Tenerife south to puerto de la cruz: How to get to Puerto de la Cruz from Tenerife South Airport

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Hr. C E from Germany

(12/01/2021)

Tenerife Airport South (TFS) Airport
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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M. M L from France

(31/12/2021)

Tenerife Airport South (TFS) Airport
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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Sr. J H from United Kingdom

(28/12/2021)

Tenerife Airport South (TFS) Airport
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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Mr R B from United Kingdom

(08/12/2020)

Airport South Tenerife
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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Mr K D from Germany

(25/10/2020)

(Shuttle Service)

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M. F B from Switzerland

(16/09/2020)

Airport South TF1 Airport
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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Mr F J from Ireland

(16/09/2020)

Tenerife Airport South (TFS) Airport
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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Hr. C G from Germany

(12/09/2020)

Tenerife Airport South (TFS) Airport
– Puerto de la Cruz (Shuttle Service)

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Puerto de la Cruz or how is it to live on a volcano?

We will fully dedicate this post to the sights of in the northern capital of Tenerife – Puerto de la Cruz . Even when planning our independent trip to Tenerife, this city sunk into our souls so much that we immediately decided to stay here.

The question immediately arises: “Why Puerto de la Cruz?”

We will try to answer this question as accurately as possible and analyze all the pros and cons of holidays in the north of Tenerife.

So, our choice was initially carefully thought out and was not a mere accident.

Puerto de la Cruz became a tourist Mecca only in the 50s and 60s. City officials made a small fishing town into a tourist center, which became very popular with the “new Russians” in 90’s.

The main attraction of Puerto de la Cruz is its unsurpassed climate, which played an important role in choosing our location for our summer vacation.

When we landed at Tenerife South Airport, we were surrounded by solid yellow rocks. And doubts have already crept into my soul whether we are really on one of the most beautiful islands of the Canary archipelago.

But as we moved north of the island along the road, we began to meet banana plantations and a wide variety of flowers.

Everything around appeared before us in bright cheerful colors. In the south of the island you simply will not find this.

A lot of visitors remain loyal to this city, despite the fact that in Puerto de la Cruz is much cooler than, for example, in Las Americas. Sometimes the sun can hide for several days behind gray clouds. But, despite this, the air temperature almost never drops below 27 ° C.

Walking through the city on a sunny day, one could always enjoy the view of the majestic peak Pico el Teide . This gave the city a certain charm and grandeur.

Although upon arrival we did not immediately notice it because of the gray clouds, it appeared to us only on the second day of our stay in Puerto de la Cruz .

One morning, opening the curtains of our room, we saw this:

Puerto de la Cruz beaches is not the same as on the rest of the island, for example, Playa Jardin with black volcanic sand deserves special attention.

Although we are not particularly fond of swimming, we could not deny ourselves the desire to spend days, and especially evenings, on the beach watching amazing sunsets and the seething depths of the sea.

Like a city Puerto de la Cruz is small with 30,000 inhabitants. If you wish, you can see the most interesting places in the city in a day, it is quite easy to navigate in it, in my opinion.

Here is a small map to help you get your bearings.

What are the must-sees in Puerto de la Cruz?

1.

Loro Park .

2. Europe Square in the old town.

3. Charco Square

4.

Lago Martinez basin.

5. Promenade.

6.

Playa Jardin.

7. Church of Nuestra Senora de la Pena de Francia.

8. Fishing port.

The main landmarks in the city should be two beaches that are located in opposite parts of the city.

PlayaMartinz and Playa Jardin are connected by the multi-kilometer promenade Avenida de Colon.

The promenade is a completely pedestrian zone, on the left side there are hotels, cafes, restaurants with outdoor terraces.

One of my favorite activities after dinner was walking along the embankment. Walking along the ocean, you can visit numerous souvenir shops, stop by an ice cream parlor or taste Canarian wines.

It is impossible to pass by, every time the “restaurant barkers” offered us a meal. On the other hand, African matrons were sitting, wishing only today and only for you to make pigtails for you. But they do it not as intrusively as we saw it in Morocco.

It is especially attractive right next to the beaches themselves, sometimes it just turns into a wasteland, but in the future the city’s architects plan to connect these two beaches.

