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„los Guanches“ of Candelaria

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

The Guanches are a stonage culture who lived on the Canary Islands. It is supposed that they were coming from the north of Africa by ship or boats and that they brought all their stock with them, but this theory never has been proofed. The Guanches are probably related to the African Berbers. Some of the words that were passed down through the centuries are related to the Berber language. The Guanches lived in all over the Canary archipel but it seems they did not have connections between the ilands. What they all had in common with each other was the language. The word Guanche means the native people from the Canaries. Some words of this language are even found in todays language or dialect. By the 14th century the islands were conquered by the Europeans and ...

Posted by Anna

Comments: 1 Comment so far » Categories: All about Tenerife, Culture, Guanches, History

Hot tips for Tenerife’s top tapas

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

A tapas contest is one of the more unusual features of colourful celebrations to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Tenerife capital of Santa Cruz. A full range of events is planned for the week-long festival, starting on Sunday April 29 and continuing through to Sunday May 6. They take place across the city, but mainly in Plaza del Príncipe, Parque García Sanabria and Calle La Noria. The colourful series of events include an International Marionette Festival, several other puppet shows, an exhibition of flowers, a concert of Canarian music, and a flower crosses workshop and competition. The whole city will be decked out with traditional floral crosses and the highlight of the programme will be on the evening of May 2, a Great Canarian Fiesta with traditional Canarian dress a prominent feature. In 1999, the party, known as the Dance of Magicians, went ...

Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Culture, Eating, Festivals, Flowers & Plants, History, Locations, May celebrations, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tourism

Exhibition reveals the secrets of old underwear

Saturday, April 14th, 2007

A hundred years of underwear is the unlikely theme of an exhibition currently being staged at the Museum of Anthropology in Tenerife. The years in question are from 1850-1950 and the exhibition includes more than 60 items of clothing that were once worn by men and women of the island, the grandparents, or even great-grandparents of today’s younger generation. The purpose of the exhibition is to show the rapid evolution in the design and use of materials in that time. The lingerie items that make up the exhibition are particularly well conserved because many of them have been hidden away in the depths of the museum for many years. Bodices, girdles, corsets, petticoats, nightdresses and other, more intimate items, including a heavy hand-knitted brassiere worn in the early 1900s, are included in the exhibition, part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of Casa de Carta in Valle de Guerra, ...

Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Culture, History, La Laguna, Museums

New book courts Franco controversy

Thursday, April 12th, 2007

A new book to be launched in Tenerife next week will claim that General Francisco Franco, Spain’s former dictator, fathered an illegitimate son during his time as military commander of the Canary Islands in the 1930s. The book, ‘The Secret Son of Franco’, claims the child was the product of an affair with the wife of a lieutenant under his command. Spanish author Fernando Gracia will launch his new book in the Tenerife capital of Santa Cruz next week (April 20). The book will allege that the child was born just before Franco launched a failed attempt to overthrow Spain’s Socialist government in 1936, an action he directed from his base in La Esperanza, Tenerife, and which set in motion the bloody Spanish Civil War. He became leader of the right-wing Nationalist movement during the Civil War and became head ...

Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, History, La Esperanza, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Dragon tree reputed to be a thousand years old

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

The Dragon Tree, or Drago, is one of the iconic symbols of Tenerife. It is very slow growing, but when it attains maturity it usually has a thick trunk which is crowned by a thick umbrella-shaped canopy of dagger-like leaves. It gets its popular name from the secretion of a reddish resin, know as dragon’s blood, which appears when either the bark or leaves are cut. It is thought that the original inhabitants of the island, the Guanches, used the blood-red sap from the tree in medicines and as an embalming fluid. Because it grows so slowly, generally taking ten years to reach a height of one metre, many of the taller specimens are believed to be hundreds of years old. The oldest, in the town of Icod de los Vinos (pictured above) in the north of the ...

Posted by Ken

Comments: Leave a Comment » Categories: All about Tenerife, Flowers & Plants, Guanches, Icod de los Vinos, Nature, Photo-Blog, Science, Tourism

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