SANTA LUCIA Museo de la Fortaleza

Visitors come in coach loads to Santa Lucia's major attraction its museum, Museo de la Fortaleza, in a former farmhouse now transformed into a pastiche of a miniature turreted castle. It contains an extraordinary jumble of old rocks, guns, stuffed birds, pressed flowers and amazing Guanche or pre-Spanish artifacts. These include pottery, tools, scraps of funerary clothes and other textiles made from reeds, astonishingly well-preserved, and a couple of skeletons. How such objects, part of the archaeological inheritance of the whole island, remain the property of a private individual albeit a former mayor is a puzzle.Santa Lucia is just another attractive mountain village presided over by its grand neo-classical church of white wall and dark grey stone. The business here is agriculture, particularly fruit growing; the local liqueur is mejunje, made from lemons, rum and honey.