On the first day we wanted to enjoy the ocean, and we covered this distance on foot, we had to walk for about an hour.

Halfway between the beaches we came across a fish pier where fishermen do their fishing in small motor boats and cut their catch right on the shore.

Children with rods also go fishing, and as we managed to see, quite successfully.

Near the pier there is a beach San Telmo and a small church of the same name. It is also on the boardwalk.

The Church of Capilla San Telmo was built back in 1780, on the site where the coastal battery used to stand, guarding the ships that were on the pier from attacks by pirates.

She received her name in honor of St. Telmo is the patron of all fishermen and sailors. Masses are held here in different languages.

Near the church, the coastal cliffs remind us of a lava eruption. On a sunny summer day, it is cozy here and you can have a bite to eat in one of the many restaurants located on the embankment. But in a storm, and especially in winter, the waves here reach 10 meters.

We witnessed the celebration of the feast in honor of St. Telmo.

This place also contains the remains of a medieval defensive wall with long forgotten cannons.

Here we will leave the promenade and move to the city center, at Europe Square (PlazadeEuropa) , for this you will only need to turn left and after 300 meters you are already here.

On the square you will see the town hall, made in the traditional Tenerife style with wooden balconies. Once it was a monastery.

There are many buildings that symbolize Canarian architecture.

You should definitely look into the nearby tourist center, helpful people work here who will help you plan your further route.

It is located at Plaza de Europa.

Opening hours: Mon. – Fri. 9-20; Sat. 9-13.

The main church in Puerto de la Cruz is considered Temple of Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Peña de Francia.

The cathedral was built in 1684-1697, the high bell tower was added later at the end of the 19th century.

This church is very popular among young people, as weddings are held here at night.

Baroque sculptures stand out in the gloomy interior of the church, the work of local craftsman Fernando Estevez and José Luciano Pérez, a well-known artist on the island.

The interior of the temple is almost 100% wood.

Around the church there are many shops where tourists and local youth gather to hide from the scorching sun in the shade of luxurious palm trees.

Puerto de la Cruz seemed to us a calm city, we could walk until late at night without any problems. In the evening, souvenir shops and restaurants with live music open.

On the streets in the evening, you will meet many more tourists than during the day.

Now we will move from spiritual food to food that we will need to maintain our strength on the journey.

If you are traveling in Tenerife on your own, sooner or later the question will arise: “Where can I buy groceries in Tenerife?”

In our version, we booked a hotel with half board. The price included breakfast and dinner, and already lunch we had to get ourselves. 🙂

We had two options: the first was to have lunch in a cafe and the second to look for supermarkets and eat from there. The first option is unacceptable for us, because of its high cost. We choose only budget travel and eat only in restaurants for 14 days and were not included in our budget.

The second option remains. You can buy groceries in Puerto de la Cruz at the supermarket or market.

There are many supermarkets in Puerto de la Cruz and they are scattered throughout the city. You will find excellent quality products at the Centro Colubus Plaza, which is located on Piazza Charco.

The huge market Mercado Municipal is located on Avenida de Blas Peres Gonzales. Works from Mon. on Sat. from 8 to 20 and on Sun. from 9-14.

There are also small ones called “Dino” near almost all hotels. Especially, what pleased us in them is a huge selection of seafood. Their prices are quite low compared to European ones.

In Puerto de la Cruz we stayed all the time of our trip. And from here they made independent tours around the island.

So in the following articles we will tell you how you can travel around the island for minimal money.

The next place we went to was the capital of the island of Tenerife — city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife .

We were especially surprised by the city’s beach, because for its construction from the Sahara desert, such yellow sand, unusual for the north of Tenerife, was brought.

But this is already in the next issue of our independent trip to Tenerife.

Find out more about self-guided travel in Tenerife here

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Canary Islands: getting to know the island of Tenerife

Spring has come and the summer holidays are just around the corner. Many are already combing the Internet with thoughts about where we can go this summer to have a good rest. And there are a lot of such places on the map.

Today’s tourists have become very spoiled and it is no longer enough for them to go to Turkey or Egypt and just lie on the beach. Tourist appetites have increased markedly, and everyone wants to combine a beach holiday with exciting excursions and, upon arrival home, surprise their friends and relatives with colorful and interesting travel photos.

