Holiday on Willem's Blog

Space travelling from El Teide

Visiting Tenerife's volcano at the Canary Islands

On Tenerife you'll find Teide, the world's second highest volcano with extra terestial views and a perfect altitude for stargazing.

This summer holiday brought me to Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain. It's a popular destination because of the climate, but it's also the home of Teide, the world's second highest volcano (7500 m, measured from the sea floor). The incredible views reach way beyond earth, into outer space, the Milky Way and other distant galaxies.

Climbing Mount Etna

Visiting an active volcano on Sicily, Italy

Climbing Mount Etna, an active volcano on Sicily Italy.

Last week me and my wife went to Sicily for a little summer holiday. It is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands. It's home to Europe's largest active volcano: Mount Etna. We had a chance to visit this lava spurring monstrosity and it was quite the experience.

My space mobile, a Citroën C1 rental car...

Panorama in the Las Cañadas caldera

The higher you get the rougher the terrain becomes

Mount Etna

One can only image the forces of nature judging by these craters.

Swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, down at Los Gigantes

Fresh lava, just a few months old, clearly recognisable

Landscape inside the Las Cañadas caldera is similar to Mars

The view is spectacular.

Teide Observatory with telescopes from different countries at 2390 meters altitude

An overview of the craters - notice how it is kept up to date :-)

Overview of tectonic plates (image: USGS)

Relaxing in the pool

The white/yellow on the Etna summit is sulphite - not gold... according to our guide

The El Chinyero vent on the Santiago Ridge, still black from the 1909 eruption

Me and the Milky Way (photo by Ellen Middelkoop)

Rough terrain

Lateral crater from 2001 - but if you look closely you'll notice many additional craters further below

More Holiday on Willem's Blog

Climbing Mount Etna Stargazing at night

Articles (153)

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2024-03-24 Half Marathon
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2023-12-15 Backup Rotation Scheme
2023-11-10 Apple Watch as Phone
2023-11-01 And... there is light!
2023-10-14 Giving AI Training
2023-10-13 Hello, stranger
2023-08-23 The Same, Differently
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2023-05-08 Tablet as Tool
2023-05-03 Using AI to generate code
2023-05-01 Working Offline First
2023-04-20 Tips for Long-Distance Cycling
2023-04-05 Cutting Cloud Costs
2023-02-08 Back to the University
2022-12-22 Rolex DateJust 36
2022-11-01 Moving to the countryside
2022-10-23 MUSE in Carré
2022-09-15 The Ultimate Freedom Bike
2022-09-11 Computer says no
2022-07-30 CAPTCHA Alternative
2022-07-17 Offline Music
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2022-01-14 Wearing WHOOP 4.0
2021-12-09 For the love of mini
2021-11-19 Escaping the flat tires
2021-10-25 Using Google Free Android
2021-09-30 Inspiration from a child
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2021-07-13 The birth of a child
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2021-06-05 Wearing Grand Seiko
2021-05-31 Using the reMarkable paper tablet
2021-05-04 Hospitalised with MCADD
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2021-01-14 Abandoning my own tablet OS
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2020-12-31 Working with special hardware from China
2020-12-15 Why Apple Silicon is a big deal
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2020-11-30 Designing my own watch
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2020-09-28 Refining my tablet OS experience
2020-09-16 Syncing files seamlessly between smartphone and tablet
2020-08-31 Free from the iCloud: Escaping Apple Photos
2020-08-23 Cleaning a vintage watch
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2020-06-17 Tudor Black Bay 36 long-term review
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2020-04-14 Talking tablets: what makes a great tablet?
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2020-03-09 Making my own tablet OS
2020-03-03 Monolithic vs Microservices software architecture
2020-02-28 Your own addressbook and calendar cloud
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2020-01-28 Measuring cholesterol levels in blood
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2019-08-28 Riding with a power meter on your bike
2019-08-18 Creating a minimal road bike
2019-07-16 Limitations of sleep tracking using a wearable
2019-07-15 Optical vs chest strap heart rate monitors
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2019-06-24 Six months with MCADD
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2019-05-24 Dig for dummies
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2019-04-25 Search like a pro: Google search operators
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2018-11-16 Around town in an electric car
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2018-10-16 Rescuing files from a broken harddisk
2018-10-09 Using a budget Android as main smartphone
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2018-09-26 Optimising images for the web and performance
2018-08-21 Space travelling from El Teide
2018-08-20 Google Analytics vs AWStats
2018-07-20 Helping people with free software
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2018-06-09 Removing paint from a bike frame
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2018-05-17 Listen to your body
2018-05-09 Lunch by plane
2018-04-30 Off the grid: Working on 100% renewable energy
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2018-03-07 Tablet as main computer
2018-02-24 Creating the ultimate commuter bike
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2018-01-21 Something the smartwatch will never have: patina
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2017-09-02 Climbing Mount Etna
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