La Palma Nightlife - Getting around
Introduction - Beaches - Accommodation - Day Trips - Car Hire
If your idea of a good night out consists of a Big Mac and booze-induced bopping till 7am you'd be wise to seriously reconsider your choice of holiday destination.
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Let's face it you don't come to La Palma for it's lively nightlife. Your hotel may have its own entertainment programme and you'll find a good selection of bars and restaurants around the island. But if you're after all-night raves and off-key karaoke, you've definitely come to the wrong place.
Eating out at a fine seafood restaurant and an after dinner drink at a music bar is as good as it gets on La Palma.
There are plenty of good tapas bars in the towns and villages and some excellent restaurants serving home-cooked local fare. You'll also find international cuisine but this is not a Benidorm-style "bangers and mash" resort geared to English tastes.
Traditional Canarian restaurants rely heavily on freshly caught fish and locally grown produce. Popular local fish dishes include seafood paella and zarzuela (a fish stew). Locally caught tuna, octopus, swordfish and sardines are all to be found on the menus here.
Cabrito en salsa (goat stew), cabrito frito (fried baby goat) and rabbit stew are among favourite meat dishes. Try the famous local papas arrugadas - small, locally grown potatoes cooked in their skins with sea salt from the salt works in Fuencaliente in the south of the island. These are commonly eaten with the one of the delicious Canarian mojo sauces - the green mojo made from green peppers, coriander and garlic or the red mojo of red peppers, garlic and spices.
Desserts often consist of almonds and honey. Sweet chestnuts, figs, cactus fruit and bananas (all grown on the island) are used in a variety of ways to please the palates of the local "palmeros".
Wash down your meal with one of the local wines. Each area of La Palma has its own vineyards and label, one of the best being Malvasia which has earned international acclaim. This is a sweet Muscatel-style dessert wine produced from grapes grown in the thick volcanic ash of the Fuencaliente area in the south.
For after dinner entertainment your best bets are the late night music bars of Santa Cruz or the resort areas of Cancajos, on the east coast, and Tazacorte on the west coast.
Many of the hotels in Cancajos organise night time entertainment and the resort's Centro Commercial has several lively bars with dancing until the early hours. Cancajos even has a disco (!) - H20 at Urbanizacion Lago Azul.
Puerto Naos, a small village under the cliffs on the west coast, has a number of bars and restaurants serving the self catering holiday apartments used by tourists and local people who come here for the weekends from Santa Cruz and mainland Spain.
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