# La Palma

The world's first Starlight Reserve: telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos from the inside, guided stargazing and astronomical viewpoints all over the island.

Fuente: https://www.geocalia.com/en/spain/canary-islands/la-palma · Revisado: 2026-11-13

## Why the sky of La Palma?

Because here it is protected by law. At the summit of the island, at about 2,400 m and above the sea of clouds, stands the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, one of the great observatories of the world. So that its telescopes can keep seeing, a law has protected the astronomical quality of the island's sky since 1988 from light pollution, and also from radio-electric interference and certain flight paths. It is what the island calls the Sky Law, and you notice it as soon as you leave a village at night.

The Cabildo sums it up in three dates: in 2007 the Declaration in Defence of the Night Sky was signed on the island, La Palma was the world's first Starlight Reserve and in 2012 it also received the title of Starlight Tourist Destination. For visitors, that translates into three ways of looking at the sky: the professional telescopes by day, guided observations with a telescope at night, and a network of astronomical viewpoints spread around the island, with panels so you can find your way around the sky on your own.

## How do you see the observatory?

In two ways. The first, with no booking: the Roque Visitor Centre, at 2,426 m, opens every day and explains in three rooms why the Canary Islands are a window on the universe; you see it in about 45 minutes and it costs €15, free up to age 12.

The second is to go inside a telescope. The guided visits to the observatory are run by accredited Starlight guides, by day, in small groups and with a reservation on each company's website. They last a good hour and a half and, depending on which telescope is free that day, you might get the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the MAGIC telescopes or the new CTAO telescopes. The IAC suspends them from December to March, both included, because of the weather. At night you don't go in: the telescopes are working.

## And the stars at night?

With a guide, the simplest way is a telescope observation that leaves from Los Cancajos and goes up to a mountain viewpoint chosen according to that night's clouds. It is about two hours of looking and three and a half or four with the journey. If you bring a camera and tripod, there is also a night photography tour in groups of six at most.

On your own, the Llano del Jable astronomical viewpoint, on the summit of El Paso, at 1,341 m, is the easiest to reach by car from the valley or from Breña Baja. The highest and darkest are next to the Roque, above 2,100 m, but the road at night is long and narrow.

## When to go and what to bring?

From April to November you can combine telescopes by day and stars by night. For the Milky Way, look for nights with no Moon or with the Moon already set; with a full moon the Moon itself and the planets are seen well, but the deep sky fades. At the Roque it is cold all year as soon as the sun sets: AstroLaPalma speaks of 12 to 15 °C in summer and 2 to 6 °C in winter, and on the summit path there can be ice.

Fly into La Palma airport (SPC), three minutes from Los Cancajos, and rent a car: no guagua goes up to the Roque. From Santa Cruz de La Palma it is about 40 km of mountain road along the LP-4; there is no petrol station up there, so go up with at least half a tank.

