saltwater air, a tolerance for hills and enough euros to survive the siesta. The town will handle the rest.