Five Nights in Puerto de la Cruz
January is definitely the winter of my discontent. It’s the slump after Christmas when the dark reality of the post-festive season kicks in. It is generally just shit.
This is what Twickenham is like in the winter.
Because Julie and I have the time and resources to escape the gloom, we decided to make a getaway. The next question is, where? I really didn’t fancy the flying time and ticket cost of a long-haul to Asia or the Caribbean. Florida is MAGA country, and not my natural environment as a card-carrying Guardian-reading-pinko-liberal (with both a small and capital L).
Warm places on a shortish-haul flights are: Madeira, the Canaries or Egypt. I went to Madeira once and thought it was OK, but it didn’t really ring my bell. I’ve been to Egypt twice on cheap holidays and drank some of the worst wine and beer in the world.
The Canaries have eight islands to choose from, good food and wine and quite a lot of culture.
Call me a creature of habit:
“Tim, you’re a creature of habit”
but I do like Tenerife. It has several cities to visit, a vast number of restaurants, and a smattering of interesting things that appeal to my Culture-Supplement-Reading-Self. So we got a guide book out of the library, and Julie (the finest travel agent in my house) booked flights and accommodation.
Twickenham was minus five and very frosty when we left at 5am, and drove very carefully down the motorways to Gatport Airwick. Our bright orange (guess who) A320 landed at sunny Tenerife South Airport at about 12.30 on 10th January.
Julie is exceedingly well organised when it comes to holidays, and had pre-booked a shuttle coach from the airport to Puerto de la Cruz on the north coast of the island.
“Why Puerto de la Cruz” I hear you ask ? It’s in The North of the island where some people (who holiday in the South) say it rains all the time and Polar Bears hunt on the sea ice. Puerto de la Cruz is actually a lovely town (in parts) and the weather is pretty much the same as in the desert-like south of the island.
Staying in Puerto de la Cruz
Annoyingly our shuttle coach stopped at about a dozen hotels before getting close to our flat, which was a real draaag maaan. Our host Alexandra met us outside the block and took us up to our seventh floor studio flat. She was German or Dutch. Or possibly Swedish or Danish, definitely Northern European. After a brief tour of the flat she left us a delicious bottle of rose, Castillo de Benizar Cabernet Sauvignon 2019. It mysteriously fell down our throats later that day, along with a big bag of crisps.
The flat was tiny, in fact it was a converted hotel room. But it did have a terrace looking south over the Valle de la Oratava and the central mountain of the island. The Valle is not a valley between two hills in the usual sense, but a slope down from the centre of the island on the side of the volcano. It is very verdant and covered with banana plantations, vineyards and farm houses . This is unlike the South of the island which looks like Iraq, and not the irrigated part of Iraq.
I had my pocket binoculars which I bought in Lanzarote focused on the astronomical observatory on the ridge in the distance, which is where Brian May did lots of his star watching, studying for his PhD.
Alexandra recommended a restaurant called Meson Los Golemos which is (apparently) a typical Canarian place. She told us that we couldn’t book and might have to queue for a “short while”. So we walked there in the late afternoon sunshine for an early dinner and queued outside for half an hour, with other keen potential diners. There were still fourteen people in the queue in front of us before we thought “sod that” and went off in a huff.
After a bit of hunting around, I found Las Tequita de Min by the harbour, which we went to last in 2021, but I think it was a different owner. The mixed fish platter was OK, but not as good as it was last time. Typically it had the “Canarian potatoes” with red and green sauces. They seem to come with most meals and are new potatoes which are a bit salty. I couldn’t describe what the sauces taste like, but ketchup has more flavour.
Having got up at Stupid O’Clock we ran out of steam fairly early. On the walk back to the flat and bought some milk and biscuits at the Hyperdino supermarket nearby. Being British, we had brought our own tea bags with us so we wouldn’t shrivel from tea starvation.
Our First Full Day
On the first night in Tenerife we had a very good night’s sleep. It is in the same time zone as the UK, so there is no jet lag. The flat is on the 7th floor of a block in the town centre, and is very quiet. We get more noise in Twickenham when the planes for Heathrow are going over. Once the sun rose above the mountain at about 9am, the terrace was sunny and warm.
We walked down to the sea front and enjoyed a busker playing English rock songs, notably Creep by Radiohead and Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. He threw all the right shapes and looked suitably rock-starry with a bandana around his head, but his voice was a bit weedy. He needs to smoke more fags and drink Jack Daniels like Keef Richards.
INTERESTING FACT
Radiohead were sued for plagiarism by Mike Hazlewood and Albert Hammond because Creep is similar the their song The Air That I Breathe, which was a big hit for the Hollies.
The sea front in that part of the town does not have a good beach, but it does have an open plaza with benches where you can watch surfers mostly not catching waves. They swim out and bob around for a long time waiting for a good wave and occasionally catch a good one, and race 50 metres to the shore.
