Tenerife

For the 3rd year in a row we return to the Canaries and after 24 years (it was our honeymoon) we return to Tenerife. August is a whole different thing compared to February. We stay in Costa Adeje, near a very long beach reachable by a walk that seems never to end, lit up in the evening, along which hotels of the most varied colours and shapes are located. The sand is dark except on the beach of La Teresitas, towards Santa Cruz, where however the sand was brought from the desert but the effect is nonetheless astounding. Every locality of the island deserves a visit: from Garachico with its natural pools, to Icod de los Vinos where a park has been made for the thousand-year-old Dragon Tree (a dracaena of almost 1000 years) but you can also see it perfectly well from outside.

In Puerto de la Cruz, in the north, a blanket of muggy heat envelops us, but the seated Christ is still there in the cathedral as so many years ago. The Orotava Valley shows itself with its expanses of banana plantations. Not to be missed is the Teide, the highest mountain in Spain with its 2,800 metres; climbing we fear the cold but the sun burns instead, lava sand everywhere, volcanic rocks of the most disparate shapes (there's even the zapatilla de la Reina) and marvellous panoramas. Along the western coast Los Gigantes, the majestic sea cliffs, and Masca, a small village among the barren mountains.