In 2012, by chance, we managed to visit one amazing island and in a series of articles about this island we will try to describe our adventures. And maybe tomorrow this island will become the goal of your next trip.

It will be about “Island on the Volcano” called Tenerife . We have prepared a series of articles about this island called “Tenerife or how is it to live on a volcano?”

So, the first question before the trip.

How to travel alone in Tenerife?

In our posts you can find out a lot of useful and interesting information about:

1. How to get to Tenerife?

2. Transport in Tenerife.

3. Where can I stay cheap in Tenerife?

4. How much does it cost to travel around Tenerife alone?

Behind ancient legends, it was in Tenerife that there was a mysterious island called Atlantis.

As much as 17 thousand years have passed since Atlantis went into the depths of the sea. And stories about Atlantis became myths.

The civilization of Atlantis lived in Atlantis, which possessed gigantic strength and mind, was engaged in astronomy and astrology, geometry and alchemy, secret signs and magic spells, they obeyed the elements of Earth, Fire, Water, Air, their leader was the great king Atlant.

In honor of the king, the Atlantic Ocean, washing the shores of Tenerife, was named.

Tenerife is a large island with many interesting places, small towns, villages, seaside resorts, beaches and larger cities for you to discover.

Tenerife is truly considered the most popular and most beautiful island of the Canary archipelago. The landscape here is truly unique and diverse – on the island you will find mountain ranges, magnificent valleys, tropical and subtropical forests, volcanic deserts, mountain gorges and sand dunes.

Tenerife has a truly huge number of attractions and for travelers who have visited this island, the only problem is the choice of what to see, because it is almost impossible to see everything and you will have to come back here many more times. We have visited the most famous and interesting cities of the island about the sights that we will gladly share with you.

Cities we visited in Tenerife:

1.

The reason for this was the budget travel option. One of the German tour operators put up burning tours at the last moment, and we simply could not refuse the opportunity to visit this paradise in the Atlantic Ocean and sunbathe on the black lava sand. The first city we visited was Puerto de la Cruz .

Airports Tenerife

There are two airports on the island of Tenerife. North (Tenerife Nord), which serves domestic flights between the Canary Islands and Spain and South (Tenerife South) is an international airport.

There are direct flights to Tenerife from Russia’s Domodedovo airport, twice a day, but only once a week on Fridays. They fly back on the same day that they arrive. A plane ticket costs from 300 euros. Usually in the summer, as well as during school holidays, additional flights are made.

Unfortunately, there are no direct flights from Ukraine. Air tickets Kyiv-Tenerife for the most convenient connecting flights are available through Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Amsterdam, Munich.

But it’s worth getting upset when a reasonable organization of ticket reservations can be made, so that you will make a transfer the very next day. And you can spend your free time with pleasure in one of these European cities.

Since you already have a Schengen visa, the maximum you will need is to book a budget hostel for one night. It will cost you 15-20 euros.

Getting to Tenerife from Europe is pretty easy. In Europe, there are many cheap airline services that you can use. The price for a budget flight will be from 100 to 180 euros.

The most popular low-cost airlines are Raynair.

Also flying:

from Munich and Frankfurt – Lufthansa

Berlin – AirBerlin;

Amsterdam – “KLM”;

Rome – “Alitaliya”

How to get from the airport to Puerto de la Cruz?

To Puerto de la Cruz can be reached by public transport from Tenerife Nord Los Rodeos – bus number 102 or 343 distance 25 km – and Tenerife South (number 343 approximately 90 km). There are a lot of bus stations on the island and they appear on maps as Estacion de Bus.

To Las Americas and Los Cristianos buses number 450, 343, 111, to Puerto de la Cruz number 343.

As you can see, the main bus route from airports is number 343. On the official website, you can see the bus schedule 343

The south of Tenerife and the airports of Puerto de la Cruz are connected by a high-speed highway. It is possible to rent a car, the prices for cars are quite reasonable. The price of gasoline in Tenerife is within 80 cents per liter.

For lovers of comfortable taxi rides, there should not be any problems near the exit from the airport, at least 20 cars will be waiting for you to take you anywhere on the island.

