Sitio Litre Orchid Garden

One of the places we visited in Puerto de la Cruz was The Orchid Garden in Sitio Litre. The entrance fee costs € 4,75/person. It's not such a huge garden, but it's the oldest surviving garden in Tenerife. It's been owned continuously by British families since 1730 (according to the brochure). Funny thing is that the information in the brochure is also translated in Finnish. In fact, there are many restaurant menus in Finnish as well. I think there have been lots and lots of Finnish tourists going there for years. They even speak a little Finnish at the hotel where we stayed at.

Anyway, there have been plenty of famous guests in the parties thrown in this particular garden, including William Wilde (father of Oscar Wilde) and Agatha Christie.

Here are some photos of the garden.

The entrance:

The Koi pond near the entrance where guests could sit down and sunbathe ha ha...

The cute souvenir shop (at that time it was still closed). It sells some seeds as well (plant/flower seeds) at €1/bag. It also sells paintings as well as other stuff. Funnily enough, I noticed some used books/novels sold there, as well he he he...

Other parts of the garden...they have a separate section for the orchids.

Here is my hand as comparison (I know my hand is small, but still the red flowers are HUGE!). 

Agatha Christie and a character in one of her novels:

Here are the orchid section:

And at the back of the garden there's this 600-year-old tree.

There's also this funny-looking bare tree near the tree above.

There's a small cafe at the back of the garden, but we continued our journey and we found this tree with a HUGE trunk on our way back to the front of the garden. Again I'm aware that I'm small (only 145 cm) but still that tree trunk is huge he he he...

I took a photo from below to capture the upper side of the tree.

And after walking further away, I managed to capture (almost) the entire tree:

Had fun on R2's expense before going out...don't the papayas look like a hat? HA HA HA...Papaya Hat LOL!!!

Festetics Palace

One of the free museums on St. Stephen's Day was the Festetics Palace. Concerts are also held here every now and then. Unfortunately we couldn't take any pics of the inside of the palace, but I was really impressed by the LIBRARY!!! It was a gorgeous room with wooden carvings all around the place and the amount of books are just impressive. :-D 

Anyway, here are some pictures of the palace building and its surroundings.

This is the entrance of the palace from the shopping street/Centrum:

The palace...

You can see an air balloon in the background near the tower:

Lots of lovely flowers in the garden:

Found this tree near one part of the palace. Not sure what kind of tree it is, though. Anyone???

I thought that the tree resembles an elephant.

We were enjoying the shade provided by the elephant-looking tree (and resting our weary feet):

Here's another view of the palace when the fountain was running:

And here's R2 checking out the sudial. He said it was an hour behind ha ha...

Here are two video clips of the palace. The first one is the palace and its outer garden:


The second one is the palace and the inner garden:



On St. Stephen's Day, the inner garden is closed for public and you can only get inside if you pay a certain fee because they held a wine tasting party in the inner garden, but we didn't get in because we're not wine drinkers he he he...

OK, that's it for today. Hope you enjoyed the pics and video clip. Oh yeah, after getting inside we found out that we could have gotten up to the tower if we paid a certain fee (if not mistaken 500 HUF/person), but we thought we didn't need it because it was supposed to be a free day to tour around the museum. We didn't want to go back there because there were SO many people going inside that day, so we just skipped the whole tower thing.

Garden Photos of the Day

Today was quite a day. In the morning until about midday, it was 30'C, then it started thundering and it rained for a while. Then the sun came out again for a while, then it got cloudy again (along with thunders) and now it's sunny again, though the temperature has dropped to 25'C.

Today I received my paycheck, but for some reason they made a mistake. I had submitted my tax card before I started working, but they must have not gotten it, 'coz they reduced my income by 60% (the law states that if the worker hasn't sent any tax card, they'd use 60% as my income tax). I was SHOCKED when I got the report, so tomorrow I have to tell someone at work about this so that it can be amended.

Now on to the pics...finally my kang kong seeds have germinated (they started germinating yesterday actually):


To Rita, here's the pic of the red flower and the leaves, so I don't think it's kurtturuusu 'coz the leaves are totally different.


Here are the flower buds of the above flower:


I guess this is sunflower, right?


We've just ordered a lawn mower, so our garden looks like a jungle ha ha ha ha...so many white flowers:


Here are the close-up pics of the flowers:


Wanna know how small they are? Here's a bee on top of the flower.


Okay, now I'm going to blog-hop a bit before sauna. Yesterday and today I did some gardening and also exercised using Wii he he he...I need a strong back for this part-time job, people...not to mention having a strong back is important for the rest of my life ha ha...

3BT: July 6th, 2010

1. The hottest day this summer at around 28'C under the sun (about 24'C under the shade).

2. Went to a nearby store to find myself a pair of jeans. My budget was only 15 Euros (I found a pair of jeans there at that price before) and found a pair that cost only 5 Euros (they were on a discount). YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!

3. Because of #2 above, decided to buy a bottle of massage oil (for me and hubby to use later on before we change the bed sheets ahem...) and two bags of hubby's fave candies (salmiakki mix).

4. Slathered lots of mosquito repellent to read in the garden and enjoy the weather. Felt grand to read in the garden surrounded by beautiful yellow flowers all around you. (Note: I did sit on the swing set for a while, but it was too hot, so I moved to a shady place)


5. Watching the bees busily looking for nectar here and there all around me.

6. Lying down to enjoy the sky and the breeze in the shade and feeling sleepy after a while he he he...





7. Watch my plants growing (esp. by comparing their pics taken last month versus their conditions today).

8. Despite the fact that hubby snores and sometimes I have to kick him to change his position if he happens to fall asleep first, I can sleep better with him by my side than when I sleep alone.

9. The quietness of this place is such a BLESSING. While lying down in the garden, I could only hear the occasional sound of vehicles passing by the street and if I had let myself, I would have fallen asleep.

In The Garden

Yesterday had a FUN eve with some friends (I'll blog about it later). Hubby has done a WONDERFUL job changing the cables (old cables) and other stuff. He's really neat and I can tell that he knows what to do. He looks SO sexy in his handyman outfit he he he...too bad I can't help him too much 'coz I don't know what to do, so all I can do is prepare him food and just help him out in other ways that I can. :-D

Tomorrow we're going to my in-laws to grill in the yard. I bought some fish 'coz I'm craving for some grilled fish that I can eat with soy sauce and sliced chili (I bought some dry red chili from the online store in Germany). I also bought some cider, sausages, and hamburgers he he...Hoping for warm weather tomorrow! *crossing my fingers and toes*

Today I took some pictures while walking around in the garden (after watering the plants there) and I noticed that some wild flowers have grown...tiny white ones and lovely small purple ones...I also noticed "The Circle of Life" as some ants attacked a bee and the bee lost...here are the pictures (unfortunately I don't know the name of the flowers):


In the second pic, the bee was being dragged away by the ants...


Dunno the name of this bug, but it's really CUTE 'coz it doesn't suck my blood ha ha ha...it's about 5 cm long and wide.


A bud of a wild flower...


Spotted this small wild flower on one part of the garden...lovely lovely ones!!!


Sorry, a bit blurry. Just wanna show you how small it is. My index finger is about 1.5 cm wide.


Another pic of it...


See how many there are! :-D


In another part of the garden these white flowers lie hidden...they're SO tiny that I wouldn't have noticed unless I came closer he he...


Again for comparison sake...I held it between my middle and ring finger.


Last pic: I've shown you this flower, but now you can see how small it is...And yeah, the bug happened to jump onto the petals while I took the pic ha ha ha...