After the busker left for a more lucrative pitch (I did give him a Euro for Sultans) we walked up lots of steps to the upper part of the town and went to the Botanic Gardens, for the third time. The town is at the foot of the slopes that peaks at Mount Teide, not much of the entire island is flat, it’s either up or down. I did see it on TV once when it featured in an episode of Foundation on Apple + . The Emperor of the galactic empire was walking round the garden talking to his android advisor/girlfriend or some such bollocks.
The gardens are the second oldest botanic garden in Spain (after Madrid) and are densely packed with palm trees, exotic figs and an enormous Norfolk Island Pine. These strange trees are very popular on the island and grow very large in the perfect conditions.
The best tree is the giant Lord Howe Island fig, which has aerial roots that grow into the ground and become trunks. It looks quite other-worldly like a tree from Pandora in Avatar.
In the afternoon we sunned ourselves on our terrace with our books, and had a glass of Rose, it was very relaxing. By the way I mean Rosay wine, but I don’t know how to make the accent on the “e” at the end of the word.
In the evening we had a walk along the sea front, which was very lively with promenading tourists. The north of Tenerife is very popular with German and Dutch tourists, whereas the south is more popular with Brits. So you can get a curry wurst and Paulaner beer if you fancy one.
As it got dark we walked west and found the Elements cocktail bar. I had a Singapore Sling and Julie had a White Lady and we watched passersby envious at our sophistication and good taste. I do enjoy a cocktail when you don’t have to take out a mortgage to buy one, as you do in Twickenham.
Julie found an Italian Restaurant called Il Ponte, which is about 3 minutes from the flat. It is a family run place which is very friendly and the food was wonderful. We both had pasta ribbons with a rabbit ragu which was bloody delicious! Rabbit is very popular in Tenerife for some reason, I have never had it with pasta before. The chef was very funny and kept doing rabbit ears and hopped around his kitchen. I loved the place and we are going back tomorrow.
A Bus Trip Up Teide
You would be daft to go to Tenerife and not take a trip up Mount Teide. It is the tallest mountain in Spain (almost 12,000 feet) and is a spectacular natural wonder. The road winds up from Puerto de la Cruz through La Oratava through lush plantations and then pine forest. It takes about an hour and is windy all the way. I’m very pleased I wasn’t driving.
The road then reaches a place called El Portillo at the start of the National Park and the landscape changes from pine forest to very high altitude desert at over 6,000 feet. It really does look like Arizona or the Sahara, a very alien landscape and not at all like Surrey.
The coach stopped for coffee and toilets and we tried a local special coffee called a barraquito. It is made with espresso, frothy milk, liqueur and condensed milk. It was sweet and small like a little Irish Coffee and to be honest I wish we had a proper Americano.
The National Park is the caldera of a long dead volcano roughly 10 miles long and six miles wide. The cone of Mount Teide arises from the caldera up another 6,500 feet which you ascend in the cable car. We put every bit of clothing we had on to go up, because there was snow at the top, clearly visible from Puerto de la Cruz. But it wasn’t as cold as expected because the sunshine was so bright. All the footpaths at the top were closed because of the snow and ice, so we couldn’t walk around. Nonetheless, the views were awesome and there were no clouds so we could see other islands in the archipelago. Just by chance my brother Peter phoned me from Lincolnshire, so I was able to describe the fantastic view to him. I could look down on the observatory I was looking up to from the flat.
Later in the afternoon back at the flat we watched some paragliders circling above the town and slowly descending, we were worried about where they would land! I went down to the sea front to where we had seen the busker the previous day, and the intrepid flyers had just landed there and were there wrapping up their parachutes.
I sat in the sunshine under the palm trees and read my Kindle until it got cool at about 6pm. I’m really enjoying A City on Mars by the Weinersmiths. It’s a non-fiction book written by a husband and wife team all about the feasibility of living on Mars, the Moon and in Space. It won the Royal Society book prize for 2024 and it was well deserved. It is incredibly well researched, informative and humorously written. It also proves even more strongly that they won’t be a Muskow on Mars any time soon.
We returned to Il Pueblo for dinner and were disappointed this time. My Spaghetti Carbonara was very lacklustre and Julie was recommended a “pizza of the day” which was quite good, but twice the price of the standard pizzas.
They build you up then let you down, never trust a chef who does bunny hops in the kitchen.
A Walk to Bo Yo Yo Beach
The old centre of Puerto de la Cruz is set out on a grid pattern, with streets running parallel to the sea shore and others running at 90 degrees to them.
In the centre there are many beautiful old houses built in the typical Canarian style with two or three floors and wooden balconies. The historic heart of the town is surrounded by ugly blocks of flats and hotels built since the sixties. There are some lovely pedestrianised streets of old fisherman’s cottages, interspersed with more modern buildings.
The sides of some new concrete buildings have been painted with beautiful colourful murals. The local council has made a real effort to improve part of the city centre, which is good because the newer hotels are all dreadful.
