Los Gigantes, Spain

A great card I received as a surprise from Veronica, showing the town of Los Gigantes (or "The Giants" in English) on the island of Tenerife.

The main feature are the giant rock formations, Acantilados de Los Gigantes, that rise from the sea to a height of 500-800 metres after which the town has been named.

looks like a nice typical resort town to me. Wouldnt mind spending a holiday here one day...

you know the guy on the blue stamp, dont you? Juan Carlos, King of Spain from 1975 to 2014. The other stamp says "I need Spain"....hahahaa...well, I don't know if I need it, but I certainly love the country...issued in 2013

Teide, Spain

Another lovely UNESCO card!

Declared a national park in 1954, the Parque Nacional de las Cañadas del Teide includes an enormous volcanic crater 48 km in circumference, out of which rises Mount Teide (pronounced the same as Lady) at a staggering 3.718 metres, making it the highest mountain in the whole of Spain.

The park itself lies at around 2000 metres above sea level and in winter snow falls, gale winds blow and the roads are sometimes closed off. During the summer months this arid landscape which gives the impression of having walked into a cowboy movie, can reach temperatures above 40C.

Access to the now extinct volcano is either by foot or by cable car that will carry you almost to the very summit. From the peak, on a clear day, you are in heaven and have breathtaking views of Gran canaria, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. This is the Canary Islands most visited tourist attraction and must not be missed.

The stamp used is self-adhesive and comes from a set of two issued in April this year showing Flowers...with the Gladiouls portrayed here

Tenerife, Spain

I got this card from Sean in Spain, and im extra happy to have my first card from Tenerife. Well Tenerife IS a Spanish Island and is actually the largest one of the seven Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa.
Now since i didnt really pay much attention to Geography at school, History even less...some years ago, i used to think that Tenerife is just an island for itself and not under any other government and to make it worse, i used to think its somewhere either near Seychelles or Virgin Islands or Hawaii....yeah...have a laugh...

On the card you can see a dragon tree, which can be found only on the Canary Islands and a few places in Africa. This one is called Dracaena Draco, or just Drago...cool name for a tree :)

The tree is characterised by a single or multiple trunk growing up to 12 m tall (rarely more), with a dense umbrella-shaped canopy of thick leaves. It grows slowly, requiring about ten years to reach 1 m tall. Dracaena draco does not display annual rings and age can only be estimated by the number of branch forking occurrences (indicating the number of flowering episodes) and measuring the frequency of flowering (less than annual). Some specimens are believed to be up to 650 years old; the oldest is growing at Icod de los Vinos in northwest Tenerife ( yaayy, thats the one on the card ;-)

When the bark or leaves are cut, it secretes a reddish resin known as Dragon's Blood, used in ancient Roman and mediaeval magic and alchemy then believed by the users to be the dried blood of  dragons.

Mmmm, i love such myths and stories, about dragons and alchemy in particular...there is something fascinating at it, even though if i were an alchemist, i would have been a terrible one :) But i love reading and learning about it...

Thanks a lot Sean for the card...i love it when apart from having a really cool card, i get to learn something new as well.