## Dónde está
- Zonas: Starry skies in Spain
- Cerca: Teno and Masca (a 107.1 km)

## Qué hacer
- **Guided visit to the telescopes of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory** (1 h 50 · From age 6, with an adult if minors · Desde 15 € per person): It is the only way to enter a professional telescope on La Palma. It is led by Starlight guides trained by the Starlight Foundation with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, by day and in small groups, because at night the telescopes are working. You book with one of the authorised companies, each on its own website.
What you see
You meet in the car park of the Roque Visitor Centre and from there you drive up in convoy, in your own car, behind the guide. The guide tells the history of the observatory, what each facility is for and what it has discovered, and enters a telescope authorised that day with the group. It may be the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the MAGIC telescopes or the large CTAO telescopes; it is not chosen or guaranteed, because it depends on what the observations and the weather allow.
Price, days and booking
With Ad Astra it costs €20 from age 12 and €15 for ages 6 to 11 and for La Palma residents; its ticket gives half price at the visitor centre for a week. Its visits are usually on Thursday and Sunday mornings, with 10 to 22 people, and it publishes dates one or two months ahead. AstroLaPalma runs the same visit; on Saturdays, in Spanish only. Both ask for a minimum of 10 people and have a waiting list if the day is full.
From December to March there are no visits: the IAC suspends them because of the weather. The rest of the year they may be cancelled on the day if there is snow, wind or the road is closed.
Getting there
You can only drive or take a taxi up to the Roque. From Santa Cruz de La Palma, along the LP-4, it is about 40 km of mountain road; from Los Llanos de Aridane, about 50. There is no petrol station up there. On weekdays, check beforehand for the roadworks on the LP-4 through Mirca, which close the road from 9:30 to 17:00 according to Ad Astra; the access via Garafía remains open.
- **Stargazing with telescopes from a summit viewpoint** (2 h · Families and adults; children's rate for ages 4 to 11 · Desde 25 € per person): Two hours with a Starlight guide and amateur telescopes under one of the most protected skies in the world. It leaves from Los Cancajos, next to the airport, and goes up to one of the island's astronomical viewpoints, almost always in the mountains; the guide decides each night according to the clouds, because often the sea of clouds covers the coast and leaves the summit clear.
What the night is like
The guide teaches you to recognise the constellations with a pointer and then you look through the telescopes, shared among the group: planets, clusters, nebulae and galaxies depending on the time of year. If the sky allows, you take home a digital photo. It is given in Spanish or English.
Price and booking
With AstroLaPalma it costs €35 from age 12 and €25 for ages 4 to 11, going in your own car behind the guide. With transport from Los Cancajos it is €55 per adult, with very few places: book early. The time depends on sunset and is on the ticket; you must be at its office, in the Hotel Las Olas building, 15 minutes beforehand. You can cancel up to 24 hours ahead with a 20% charge; if the company cancels because of the weather, it offers you another date or refunds your money.
What to bring
Closed shoes, long trousers, a jumper and a warm jacket. The company reckons 12 to 15 °C on summer nights and 2 to 6 °C on winter ones. Check the moon phase before booking: with the Moon high, faint objects are lost.
- **Roque de los Muchachos Visitor Centre** (45 min · Everyone; adapted building · Desde 15 € per person; €7.50 for Canary Islands residents): It is at 2,426 m, beside the observatory road, in the municipality of Garafía, and is run jointly by the Cabildo of La Palma, the Garafía Town Council and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. It is the stop that explains what the telescopes you see around you do, and the meeting point for the guided visits to the observatory. On your own it takes about 45 minutes, and it also works in winter, when visits to the telescopes are suspended.
Three rooms, from the sky to Garafía
You enter through a lobby with an auditorium, a shop and a large touch table with information on each of the observatory's telescopes. The first room, Canarias, a window onto the Universe, tells why the islands were chosen for the big telescopes. The second, Exploring the Universe, goes through the science done here. The third, Back to Earth, comes down to Garafía, the municipality that surrounds you, with its traditions, its way of life and its heritage. Guided visits are available on request, and there is an audiovisual room.
What it costs and who doesn't pay
General admission costs €15. Residents of the Canary Islands, large families, pensioners over 65 who live in Spain and groups of at least ten people who book three days ahead and come with their own guide pay €7.50. Admission is free for under-12s, older people and pensioners who live on La Palma, people with disabilities, unemployed residents of Spain and school groups with a booking. At the door you must show the document that proves it, and only one discount per person applies. Payment by card only. At reception they sell vouchers for two or three of the island's tourist centres, such as the El Tendal Archaeological Park or the Caños de Fuego volcanic caves, with half price at the second and third. If you do the telescope visit with Ad Astra, its ticket also gives you half price here for seven days.
Open all year except four days
It opens every day from 10:00 to 16:30 in winter and from 10:00 to 17:30 in summer, and closes on 24, 25 and 31 December and 1 January.
No café up here
Free parking for cars, buses and bikes, drinks and light food machines and a defibrillator; there is no café, so bring food if you are spending the day up here. The building is adapted for reduced mobility. Outside, cap, sun cream and sunglasses; in winter, a coat. You go up to the Roque by car or taxi. From here, the summit of the Roque is about 5 km along the road. On the centre's website are the rules and the form to book its astronomical observation platform.
- **Guided night landscape photography tour** (5 h · Adults with a manual-mode camera · Desde 49 € per person): Five hours of night with an AstroLaPalma photographer who knows the island's landscapes, to go out under the La Palma sky and, if conditions cooperate, the Milky Way, over a landscape in your own camera. It is for those who already have equipment and can handle it by day and want to learn to use it at night: you don't need to know astronomy, and you don't look through a telescope or enter the observatory.
From Los Cancajos to wherever the sky says
You meet at the AstroLaPalma office in Los Cancajos, at Travesía de Los Cancajos 2, unit B1, in Breña Baja, at least ten minutes before your ticket's time, which changes with the season because the tour leaves according to sunset. From there you follow the guide in your car or a hire car: transport is not included. The place is decided according to the weather and the photo conditions, sometimes shortly before leaving, and a few scattered clouds are not enough to cancel. The tour starts on time and anyone arriving late loses it without a refund.
What you learn in front of the tripod
At the site, the guide explains how to compose a night landscape and how to set the camera in low light: ISO, aperture and exposure time. They also tell you the basic astronomy useful for planning a photo and how the weather affects night photography. Groups are three to six people, in Spanish or English depending on availability.
