Tenerife

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Tenerife is in many ways similar to Gran Canaria. It has nearly a million inhabitants, pine forests in the north and beach resorts in the south. In between there are truly magnificent mountains and valleys, and it’s pleasant to drive around in a rental car, stopping at viewpoints or small villages to enjoy local delicacies. Somehow, though, Tenerife feels slightly more stylish to me, but I can’t really pinpoint where this feeling comes from. Perhaps I just didn’t come across places like the one in the picture below when I visited Gran Canaria (Restaurante Bahía Beach, Palm-Mar).

Spain’s highest mountain Teide, which has snow for more than half the year, is a truly impressive sight and provides quite a contrast when viewing it from, say, the sandy beach of Puerto de la Cruz. A Thai-themed water park in Tenerife sounded like a complete joke to me, but it’s absolutely fantastic! And according to TripAdvisor, the world’s best.

Unfortunately, the sun didn’t shine much during our trip, so the photos and videos from Tenerife may be a bit grey.

Compared to, say, Fuerteventura, Tenerife is more popular with the British than with Germans. This is perhaps most evident in the restaurant offerings, as Franziskaner and schnitzel ads have been replaced by British pubs and fish n’ chips in the street scene. The benefit of the British was somewhat surprisingly with the food offerings, as Costa Adeje had a few really good Indian restaurants. I once read that England’s most popular restaurant dish is Chicken Tikka Masala, which is also my favorite. If only you could also get good Thai food somewhere in Spain..

Our latter accommodation in Costa Adeje was so full of British retirees that even the locals hardly spoke Spanish there 🙂 For karaoke fans, I also think the places favored by the British are better, as karaoke seemed to echo on almost every street corner in the evenings. The quality varied from one extreme to another, as you might guess.

MY 5 FAVORITE PLACES

#1 Teide

A 3,715-meter-high former volcano. Spain’s, and all of Europe’s, most visited natural wonder with about three million visitors. The world’s largest reflected shadow reaching even over 40 km to La Gomera at sunset. Here are a few facts about Teide (source: Wikipedia).

We drove to Teide from Puerto de la Cruz, and especially when climbing on the town side, our tiny rental car barely managed to climb some hills even in second gear. Higher up, fortunately, the ascent became gentler and our faithful rental steed had an easier time. The route took about an hour, but as usual, the scenery along the way would have been worth the trip alone.

Even though there was no access to the summit, it was at least quite cool and windy at Teide when we visited in early February, so it’s worth bringing considerably more clothing here than to the beach.

#2 San Cristóbal de La Laguna

A beautiful and charming small town 10km inland from the capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The town was once the capital of Tenerife and its historic center has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. It is generally considered the cultural capital of all the Canary Islands.

I myself am very fond of this type of town, where the buildings are beautiful, there are plenty of people on terraces and streets but not to the point of crowding, and above all there is hardly any car traffic in the center.

San Cristóbal could well serve as a base for me for a couple of nights on some future trip, from which to go on a day trip north to Anaga Natural Park, for example, and enjoy nice restaurants in the evening. In the picture below is a nice café (Makika) where we went to get more energy from caffeine and cheesecake for the day’s adventures.

#3 Anaga Natural Park (Parque Rural de Anaga)

Winding roads, mountains, valleys, views of the Atlantic and villages on the mountainsides.

The ocean, mountains, a winding road. I don’t know if it’s about being Finnish or what, but walking in the forest does really good things for peace of mind. Even if the forest is different from home in the north. Or maybe it’s because as a child you could go straight from our backyard into the forest to explore.

#4 Puerto de la Cruz

The first time I visited Puerto de la Cruz, almost ten years ago, I didn’t realize what a nice place it is. Most tourist beach destinations, in my opinion, are built one building or shack at a time, just trying to do as much as possible as cheaply as possible, whereas Puerto de la Cruz has been a popular holiday destination since the 1800s, and it shows.

The beaches here are black sand and a bit barren, and because the town is located on the west side of Tenerife, it’s also somewhat windy. So Puerto de la Cruz is not a perfect destination for a beach holiday. However, Lago Martianez, designed by Lanzarote’s own son and most famous person, César Manrique, offers several seawater pools where you can lounge and watch the sunset, for example.

#5 Siam Park

As a former resident of Thailand, it was interesting to go and explore Siam Park, which according to TripAdvisor is the world’s best water park (Siam is Thailand’s former name).

I’ve been twice and plan to go again. In addition to calmer slides, there are several where you get proper speed. I also liked that in several slides you go on rubber rings and your back doesn’t take the same kind of hit as in many other water parks. In Tower of Power, the speed is up to 80kmh and the height difference is 28m. It’s much steeper than it looks. Videos of the descents can best be found on YouTube.

The artificial wave was a completely new experience for me. A bit surprising that no one seemed to get injuries here, as the most enthusiastic water beasts were gathering more speed on top of the wave while a new group of people started riding the wave.

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