Los Lavaderos

Experiencia fantástica: Un trocito de La Orotava, anclado en el tiempo. Espectacularmente bonito.

Experiencia positiva: e laundry rooms, that you’ll find on your left as soon as you start the ascent up Calle Doctor Domingo González García. There were up to five public laundry rooms in La Orotava. The only one that is preserved is known as the San Francisco laundry room, which dates from the 16th century. To wash the clothes, a ditch was diverted from the main water channel that supplied the mills. The old main ditch, where laundry was communally washed, was replaced in the 1940s by twenty-four individual pools with their own pumps. Twenty years later, the use of these laundries was abandoned due to the supply of running water in homes. The current area was recently restored to serve as an example of the cultural heritage of the washerwoman's trade and the use of water in La Orotava. Laundry work was traditionally carried out by females. It was here that maids, humble housewives and washerwomen washed clothes together. They used to sing together while they washed. This was one of the very few opportunities for women to have a social life. It was exclusively a female place, although they often had to protect themselves from the gaze of the men who would spy on them from the window of the mill. From the late 18th century on, women were forced to clear away from the area every afternoon, since the laundry room became a sort of casino for men, where they would drink wine and play cards.

Experiencia negativa: We walked up to the old laundry, very uphill so would not bother if mobility is poor. Their was not any information about the place except for lovely old photos along the back of stone washbasins, which was a bit disappointing. You could clearly see where the water ran downhill to be used. They was some seats to sit in the sun and rest

Experiencia fantástica: Een interessant stukje geschiedenis. Je moet er net tegenaan lopen, want het ligt iets buiten het toeristische centrum. De foto's vertellen het verhaal. Ik hou van zulke historische plekken.

Experiencia positiva: Un lugar por donde pasar y conoce cómo lavaban la ropa las personas de antes. Es curioso que el agua que se usaba aquí, antes de llegar servía para mover un molino de agua, que movía una piedra con el cual se molía los cereales para hacer gofio. Justo la edificación que está arriba está una tienda donde se puede comprar el gofio.

Experiencia positiva: Los Lavaderos en La Orotava, forman parte de la cultura del agua en La Villa de La Orotava. Donde antiguamente, las lavanderas, lavaban utilizando el agua que salía del rebosadero del molino de gofio que está por encima. Éste se encuentra por encima de la plaza de San Francisco. Ha sido completamente rehabilitado y declarado B.I.C. (bien de interés cultural) en 2004.