Volcanological Interpretation Center — Attraction in El Pinar de El Hierro

Probably the worst museum I've ever been to. First of all: the topic of El Hierro's vulcanic history and the recent eruptions of canary islands is highly interesting and I was really excited to get some deeper insights when I arrived at the museum. Unfortunately, I left fully disappointed: There are only two rather small rooms Many things are broken (e.g. several beamers) Many objects are completely contextless and uncommented, like pictures of a church (?!) Translations (German/English) are often incomplete (Spanish sentences) or wrong (sentences do not make sense) The beamers are gesture-controlled by waving with your hands which is a nice idea to make the experience more interactive but poorly implemented. You have to navigate back and forth a lot and in the end it's just uniteractive text blocks Interformation often redundant (e.g. the exact same map is exhibited twice) without really explaining the big picture According to older reviews the museum used to be free but nowerdays they charge you an entry fee of approximately 5€ per adult Whilst El Hierro pretends to be a highly sustainable island using reneweable energy souces, this museum is wasting a lot of electricity, produced by a stinky diesel engine in...

We visited the Volcanological Interpretation Center today. We loved the exposition and the enlightening explation of the Island's birth and geolocical facets of and faces of the vulcanic activities in the past. Beautifully done, loved the 'lava garden' and the path through it, that was created. Also very fascinating to see the documentation and video show of the birth of the latest volcano off the shore of Restinga (still just below sea level, but who knows how long that will stay like that?!) :-) We had obtained a museum passport for the island, and this was the second highlight of the four we ticked...

Very interesting particularly if you take the time to read the panels in the first building (QR translations in English and German). The exterior path could do with a lot more explanations particularly for those of us that are not geologists! Second building deals primarily with eruptions in 2011/12..some interesting videos. Although a shame that the archeological/architectural elements are not...