Tenerife for pharologists (lighthouse bagging)

Faro de Teno, Tenerife (with La Gomera in the background) Photo: ahisgett

Oh, I couldn't resist ... I spotted a note at the bottom of Colin Kirby's post about tram spotting in Tenerife, where he says, "Coming soon on hobby corner, Lighthouse bagging." Er what? Obviously, having lived on, if not under, a rock for 16 years, this new fetish hobby had passed me by. I had to check it out.

Punta de Abona Lighthouse. Tenerife, Canary Islands. Photo: Gabor AmbrozyAnd, surprise, surprise, it really is to do with lighthouses - well, you can never be sure - and Princess Anne is a regular anorak wearer and "champion pharologist", apparently. 

The term makes sense, because the word for lighthouse in Spanish (substituting the PH for an F always), is "Faro." So, here to assist Colin with his future lighthouse bagging exploits and for you too if you're similarly afflicted enthused, is a list of Lighthouses of the Canary Islands.

That page kindly informs us that navigational lights in Spain are regulated at national level by the Comisíon de Faros and that the lighthouses of Tenerife are operated by the Autoridad Portuaria de Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

View Larger MapPharology tourists (a.k.a. lighthouse bagging holidaymakers) have quite a few lighthouses - I count 8 sites, but some have 2 structures - to bag on the island of Tenerife at:

Punta de Abona, Punta de Rasca, Punta de Teno, Buenavista, Puerto de la Cruz, Punta del Hidalgo, Punta de Anaga and Santa Cruz de Tenerife Muelle Sur ("Farola del Mar")

Not all are working.

Faro Punta de Teno

Punta Teno Lighthouse.
Photo: Liam Quinn.Most highly recommended, is to take a trip out to the lighthouse at Punta de Teno, Tenerife's most westerly point (clearly, Jack and Andrea Montgomery have already bagged this one too, in swimming cozzies, if not anoraks), where you can see the North side and the South side of the island at once from out on the headland.

The view from Punta de Teno lighthouse towards the Los Gigantes cliffs is one of the most spectacularly breathtakingly beautiful sites in the whole world (IMHO), as are some of the sunsets that can be witnessed from there.

So is the spectacular road along the cliff edge (again and another) and through a long, dark, damp tunnel to get there. But beware, it is not always open, it can be hairy - if not downright comical - and there is talk of them closing it all together and laying on buses from Buenavista.

View Larger Map

Here are more images of Faros de Canarias

The province of Santa Cruz, of which Tenerife is just a part, if you add in the islands of La Gomera, El Hierro, and La Palma, offer even more delights.

Faro de Orchilla, El Hierro

Probably the most famous lighthouse to bag on these islands, is the Faro de Orchilla, in Frontera, El Hierro. It's an important lighthouse, because it was once the most westerly point of the "known world" and, from the 17th Century, was used to mark the zero meridian, until the British moved it to Greenwich in the 1880s.

Other types of lighthouses in Tenerife

There's the Faro Chill Art (disco), where, obviously, pharologists and other hobbyists go to relax; purely decorative lighthouse structures on the island, such as this lighthouse in Tenerife, this which appears to be at Fañabe and you'll even find the odd temporary lighthouse appearing on the backdrop to staging at the fiestas.

But I guess I should end here with something by the Lighthouse Family. :)

Permalink | (2) Comments | Post a Comment

 Sheila, Canary Islands wrote (on July 29, 2008 5:11 PM)  

And La Palma has lighthouses, too. I can think of four. Maybe I'll do a blog post on them.

Do you have to spot them from a boat, or does seeing them from the land count?

 Pamela Heywood wrote (on July 29, 2008 7:59 PM)  

Yes the list of lighthouses in the Canary Islands ( http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/cnr.htm ) suggests 4 sites too. You should indeed point them out, if this is the new "hobby with Royal approval." LOL!

I'm afraid I have no idea if they need to be spotted from a boat, or whether from land counts. The Wikipedia definition just says those who study or are enthused by lighthouses are known as pharologists. Perhaps some enthusiast can point us in the direction of the rule book on what counts as a bag.