Monday, December 26, 2005
Canary Island Gift Buying
In Tenerife and the Canary Islands, the gift-buying season is only just about to get fully underway. Gifts, you see, come with Los Reyes Magos (The Three Kings) at Epiphany on January 6th.
Whether you wait until then or spend a little of the money that was perhaps given to you by the jolly old chap from the North Pole, there are lots of items - in all price brackets - with Canary Island flavour for you to choose from. This article from ABC, Los Reyes Magos del Archipiélago [translation] will give you lots of ideas.
Everything from Canary Island wines that are currently enjoying a renaissance, craft items such as pottery or baskets (look for the artisan basket shop on the road through the El Palmar valley), gastronomical delights, "politically incorrect" hand-made cigars, right up to shoes from La Palma born designer Manolo Blahnik.
This was news to me too. Unlike Blahnik, you won't find me making shoes for my pet dog and, I would be far more likely to go the the army surplus to buy suitable footwear for stomping around muddy fields with her.
But the favorite designer of Sarah Jessica Parker's Sex And The City character Carrie Bradshaw, was born in 1943 in Santa Cruz de la Palma in Spain's Canary Islands to a Spanish mother and Czech father and raised on a banana plantation.
It is often said here that Madonna's song, La Isla Bonita, refers to the island of La Palma, which is just a few miles north west of Tenerife. In the past, I had scoffed at such a notion and thought, with some amusement, that it was probably unlikely she had even heard of the place. Perhaps I was wrong, however, considering that Madonna apparently once called Blahnik's designs "as good as sex" and added that, "what's more, they last longer". (Source)
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