Another joy in the city are the roadside palm trees. Most are the robust and common Canarian Palms, but there are also Wellingtonia Palms like the ones in Los Angeles, which grow very tall. They are planted in the streets like we have plane tree and maples and give the cities a tropical feel
We walked into the town centre to find the Tourist Information to find some ideas for walks that we could go on. The young woman in there was willing and friendly but not much practical help. She did confirm the walk to Bollollo (pronounce Bo Yo Yo) beach was worthwhile, but that was all she could suggest. I know there are load more walks on the island, but they all required a car or a long bus journey.
After a healthy salad lunch on the terrace in the sunshine we walked east parallel to the coast to Bollollo beach. It was only a couple of miles to the beach, half of it through a banana plantations. It was a splendid walk up hill and down dale through a barranca (dry ravine).
The beach at Bollollo is made of black sand and the sea looked cold, so we didn’t descend down the cliff path to reach it. But there was an excellent restaurant close by where we had a jarra (pint-ish) and a cana (half-ish) of Dorada beer overlooking the sea, which was very relaxing.
That’s what holidays are about really, drinking beer/wine/cocktails in the sunshine and trying to forget that the most powerful man in the world is an orange moron.
On the way back we took some steps down the cliff toward the sea front and watched a paraglider coming into land after flying up and down the coast for a long while trying to lose height. We watched him going back and forth trying to get the right approach at the right height. He did make a perfect landing on the plaza where I had seen the flyers pack up their chutes the day before, it must be their regular landing place.
Close by there was a little bar overlooking the sea, so we had an Aperol Spritz because it was such a great location, the sun was shining and it was the right thing to do. Please don’t get the impression that I’m an alcoholic, I sometimes stopped drinking for hours at a time.
In the evening we dined at Con Pasion, which was a stylish cool place with excellent tapas and a great selection of wines. Altogether we tasted six different Canarian wines, and had dessert. I think the dessert may have been an indulgence too far, and I suffered raging reflux at 2 a.m. God just doesn’t want me to enjoy myself too much!
An amble around town
The bus system in Tenerife, TITSA, is quite good, without being great. There are regular buses all around the island, but getting advanced tickets is a pain. There was always a long queue at the ticket desk and the only machine was broken. We later found it was very easy to buy a ticket on the bus with cash or a card. In fact we paid for pretty much everything by card, either plastic or using our phones.
Without any sort of a plan for activities on that day we strolled through the town centre towards the castillo on the sea front . The oldest part of town has a fine old church, and a square called the Plaza del Charco. Close to the plaza is the old harbour which still has a few fishing boats and a small beach. Until the early 17th century, La Oratava was the main municipality in the area, and Garachico, further to the west, was the main port. Garachico exported Malmsey to England. In 1706, Teide erupted and a lava flow partly destroyed the town and blocked its harbour. Puerto de la Cruz then became the main port for La Oratava and its growth began.
El Castillo San Felipe is a substantial fort on the seafront, probably as protection from English pirates. The castillo is open to the public and has some abstract art in it, which we spent several minutes admiring (about my limit with abstract art). I’m sure that it would be a lovely space for music performances.
Westward from the castillo there is a very pretty promenade and beaches with black sand and palm trees, which give it a very exotic feel. Unfortunately there are lots of signs saying don’t swim because the water is polluted with sewage. It’s a familiar problem to people who live by the Thames. There were plenty of people sunbathing and playing volleyball, and some of them braved the sea to play in the surf ‘n shit.
We found a cafe and had the meal deal of the day, sardines and potatoes with the typical orange and green sauces that they always serve here. They both taste the same to me and are inferior, IMHO, to HP sauce or ketchup. I must bring some next time, I might steal some sachets from Spoons next time I go.
At the end of the beach is Loro Parque, the zoo which is Tenerife’s No.1 attraction. Almost every bus and litter bin advertise the zoo, you can’t escape it. We’ve been twice before and it’s really good, but as a good Guardian reader I feel guilty about it. I felt even worse when I read the Wikipedia page which describes the treatment of its Orcas.
Close to Loro Parque there is a picturesque part of town called Punta Brava that is built right on the shore, the sea must be very noisy in a storm.
On the way back I booked a table at a restaurant called the Tropical in the town centre, and went back to the flat to chill (and write up my diary).
On returning to the restaurant later in the evening they had lost my booking, the utter utter bastards. So we went to another 50 yards away which was very good. A busker parked himself nearby and played Stairway to Heaven and Wish You Were Here, so I generously put a Euro in his hat. I have always been a patron to The Arts.
Walking back up the sea front the full moon lit up the rocky shore, (and so did an annoying street light). The moon is the white blob at the top.
By the way I let an AI in WordPress generate the title for the blog. They are taking over!
Discovering Santa Cruz de Tenerife -History, Beaches and Art
