Now, THIS is more like it.

24 degrees in the shade. Very humid. Proper tropical weather. Blue skies and white fluffy clouds.

La Gomera is one of the smaller Canary Islands (I think El Hierro is the smallest (?)), accessible only by sea or short hop flight from another island – the airport’s runway is not long enough for international flights.

The ‘capital’, San Sebastian, is a testament to the power of EU funding. A brand new concrete mooring for cruise ships, and lovely new smooth pavements, dipped kerbs, zebra crossings, and so on. This means there is a long walk to get away from the ship (parking sideways on means we have to walk the entire length of the ship to get anywhere), but a very pleasant place at the end of it.

The shuttle bus took us to the bus station, which is precisely the opposite end of the town from the ship’s mooring, and does not have any dipped kerbs, which is a little ill-thought-out. But once you get away from that, the place is quite pleasant. I suppose it’s silly to expect anywhere to have a pleasant bus station, now I come to think about it! But accessible would have been a start.

There are four streets to the main town – think Whittier or Burnie but a little more built up and scrunched together. There are some old buildings, such as the various churches, and a tower called the Torre del Conde. This is a Spanish military keep, where Columbus stayed when he was in the area, and is now a sort of mini museum. Not good accessibility-wise, mind you. There’s an archaeology museum and the whole island is a walker’s dream. That’s about it.

One dress shop, two supermarkets, one stationers/toy shop, one souvenir shop, etc.

But this is a pootler’s paradise. Do NOT order a drink if you have less than an hour and a half to spare. You will wait 30 minutes for attention, a good 45 for the drinks to come and more time still to get a bill and pay. But, as long as you can deal with island time, which we can – we’re not rushing off anywhere – it was lovely.  Suffice to say that even we were back in board in time for lunch and a siesta. Very pleasant.

This place is highly recommended. Pretty good for accessibility, reasonable prices, lovely people, small, no traffic, good weather. Ideal. For us, at least. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Perfect day. And back on board in time for a siesta as well! Marvellous. Probably the best day of the entire cruise.