Manual camera, wide angle and tripod
A camera with manual mode, preferably a reflex or mirrorless, that goes up to ISO 3200 or more and makes exposures of up to 30 seconds; a wide angle of 14 to 24 mm, or a 24, 35 or 50 mm; a fast lens (f/2.8 or f/1.4) if you have one, and a tripod, which the company can rent out if you ask beforehand. A red-light torch or headlamp, warm clothing and firm footwear, which is what the company asks for.
€49 and 72 hours to cancel
€49 per adult; the website gives no price for children or minimum age, and asks for basic photography knowledge. Tickets are named, for the date and time marked. You cancel by email up to 72 hours ahead with a 20% charge; after that there is no refund. If the company cancels because of the weather, it offers another date or refunds the money. Outside office hours, the emergency contact is a text message to 622 805 618.
To sleep nearby
You get back late and the departure is in Los Cancajos: the Parador de La Palma and the Casa Rural Carlota are a few minutes away. If you first want to see the sky through a telescope, the same company does stargazing sessions from the same office.
- **Llano del Jable astronomical viewpoint, on the El Paso ridge** (1 h · Everyone; no walking · Free): For those sleeping in the east of the island or in the Aridane valley, this is the most convenient astronomical viewpoint: it is on the summit of El Paso, at 1,341 m, on a plain of black picón among Canary pines in Cumbre Vieja, at the foot of the Pico Birigoyo. It is part of the network of more than a dozen astronomical viewpoints that the Cabildo has spread around the island, designed for looking at the sky on your own, without a guide and without paying.
Panels, the Pole Star and a planisphere
The viewpoint has a main panel explaining the Sky Law, which protects La Palma's darkness, and what constellations are; a silhouette of the horizon in front of you so you know what you see at night; four star charts for recognising the constellations; a post pointing to the Pole Star and a planisphere wheel for finding the constellations that never set, such as the Great Bear and Cassiopeia. There are no telescopes or lights.
Getting there at night
From Los Cancajos it is about 24 km by mountain road, and from El Paso, less. Count on driving back in the dark on bends: do it slowly and use full beams only when no one is coming. Park so that your headlights don't shine on anyone already observing.
When it is worth it
Moonless nights, when the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye. At this altitude you are often above the sea of clouds that covers the coast, though not as high as the viewpoints of the northern summit, Pico Cruz and the Monumento al Infinito, which exceed 2,100 m. If the fog rises to the summit, you will see nothing: the Cabildo's Trail Network also warns that in fog it is hard to find your bearings on the Llanos del Jable, so don't stray from the viewpoint.
Before setting out
Bring a red-light torch, a mat or folding chair and a coat, because at that altitude the night is cool all year. Binoculars help. If you use Stellarium on your phone or computer, the Cabildo's StarsIsland website has this viewpoint's 360º horizon profile to download, so the program shows you the stars over the same mountains in front of you.
With a guide, another night
If you first want to learn to recognise what you see, do a guided observation and come back here another night on your own. And if what you want is to photograph the sky, the night photography tour chooses the site with the best conditions each night.
- **Roque de los Muchachos summit and the path to the Espigón del Roque** (1 h · 600 m · Without vertigo; ice in winter · Free): The roof of La Palma is a heap of dark rocks on the northern rim of the Caldera de Taburiente, with the telescopes at your back and, below, a crater of forest and ravines. You drive up to a cobbled car park beside the National Park information hut, about 5 km from the visitor centre. From there, the Park suggests a short walk, route 9 in its guide, that looks over the Caldera from a cliff.
Six hundred metres to the Espigón
It is 600 m going down from 2,420 to 2,380 m, with barely 10 m of climb; allow an hour return with stops. The Park advises looking at the telescopes first, installed here since 1980. Then the path follows a reddish ridge of porous rock and a grey scree that rings sharply underfoot, and crosses several rock dykes that act as natural viewpoints. At the first knoll you have the Barranco de los Cantos and the group of telescopes on the left, and on the right the Espigón del Roque Chico with, further down, the Agujeritos, a set of saw-toothed peaks. In the Barranco de los Cantos you see patches of colour cut through by dykes: remains of volcanic cones that erosion has sliced. After a small saddle the Teide broom and the summit pink, with white flowers, appear, and about 50 m further on the path ends, beside the great cliff that drops towards the Cantos de Turugumay.
The fenced plots
Between the Roque and the first dyke you will see fenced plots. They are replantings the Park has made since 1994 on the reddish picón (volcanic gravel), with pajonera grasses, echium, wallflowers, violets, brooms and tagasastes, and which it plans to extend with bencomia, Canary cedar, peralillo and summit pink. The fences will be removed when the plants are adult: do not go in.
What you see from the end
In good weather you see Tenerife, La Gomera and El Hierro, and in the foreground, to the south-west, an old cedar or two and summit peralillos. Often the sea of clouds lies below and only the highest peaks of the Caldera peek out; in autumn the fog sometimes spills over the cliffs to the north-east. The landscape changes in minutes with the fog. The Park recommends it only for those without vertigo.
Hut, road and altitude
The hut opens from 10:00 to 18:00 from October to April and from 9:00 to 20:25 from May to September. There is no bus: you go up by car, taxi or excursion, along the LP-4 from Santa Cruz de La Palma or via Garafía. Walk slowly, because at this altitude oxygen is scarce, and protect yourself from sun and cold. In winter ice makes the path dangerous. Next to the telescopes there are no cafés: bring water and something to eat.
- **La Cumbrecita viewpoint, looking over the Caldera de Taburiente** (1 h · Everyone · Free): It is the most visited spot in the National Park: a saddle on the rim of the Caldera de Taburiente from where you see the great eroded crater, with its Canary pines and the walls rising to the Roque de los Muchachos, where the telescopes are. You get there by a 7 km road that leaves from the El Paso Visitor Centre.
The car reservation
The car park is small, so from 8:30 to 16:00 (until 18:00 in busy periods) you can only drive up with authorisation. It is requested at the National Parks' booking centre, up to a month ahead and up to the same day, in 30-minute slots. At the Riachuelo barrier you show the reservation on your phone; you can pass from 10 minutes before to 20 minutes after your time, and if you arrive later it is cancelled. You can cancel until 24:00 the day before. From 16:00 you drive up without a reservation, and people with accredited reduced mobility don't need one.
What to do up there
Look, mostly. The information point opens from 8:30 to 18:30 from October to April and from 8:35 to 20:00 from May to September. Short paths leave the car park along the rim; ask at the information point which are open, because the Park closes sections because of rockfalls or bad weather.