Here you can find out the cost of a taxi ride in Tenerife. You will learn more about the possibilities of movement around the island of Tenerife from our post “Transport in Tenerife”.

Tenerife climate

Tenerife bears the title of “the island of eternal spring” with dignity. The temperature in winter here does not fall below +19°C, and in summer, especially in its northern part, it does not rise above +25°C. In the south of the island in summer you can count on all +40°C.

This must be taken into account when planning to visit Tenerife. We met a lot of Russian tourists who, when choosing a ticket, overlooked and chose “the wrong part of the island. ”

What does this mean? The climate in the north of the island differs significantly from its southern part. It is worth paying attention to one essential detail. On weather websites, the forecast for Tenerife is given for the capital of the island – Santa Cruz. This is often misleading and has nothing to do with either Puerto de la Cruz or the south of Las Americas.

The capital is located in a different climate zone. The climatic zones on the island are completely different and you need to look at the weather in a specific place you need.

People who originally planned to sunbathe on the beach took tourist packages to Tenerife in the city of Puerto de la Cruz and are horrified to realize that it is not as hot here as they expected – the air temperature reaches a maximum of + 27 ° C. Beaches rocky and small, you can’t do without special shoes. So, they curse Tenerife, complaining all the time about the island.

When choosing a tour or when you are planning your own trip to Tenerife, you should definitely take into account that in the south of the island you will find sandy beaches, high air temperature, many restaurants and boutiques and, of course, discos. But in the south you will almost never find vegetation, all around are solid stones and sand.

In the north you will find more pleasant temperatures up to 27 °C with small but black sand beaches and lots of vegetation. The reason for such large climatic differences are the mountains located in the middle of the island.

Puerto de la Cruz, in turn, is well suited for a relaxing holiday “alone with nature.” It is advisable for you to immediately decide what is more suitable for you in order to feel comfortable while traveling.

In the next articles we will get to know Puerto de la Cruz, test the city’s beaches, talk about Canarian delicacies, visit the city’s main attractions.

So stay with us, subscribe to our blog, and you will be the first to know about our future adventures.
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Tenerife (Canary Islands): from north to south, Puerto de la Cruz

Absolutely not upset that we were leaving the capital of the island – modern architecture and a wonderful hotel could not compensate for the almost constant absence of the sun, behind which and we were driving to the Canary Islands, in the northern region – without any hope of improving the weather until the end of the entire journey on X-day, handed over the keys to the room, loaded our belongings into the car and moved towards the unknown.

In the morning in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the sun was hopelessly trying to win back the territory from the clouds, in La Laguna it was raining like St. Petersburg, and over La Oratava fogs were moving under leaden clouds. The sun was still shining on the coast. We rushed there.

In 1706, after the destruction of one of the most important northern ports of the island, Garachico, by the eruption of the Teide volcano, this area took over the palm. In 1808, it gained independence (before that it was part of the municipality of La Orotava) and became known as the city of Puerto de la Cruz.

Since the end of the 19th century, the British have been coming here for vacation, and the settlement acquires the status of one of the largest tourist centers in Tenerife. About 30 thousand people live here.

The urban area is poorly suited for swimming: the stones near the shore are large, the waves are raging. It remains only to make leisurely promenades along the embankment and Las Loñas Street, where the flavor of the ancient fishing town that once stood on this site has been preserved, to look at European pensioners, shop windows – there are countless of both.

There are also beaches in the south of the city. Among them stands out Jardin (“Jardin” from the Spanish “garden”). Not crowded, clean, with a beautiful panoramic platform. It has been given the highest rating more than once, being awarded the international Blue Flag award (given annually to beaches and marinas, the water in which meets high quality standards and is suitable for safe swimming).

2.5 million euros were spent on the construction of Hardin. For the pier, 4,000 concrete blocks of 20 tons each were made. For breakwaters, 230 thousand cubic meters of coarse volcanic sand were raised from the ocean day. Coconut palms, banana trees, flowers were planted around the beach.

On the edge of Hardin, five steps from the raging ocean, there is a small Tambo restaurant, where we went to eat seafood dishes.

Someone already had a large meal,

others were waiting impatiently.

