Tenerife, Canary Islands

Tenerife is the largest of the Canary Islands and is a great place to travel. British, Nordic and German tourists come in the tens of thousands every year to visit its spectacular beaches and lively nightlife. It is also very popular among holidaymakers from the Spanish peninsula, especially during Easter time. It offers lush forests, exotic fauna and flora, deserts, mountains, volcanoes, incredibly beautiful coastlines and spectacular beaches. The entire island is a Spanish province named Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which leads to inevitable confusion with the capital city Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

For more information on this island click on this link: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Tenerife

Today we had the included tour and we realized that we had done this tour on May 3, 2019. Michael kept insisting he had never been here but once we got to the final stop, he recognized the McDonald’s! Ha ha ha. Unfortunately, we had a guide that was less than adequate and on the way back to the ship, she played loud awful Spanish music of some kind when all we wanted to do was just rest and be quiet.  Oh well, can’t win them all. 

The island is small and is made up of 323 volcanoes. There are approximately 1 million people who live here.  Our ship docked at a most incredible breakwater.  The capital is a very modern looking city and the island is quite mountainous. You can see homes snaking up the valleys in the mountains.

Downtown 

Homes snaking up the mountain 

We started off at noon on our excursion to the botanical gardens.  The weather was absolutely glorious, sunny and in the mid 70s. It doesn’t get any nicer than this.  The gardens were quite lovely but mostly greenery. Next, we went to the resort town of Puerto de la Cruz.  Here we just walked along the boardwalk and then stopped to have a drink and people watch. There is an incredible waterpark here.  All in all, it was a very pleasant day.