2021

Tenerife - El Medano, Santa Cruz, Anaga - May 2021

By Ojrza - 11:44

Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands, a little enclave of Spain right by the Morrocan coast. It's the largest and the most populous isle of the archipelgo, with the area of over 2,000 square kilometers. Tenerife 's shape resembles a distorted triangle and most of the cities, villages and other inhabited areas are scattered around the coasts while the center is occupied by Teide National Park around the peak of Teide volcano - the tallest mountain of Spain and the third tallest volcano in the world as measured from its base.

It is one of the top european travel destinations due to its fabulous beaches and tropical vibe and bearable weather all year round. Most tourists stay around Costa Adeje, the south-western coast which is a gigantic resort built strictly for tourists and designed to indulge their whims - mostly for a "beach and party" experience. However, the island offer SO MUCH MORE! We spent a week there and still haven't seen all that it has to offer.

Renting a car and driving across Tenerife was the best idea imaginable. Every part of the island is slightly different, the nature and landscapes varies a lot depending on the region. You'll see if you scroll down!

EL MEDANO

The first stop of the trip was, quite unplanned and accidental. Having decided to spend the first night somewhere close to the southern airport and the most appealing budget hotel was located in El Medano, or rather on its outskirts. Conviniently enough, it was right by a small beach, we later checked was Playa Montana Pelada (which literally means the bald mountain).

Okay, onestly this was one of the most beautiful places we've seen on the island, even though the waves were too big and the wind was too strong for bathing in the Atlantic, the visuals were just remarkable. With black, volcanic soil covered in small red plants and lichen. The afternoon sun coated everything in a wonderful, golden glow, as if it wasn't beautiful already!

Black voldanic sand was carried around by strong winds, forming movable dunes and getting everywhere without control.

Driven by hunger we wandered to the city of El Medano in the evening. Most venues were closed off, most likely because of covid reasons, but this small city had a very nice, local vibe.

LOS ROQUES

The following day brought us yet another spontaneous gem, as we bought our groceries we drove north, and stopped at the first location that seemed nice enough to have our breakfast.

We stumbled upon this tiny, sleepy village that was hidden in a bay between large volcanic rock formations. I think that we haven't seen a single person, as we descended to its tiny promenade, ate our food and shot a bunch of photos. Some of the buildings were carved in the rock walls! Sadly, I could't come close to the church as it was renovated and closed off.

CANDELARIA

Candelaria is the second largest city on the eastern coast of Tenerife, about 20 kilometers south from the capital. This city of 25,100 inhabitants is very picturesque, and furthermore it is known for being the catholic centre of the island and the place of special whorship of Virgin Mary attracting pilgrimages of the all archipellago. There is even supposed to be a legend about two Guanches that discovered a miraculous statue of Mary in a cave, with baby Jesus in one hand and a candle in the other - this most likely relates to the name Candelaria, as Candela means... a candle in spanish. Well who would have guessed?

Plaza de la Patrona de canarias is a relatively big square in the middle of Candelaria, facing the ocean. It opens up to the cathedral as well making it the gathering place for all the pilgrims flocking to the city, but also to other cultural festives and other activities.

Personally, when I visited this site I had no idea of its religious significance. I liked this central plaza, apart from the cathedral there are nine black statues of former leaders of indigenous people of the Canary Islands, the Guanchas. Before leaving Candelaria we also took a walk along the beach in the northern directions and it seemed to be a really nice and peaceful alternative to Costa Adeje beach area.

ROAD THROUGH LAS LAGUNETAS

When we got used to driving by the atlantic shore, in order to look for the wow factor we decided to drive from Candelaria do Santa Cruz de Tenerife driving through the mountains. This was the first time that Tenerife surprised me with the variety of landscapes and atmosphere because as we drove up, the coastal vibe was gone and we teleported into gloomy mountainous forests of pines and spruces. The altitude was about 800-1000 meters above the sea level, therefore it wasn't uncommon to drive through clouds, but catching glimpses of the views when the clouds passed was pretty uncanny.

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE

Santa Cruz is the capital of Tenerife, and one of two capitals of the canary archipelago. Undoubtedly, the largest urban area, the largest harbour and the general powerhouse of the island. It gave me the feeling of a perfect minature version of a typical Spanish city. It had old quarters of narrow streets, abundant and pretty spectacular parks, cultural facilities.

Plaza de Espana is the main square of this municipality, a large representative space facing Santa Cruz's harbour, the city halls and representative hotels, overlooking the mountains.

Another major sight and an acclaimed symbol of the city is the Auditorio de Tenerife, a modern auditorium with a very expressive form designed by a star architect Santiago Calatrava. This is that sort of architect that with minimum knowledge of modern architecture just after one glance at this building you will just know that its his. Nevertheless, the auditorium is a fine building defining the panorama of Santa Cruz.

Palmetum is the last place in the capital that we visited. It is a kind of a botanical garden but displaying hundreds of types of palm trees from all around the world. What's worth mentioning is that the palmetum was once... a garbage dump. But someone then decided to remove it and cover the whole dump with soil, forming a hill and growing all those palms on top. Even if you are not a freak about plants I think you might enjoy walkong around and admiring the views from the hills and the plants themselves.

SAN ANDRES & PLAYA DE LAS TERESITAS

Santa Cruz does have one very nice beach nearby, and its called Playa De Las Teresitas. Unlike most Tenerife's volcanic beaches it has white sand which I think is imported. Nevertheless, its surrounding is just magnificent - high mountains from all sides and the view on San Andres village to the north.

It can be very windy though.

San Andres is a small and sleepy town, but very colourful! Seen from afar it is one of the most popular postcard-like view of the island.

Oh, and there is one small village called Igueste and it was the furthest point we could reach by road following this coast.

And now, for the postcard-like view!

PARK RURAL DE ANAGA & TAGANANA

Go ahead and have a look on Tenerife's map, notice this tip that it has on its norh-eastern side. Most of this area covers up the Anaga rural park, a area of protected landscape. it is a mountinous, very green and very humid area. It has lots of hiking trails of all lengths and difficulty level, however it was quite hard to find reliable information about which ones were open and which were closed off.

We decided to stay in Taganana village, on the north-west side. In order to reach our accomodation from Santa Cruz we had to cross the mountains every day, through an exceptionally curvy and picturesque road. It was definitely NOT for the faint-hearted drivers.

An interesting geographical phenomenon occured, that the eastern part of Anaga was usually sunny, while after crossing the mountains it was instantly colder and cloudier. It was a matter of literally 15 minutes.

Taganana was a village consisting of a bunch of white houses scattered across a valley. It was very, very rural with goats, pidgeons and other animals

Driving down from Taganana where was a very beautiful rocky beach, definitely worth a visit during sunset! It was named Roques de las Bodegas.

We did not do a lot of hiking around Anaga's trails, to be fair. We did visit one significant point - Mirador Cruz del Carmen - with a great view to Teide volcano.

Right next to it there was a short hiking trail called "the path of senses" which was an easily accessible trail with three routes of different level of difficulty.