Having advertised today’s catch and assuring that the seafood was caught 3 hours ago,

the waiter recommended taking the restaurant’s signature dish – the freshest reptiles (there was a label “for two people or more” on the menu), as well as Canarian potatoes with mojo sauces. The fish did not want to, agreed to reptiles. The appetite was brutal, the eyes also wanted a snack – shrimp and squid rings in batter.

Delicate, fragrant, crunchy.

Long wait. Main. Before, potatoes (about a kilogram) and 2 types of sauce appeared on the table. (The root crop with the peel is boiled in water with the addition of a large amount of sea salt, dried, which makes it wrinkle and acquire a whitish salt coating.)

After – a compliment from the institution – a salad.

Further, crouching under the weight of the tray, the waiter brought out freshly prepared reptiles.

We were amazed, not only by the beauty of the dish and the assortment of reptiles, but also by the weight of the food. Three kilograms, no less. There are shrimps, cuttlefish, several species of fish and bivalves. “How can you use everything? This amount can feed 5 people.

Looked at the other patrons of the restaurant. Someone greedily ate mussels from a bowl the size of a basin, someone a giant fish, another enjoyed a bowl of ice cream the size of a flower vase. “Generously, with soul! Let’s eat squirrels today! I will come!”

We ate for three hours. Mastered a third of seafood, the same amount of potatoes and salad. The stomachs of tourists could not take more. They asked me to take the leftovers with me. Shy. It seemed that this procedure was not accepted in Europe. An, no, the waiter sympathetically prepared the packages. “The check, please!” Once again surprise. For a royal dinner – ~ 2300 rubles.

Saying goodbye to the establishment, we walked around Loro Park and drove south along the mountain serpentines.

All the way on the west coast the weather was gloomy – clouds, drizzle, fog. Died with desperation. What a surprise it was when, having passed one of the passes, the clearest blue sky opened up, the sun blinded the eyes, and not a cloud on the horizon. Happiness knew no bounds. South. We hurried to the hotel…

__________________

Daily photo reports were made on Instagram.

Text, photos 15, 17, 19, 22, 35-39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, video: uniquem84.
Other photos, photo and video processing: uniquem80.

Tags: Spain, Canary Islands, Tenerife, videos, beaches, travel, restaurants

Tenerife Christmas Guide – Puerto de la Cruz then, in the days of our distant, khe-khe, first youth, it was hard to believe now, an unrealistic luxury. Twenty years ago, in a detective novel by Dick Francis, I read with envy about how an ordinary English groom flew every winter for two weeks from his gloomy and foggy England to distant warm climes to strengthen the psyche, shattered by half a life spent in the horse business. . This helped him to somehow restrain himself from heavy binges, which he would certainly fall into, watching the same faces and muzzles in front of him day after day :), especially in difficult periods, when the sun is getting smaller, and not much creative activity more and more.

In those years, this life-saving therapy, accessible even to emaciated grooms from some godforsaken island Tmutarakan, was absolutely unattainable for us. However, the times are not the same for a long time, and everyone and sundry fly to the Canary Islands and other southern regions. With difficulty escaped from work here for a week and we.

Holidays in Tenerife, as always, turned out to be “active” – on a relatively small island in 6 days we managed to drive about 900 km in a rented car, visiting almost all places worth visiting, at the same time, quite by accident, looking into some unworthy 🙂

The Canary Islands, although located to the south of Morocco, and three times closer to the coast of Africa than to the western edge of the Iberian Peninsula, it is still, in terms of lifestyle, a typical Europe. And in these December weeks, everything around here reminds of the upcoming Christmas. But Christmas decorations are hung here not on fir trees and pines, but on palm trees and prickly cacti (at worst, on street lamps), and local Santa Clauses who do not follow the established dress code walk the streets not in wadded fur coats, but in bright colorful Bermuda shorts.

Since everything that can be written about Tenerife has already been written in hundreds of different reports, I thought about how to give my stories some originality and decided to combine them with a short guide to the Canarian nativity scenes. I inform you in advance that this is not quite what you might have thought about 🙂 Just like in Europe, in the Canary Islands, in every town, on the streets, in the windows of houses, in churches, Christmas nativity scenes are exhibited (I prefer their Czech name “ bethlems”) – compositions of figurines depicting the scene of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem: Jesus the baby in a manger, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, figurines of domestic animals and birds, oriental wise men with gifts, following the guiding stars. Since Tenerife seems to have surpassed even Prague in the number of betlem dens, and among them there are simply unique exhibits, I simply cannot help but show them in my reports.