## Dónde comer
- **Casa Osmunda, Breña Alta** (Restaurant, Breña Alta, €€€). Qué pedir: the confit potatoes stuffed with rabbit in salmorejo, the fish of the day and the Palmero cheese board
- **Parador de La Palma restaurant** (Restaurant, Breña Baja, €€€). Qué pedir: watercress or chickpea stew and the boiled fish of the day with mojo

## Consejos

### Check the cloud forecast, not just the rain one
On many afternoons the sea of clouds covers the coast and leaves the summit clear. From Los Cancajos it can look cloudy and be perfect up above: that is why the companies decide the viewpoint at the last minute.

### Combine day and night in the same trip
Visit the observatory in the morning, come down via the Caldera and go back to the summit or to Llano del Jable at night. With the Ad Astra ticket, the visitor centre costs you half price for a week.

### Bring food to the summit
Next to the observatory there are no cafés or restaurants: only drinks machines at the visitor centre.

## Preguntas frecuentes

### Can you visit the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory?
Yes, by day and with a reservation, with authorised Starlight guides, from April to November. The visitor centre opens all year without booking except on 24, 25 and 31 December and 1 January.

### How much does guided stargazing cost in La Palma?
With AstroLaPalma, €35 from age 12 and €25 for ages 4 to 11 without transport, or €55 with transport. The telescope visit with Ad Astra costs €20.

### Do you need a car?
Yes. No public transport goes up to the Roque; observatory visits start in the visitor centre car park and only some night observations include transport.

### Can children go?
To the telescopes, from age 6 and with an adult. To AstroLaPalma's stargazing, with a children's rate from 4. The visitor centre is free up to age 12.

### How many days do you need?
Two nights: one day of observatory and stars and another for the Caldera de Taburiente or the volcanic south. With three, you can repeat the sky if one night turns out cloudy.