Tenerife… island reacquainted with!

There are places you want to return to. No reasons needed. We simply want to go somewhere again, see something, experience something.

Initially, we thought that going to Tenerife a second time would be a repeat trip for us, but we found that the people we go with, the weather, the season, or even the changes in regulations make us look at familiar places as if they were brand new.

Today about what we got to know anew in Tenerife.

We were on Tenerife for a few days and went there more as organizers or guides than tourists hoping to see something new. How wrong we were! Of course, on our list of places to see were highlights such as Teide National Park, Anaga Mountains, Masca and Las Teresitas beach.

In this post, we'll only describe the ones that uniquely surprised us the second time we went, and the ones we just discovered. You can find the rest in our older posts 🙂

Icod de los Vinos

It is a small town located on the TF20 route between Puerto de la Cruz and Masca. It's a small, typically Canarian town, maybe a bit like La Orotava, but without the balconies 🙂

Icod de los Vinos is famous for its Dragon Tree – That is, the Dragon Tree, the oldest and largest tree in the Canary Islands.

It was originally thought to be as old as 2000 years, but that age has been verified and it is now reported that it may be 600-800 years old, although the name Thousand-Year-Old Tree has remained. The tree is located in the Parque del Drago park, where admission is charged. We recommend you to stand on a nearby terrace and admire the tree from afar, which is completely free 🙂

The place is nice and modest. There are quite a few typical houses and the traditional white church in the center. We especially liked the Christmas touches, as you can see everyone is doing their best by making snowmen without snow 🙂

The village is on a hill, so you have to reckon with steep climbs and ascents.

Faro de Teno

Do you remember the closed and dangerous road to the eastern end of Tenerife from our previous report? We knew it was closed, but something tempted us to go to this area again.

What was our surprise when we ran out of warning signs about the closed road a few kilometers before the barrier… Nothing like that, we kept going until we finally stopped, because even the barrier itself was missing 😉

It turned out that after some light maintenance and security they opened the road and there were new places to explore 🙂 So we drove towards the headland Teno, Not being quite sure where we will get to at all. The cliffs, the steep rocks still seemed dangerous, but in fact additional protection and nets were installed, so we drove on calmly stopping at several viewpoints.

The weather at first did not spoil us. However, it was enough that we moved away in a westerly direction and were greeted by a cloudless sky.

The water was a little rough, but we took advantage of the few rays of sunshine that day. You can see that the place is not very popular yet, which is a shame, because it has a fantastic view of the Los Gigantes (On the other hand, we also had the opportunity to see them).

El Teide

There was already a lot about this volcano, we also described our hiking approach to Teide. Yet every time we stop and admire whether it's a typical hat or sunset.

It always impresses. Below you will find photos of the sunset as seen from the Cruz del Carmen viewpoint in the Anaga mountains.

Las Teresitas beach

Las Teresitas is by far the prettiest beach in Tenerife, it's just a shame that it's unnatural 🙂 We couldn't not come back here. And although the weather was nice, the water was cold and we spent more time lying upside down than swimming in the water (although it was possible to get in and get wet and even swim ;)).

Christmas atmosphere

No, this is not a new viewpoint 😉 We were in Tenerife during the holiday season. The atmosphere there was definitely different than in Poland. The towns are decorated with lights and ornaments, but somehow it doesn't feel festive here like it does here.

It's quieter, slower, and above all, warmer. We were able to take a break from the fever of preparing for the World, which is well known from Poland. Nevertheless, the decorations give a unique atmosphere to the localities, so it is a unique experience.

However, we especially liked the big-small one La Laguna crib. It was a huge mock-up depicting numerous scenes in minute detail.

Food

This time we focused on cooking food, not dining out 🙂 We did, however, happen to dine in a restaurant a few times, but in smaller places. That's why the biggest challenge was to order something at all, because with English it was sometimes different, and our Spanish is not yet at such a level to understand what exactly is on the menu.

Often we just ended up with typical lunch dishes which was a nice break from what we ate the first time, in typical tourist pubs.

You can read more about food in the Canary Islands here.

Finally, as always, a full photo gallery:

We also recommend our post about the Anaga mountains, in which we show that sometimes it's worth returning to the same places even during one trip, because the weather can make a big difference in the perception of a place 😉

We also invite you to read our summary of our previous visit to the Canaries.