* * *

The festive holiday mood begins already at Prague Airport, which this year, which is not without originality, is decorated not with banal Christmas trees with balls, angels and stars, but with various luminous “flying machines”.

Ruzyně Airport, recently named after Václav Havel, also has its own Chagall character hovering over the Prague hills. It is depicted on a woven tapestry measuring 5 by 4.25 meters, hung in the lobby of the new terminal, from where passengers depart within the European Union. The tapestry was made in honor of the former Czech president by the masters of the French Aubusson, the musicians Bono and Edge from the famous Irish band U2, Yoko Ono, Peter Gabriel and Sting 9 formed to purchase it0003

Hundreds of white birds form a silhouette flying over Prague, one of which carries a small red heart, a symbol that Havel often added to his signature. Václav Havel would certainly have liked this plot, although, as they say, he did not like air travel very much.

After a short wait for landing, we also took off, leaving Prague, almost not covered with snow, gloomy and damp, which has already become familiar this season, covered with continuous gray clouds.

In less than an hour, the cloudy jelly dissolved, revealing the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Alps.

The way to Tenerife is not close – three and a half thousand kilometers, almost five hours of flight. It seems that you can sleep off after the nightly training camp (the evening before departure, I returned to the Czech Republic from a business trip, and the training camp, as always, was in a hurry).

But, as I have already noticed more than once, on the plane, the flight staff tries their best to not let a tired person turn off even for a minute. Apparently, this is done so that some impressionable passenger, during the next air shaking over mountain ranges, God forbid, does not have a violent attack of aerophobia. To this end, delivering food and drinks, announcing information, offering press, skyshop and other free aerial “animation” is evenly distributed over the entire flight, so it’s impossible to take a nap at all.

However, the morning flight is not exhausting at all, and now the plane is descending, and the first almost uninhabited volcanic islands of the Canary archipelago are passing under the wings.

Above the cone of Tenerife, the plane turns and dives under the island’s northeastern cloudy plume, above which a towering 3.7 km is visible. dormant El Teide volcano.

In my old Christmas report “African Santa Claus”, I wrote about those unforgettable feelings that you experience when, after just a few hours of flight, before you have had time to warm up after the cold of a dank European winter, you suddenly find yourself in a warm sunny paradise filled with bright light and forgotten summer scents. Striking contrast! But somehow you suddenly get used to the “eternal Canary spring” very quickly, and it already seems in the order of things that at the end of December everything around is blooming and fragrant, the sun gently warms the sun from a clear sky all long day, palm leaves rustle in the wind high above your head , and ripening oranges turn yellow in the dense foliage of trees behind stone fences.

This time we have chosen the northern coast of the island, the town of Puerto de la Cruz in the La Orotava valley, as a base for traveling around the island. In contrast to the sun-scorched brown rocky desert of the south of the island, here the entire coastal valley and the slopes of the mountains descending to the ocean are covered with lush green vegetation.

Everywhere along the roads, behind the fences of private plots and hotels, palm trees, orange and fig trees grow (you just want to climb over the fence and pluck!), and neglected wastelands and steep slopes are overgrown with local weeds – prickly prickly pears that have grown everywhere, like our nettle.

In addition to the familiar bougainvilleas hanging over the hedges in all possible shades of red, pink, orange and yellow, there are many bright flowers unfamiliar to us.

And on the promenade of Puerto de la Cruz it was nice to see the thick bushes of our ordinary field daisies.

There are also coniferous trees in Tenerife, but plantings of the local Canary pine start on the mountain slopes higher, somewhere at the height of the clouds, and in the coastal city, for a festive Christmas decoration, you have to use artificial Christmas trees or orange trees displayed in tubs.

Before leaving, we were interested in the weather in the north of the island, and were surprised – for several days in a row the air temperature there, both day and night, froze at one figure – 20 degrees.

Indeed, in Tenerife there is almost no contrast between day and night temperatures, and we only needed sweaters and jackets taken with us from the cold when traveling to the area of ​​the Teide volcano caldera, located 2 km away. above sea level.

