Tenerife: Last-Minute Roulette

The story

LAST MINUTE TENERIFE

This time I trusted a last-minute deal I found online to escape my everyday life: I really needed to switch off…. After much indecision over flight prices, times and weather, we decide that the best option of all is Tenerife… (just think, on Saturday morning I woke up with the idea of going either to Marsa Alam or Djerba, and instead look what fate has in store for you….) Once I'd found this blessed last-minute deal for Tenerife, on Saturday morning we book and pay by credit card: on Wednesday we're off to the island of eternal spring!!!!!

The idea I had of Tenerife was certainly not the one I formed while visiting it…. I did imagine a tourist island, and as far as Playa de las Américas goes it is far too much so…. But I certainly didn't expect to find such breathtaking landscapes as those of the Teide, but also those of El Médano and the nearby island of La Gomera.

Tenerife is an ideal holiday destination for everyone, from those seeking relaxation to those who want to get around and discover its hidden sides…. From the young to the not so young …. I must say, though, that there were lots of young people and plenty of nice bars around Las Américas. It's certainly an island where it's impossible to get bored!! For anyone planning to explore the island by public bus, getting the BONO is essential, a card that entitles you to ticket discounts (costing from 7 to 30 euros)

We fly with Blu Panorama... I've never seen such a cramped plane, we're really squashed in, but for a 4-hour flight it's bearable…. Once at the airport we grab our suitcases straight away and are driven to our hotel: Oro Negro (part of the Catalonia chain) in Playa de las Américas. The hotel isn't exactly the best from an aesthetic point of view… a nine-storey block, but then everywhere around they're all more or less like that…. Anyway, they give me room 855, it doesn't have a sea view but looks onto the mountains and the golf course. The air conditioning only works if you leave a 20-euro deposit at reception…. (I've never seen anything like it!) which is then refunded at the end of the stay….

The hotel offers full board with drinks, though I noticed a certain recycling of the food… it was always the same and rarely changed… The show cooking is remarkable, that is, meat or fish from the daily menu cooked right in front of you.. I never used the pool but there were always lots of people (but can you really go to Tenerife just to sit by the pool????!!!!) I was happy at the hotel even though many people from my flight complained… the only drawback, in my opinion, was that the sea was a 15-minute walk away…. If they'd put on a shuttle it would have been more convenient…. On to the holiday!!! Having arrived and settled in, we decide to see this blessed Atlantic Ocean…. The beach of Las Américas in the Las Verónicas area is very crowded, and towards Los Cristianos there's a beautiful seafront full of palm trees and little shops.

Tenerife is full of perfume shops with super competitive prices…. And the handbags are no joke either…. The following day we decide to go to the beach of Los Cristianos (Playa de las Vistas), which personally I found much better than Las Américas.. there are showers, toilets, safe-deposit boxes, changing cabins, ALL FREE….. (how far ahead they are in Spain…)(beaches in Spain are public: you can settle wherever you like and no one can say anything). In the afternoon we decide to see Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife… it's about 80 km from Las Américas but easily reachable by bus (the 110 direct; Titsa is the local transport company and a one-way ticket costs 7.50E).

What struck me most about this city is the imposing auditorium (on the sea) that resembles the Sydney Opera House, and in the background there are even the Twin Towers!!!! This is an ideal destination for shopping, there are shopping centres you can get lost in….. The following day we take the Color Tour jeep trip, visiting the north of the island and the Teide park…. We pass through Garachico, which was once the capital of the island but was then marked by disastrous events; we arrive in a remote little village to see the thousand-year-old dragon tree (which in reality is only 650 years old) and then have lunch in Puerto de la Cruz, a pleasant little town by the sea where the Martianez pools are. After lunch we climb the Teide (3,800 metres high) up to 2,150 metres,… the route is winding but with the jeep it's fine and you can admire the changing landscape….

It goes from desert to lichen forest, you pass among rocks that are marked by the different eras and show it through their different colours…… a splendid thing…..

La Gomera

we book this excursion with an agency near the Mare Nostrum hotel in Los Cristianos…(price 51.5E per person against the 87 of InViaggi, which however does it by off-road vehicle). You reach the island with the Fred. Olsen ferry in about 30 minutes. The island is stunning but the trip is done in a double-decker coach… and the island's roads are very narrow and, above all, VERY steep and drop-away….. we didn't know that… we found ourselves on the second floor of the bus in the second row and believe me, at certain points I was really having a heart attack…. It even had to reverse on a sheer bend… not to mention all the branches that hit us as we crossed the laurisilva forest of Garajonay. The island of La Gomera is totally different from Tenerife…..

La Gomera has stunning landscapes and is very green… you go from the laurisilva (plants dating back thousands of years, a cross between laurel and heather; here the heather can reach up to 3 metres in height!!) to the terraces, the palms and the plane trees.,… It's a small island but, being very mountainous, it takes a long time to get around….. as soon as we arrive at the port we begin our climb and at a certain point we find ourselves above the clouds with a view of the Teide…. STUNNING!!! The island is a Unesco heritage site. For lunch they take us to the Las Rosas restaurant, where they give us a demonstration of the Gomera whistle… an ancient method of communication between the island's inhabitants. The island of Gomera is also known as the Columbian island, since it was right here that Columbus stopped before setting off on his voyage of discovery to America.

So we visit his house….. The day is over, we set off back to Tenerife….. well, surprise…… the port of Gomera has transparent water and there are even lots of fish!!!! I've never seen such a clean port!!!

Half a day in EL MÉDANO

Reading some info on the Canarian tourism website before leaving, I become aware of this beach, famous above all because windsurf and kite competitions are held there…… And I can't miss it…… so we take the bus to El Médano!! It's a particular beach…. The southern part is bordered by Mount Roja, which is the promontory you can see from Tenerife South airport….. and right near that mount it's full of surfers and kite surfers doing a thousand acrobatics…. Beautiful!!! The beach is 2 km long and, in my opinion, together with that of Las Teresitas, the most beautiful on the island. Sunday at Playa de las Teresitas the beach of Las Teresitas is north of Santa Cruz; you get there by taking the bus to Santa Cruz and then another one to the beach.

This beach isn't natural, it's made with as many as 8,000 sacks of sand brought from the Sahara desert, and it sits in a bay backed by a large promontory. You can shelter from the sun by lying under the palms or the plants called sea grape. The beach is very beautiful, the water crystal clear, and it's an excellent place to relax.