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Part 1 - The Plan

Back in about 2004 I started thinking about buying a second house somewhere. The plan was to use it for astronomy. Originally I started looking for somwhere on the Canary Islands - not only is that where the people who know, locate their telescopes, but being the southern-most part of europe (if not strictly in the EU) offered advantages that the UK did not.

I had been to Tenerife a couple of times with a group of german amateur astronomers. We stayed at the Parador, which is near to the top of Mount Tiede: some 2200m above sea level. More importantly, it's above the cloud level, too. This struck me as one of the best amateur astronomy sites you would get anywhere. Ideally, there'd be a house nearby that was very cheap and I'd be the only person who wanted it.
In practice, the hotel is in a National Park, so there are no other building around. Being so high up the mountain means that all the water for the hotel is brought up daily in a tanker and judging by the size and continuous running of the hotel's generator they produce all their own electricity, too. While these domestic difficulties are not insurmountable, the lack of suitably situated (and priced) properties turned out to be a show stopper - mainly due to my unrealistic expectations.

Not to be put off, I considered "plan B". Tenerife isn't the only island in the Canaries. There's also La Palma. This one does have a large astronomical presence. It's also a little further out and rather less popular than the holiday islands. I went for a short stay on the island to check out the possibilities. La Palma is definitely quieter than Tenerife, but just as mountainous.

At the time (2004) the only way to get from the UK to La Palma was to fly via Tenerife. There appeared to be some direct flights to Germany, which explained the larger proportion of German visitors I encountered, compared to the number of Brits. This led to part 2 of my dawning realisation that, while astronomically excellent, the practicality of a part-time home on either of these islands was somewhat doubtful. The single biggest drawback would be getting my astronomical stuff out there. I went for a drive up the mountain to the observatories. It's probably the steepest road I've ever driven. Apart from the hairpin bends, the incline is such that for a lot of the ascent I was in first gear. When you get to the top, you can see the domes of the various observatories, plus the sites where new ones are being built. However, there is only a car-park with a small hut (that was shut) and a few footpaths at the top of the mountain. Once you've had a wander around there's not much else to do but start the long, slow drive down.

Life is full of compromises. I came to the conclusion that, while either of these places is ideal for a holidaymaker who travels with only a toothbrush and a towel, to get a room-full of delicate and expensive optical gear out there would take quite a bit of organisation - and money. This was to be reinforced later when I started exploring the means to transport my telescopes to Spain. See the full story here. So it was that I decided the Canaries were just too far for a first attempt at foreign living. Maybe if I'd been intending to move there full-time, but for casual trips: no.