However, you will hardly want to swim at this time in Puerto de la Cruz. The water temperature is also kept at the level of 20 degrees, besides, the high foamy shafts running ashore are still somehow more pleasant to watch from the embankment, without entering the water, known in this place for strong bottom currents even with relative calm.

From the hotel room, located high on the hill, all night long we could hear the powerful pulsing rumble of the surf, with heavy impacts of the ocean waves against the stone blocks of the piers. The sound of the ocean was sometimes louder, sometimes a little quieter, but did not die down completely even on days when there was not the slightest breath of wind in the air.

It is difficult to understand what kind of crazy fish can bite in this seething whirlpool on the bait that enthusiasts cast near the shore, sitting with fishing rods above the water on the fragments of volcanic rocks.

Having spent almost all their energy on the coastal shoals, uneven lines of ocean waves slowly creep onto a wide strip of black volcanic sand and roll back down in thick milky streaks. For a person who is accustomed to the “normal” color of a sandy beach, this sight is unusual and even slightly alarming at some deep subconscious level.

The view of a large black sandy city, with houses, forests, blue lakes among mountains covered with white chalk powder, which a bearded “free artist” built on the beach, not far from the old stone fort, is also unusual. Protecting his creation, he spends the night nearby in a tent, along with his serious dog. Tourists passing by throw euro coins into the box to expand the fabulous black sand world.

We were lucky – the weather was clear and sunny all the days, it was not hot and almost windless. We spent the whole day traveling around the island, returning to Puerto de la Cruz only at dusk.

On the last day, before the lunch flight, having already returned the rental car, we went down from the hotel to the embankment and walked along it to the promontory protruding into the sea, with multi-colored boxes of houses stuck on it

it was, the surf that morning was especially strong, water dust hung in the air above the embankment. In the narrow streets of buildings protruding into the sea, over the strong roar of the surf, with each collision of the water shaft with the pier, a powerful sound wave swept. It is probably romantic to sit here at the window in the evening, watching huge waves crashing on boulders, but living next to this element would be very stressful. This is probably why many houses have signs “SE VENDE” – “For Sale” hanging between the cluttered windows.

But just a hundred meters from the sea, on a cozy square near the St. Rita Church, modern in its architectural style, ordinary city life flowed, decorated with pre-holiday anticipation. After sitting under the umbrellas of a street cafe, we slowly drank a cup of baraquito – coffee with liqueur and condensed milk, which is offered everywhere in the Canaries. I was deprived of the opportunity to try this drink all the days I spent behind the wheel of a car, so I immediately got double pleasure.

Since there were still a few hours before leaving for the airport, we looked into the church itself.

Unusually laconic and bright inner space of the church created a special mood, which was harmoniously complemented by music – a classical piano composition sounded, which is rarely heard in ancient Czech churches.

After listening to pleasant quiet music for a while, we decided to light a candle to the patroness of the Canary Islands, the Virgin of Candelaria, universally revered in Tenerife. What is completely unusual for us is that this action in the church was “electrified”: for 1 euro lowered into the machine, as many as 10 bulbs lit up in a rectangular matrix of candles placed under the figure of the Virgin Mary with the baby

The small composition of the nativity scene, set aside from the altar, thank God, was the most ordinary, not “modernized” in any way.

At first we were very surprised that in all the nativity scenes on the island, the place of the baby figurine in the manger was empty. According to Catholic custom, the figurine of Jesus is placed in the manger during the evening service on Christmas Eve, the eve of Christmas. In continental Europe, in nativity scenes set up on the streets, and often in large churches visited by tourists, this rule is not always followed.

Perhaps this last nativity scene, accidentally seen in the modern church of St. Rita, was the simplest and most modest of all that we saw on our trip around the island.

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It so happened that on our trips to Tenerife we ​​spent undeservedly little time walking along the streets of Puerto de la Cruz, which has its own peculiar appearance, unlike the identical beach souvenir resorts in the south of the island. But you can’t do everything in 6 short days, so let this be another argument for coming back here again sometime in the future.

* * *

Continued report about the trip to Tenerife, and stories about other nativity scenes, read in the following short photo sketches.

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