Insight Guides Pocket Tenerife

Insight Guides

• Publisher: Apa Publications
• Print ISBN: 9781786718075
• eBook ISBN: 9781789192360
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Insight Pocket Guides: ideal itineraries and top travel tips in a pocket-sized package. Plan your trip, plan perfect days and discover how to get around - this pocket-sized guide is a convenient, quick-reference companion to discovering what to do and see in Tenerife, from top attractions like Spain's tallest mountain El Teide and the Unesco-listed San Cristbal de la Laguna to the steep hike down the dramatically located village of Masca.

Compact, concise, and packed with essential information about Where to Go and What Do, this is an ideal on-the-move companion when you're exploring Tenerife
Covers Top Ten Attractions, including the Parque Etnogrfico Pirmides de Gmar, whale-watching and the Castillo San Miguel, as well as Perfect Day itinerary suggestions
Offers an insightful overview of landscape, history and culture
Contains an invaluable pull-out map, and essential practical information on everything from Eating Out to Getting Around
Sharp design and colour-coded sections make for an engaging reading experience

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrasebooks, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

Where To Go

Tenerife is not large and as a result, it is easy to make forays from any base. Nowhere is far away, as cruise-ship passengers discover when, docking in Santa Cruz with just four hours ashore, they find they have enough time for a coach to take them to the top of El Teide and back, stopping off at La Orotava for some souvenirs, or even to hire a car and make their own way to the cable car to reach the summit.

Playa de las Teresitas, with Santa Cruz in the distance

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For much of the island, however, you don’t need a car. Buses are regular and inexpensive. From the capital, Santa Cruz, you can have a day out on the opposite coast in Puerto de la Cruz, the north coast resort, stopping off at the unesco World Heritage Site of San Cristóbal de La Laguna, with enough time to enjoy both places at leisure and return later in the day. You can also make day trips to these places from Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas in the south. A hire car of course adds convenience and allows you to stop to photograph a view, inspect the flowers, or take advantage of signs of honey or wine for sale.

The descriptions that follow start in Santa Cruz and continue anti-clockwise around the island.

The northeast

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Tenerife’s capital, principal port and most vibrant town is on the northeastern arm of the island, facing southwest and looking towards Gran Canaria, its rival, an hour’s jet-foil ferry trip away. Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1 [map] doesn’t have a real heart, a municipal or cathedral square; instead the main action takes place on the pedestrianised streets and squares leading up from the port, and on the Rambla that sweeps round the top of the town. Good for shops, restaurants and nightlife, Santa Cruz is also the cultural hub of Tenerife.

The extensive waterfront area reaches its apex at Plaza de España A [map]; to the southwest are the container ports and the industrial zone, to the northeast the jacaranda-lined Avenida de Anaga passes beside the ferry port and yachting harbour. The square has undergone a complete transformation by the innovative Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron. The new focal point is a huge circular wading pool with a geyser-like fountain in the centre, accompanied by trees. The former heart of the square, the Monumento a los Caídos, dedicated to the fallen Nationalists in the Civil War, has been integrated into the new design.

The Cabildo Insular and post office on Plaza de España

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The Art Deco buildings at the southern end of the square are the post office headquarters, the Cabildo Insular, containing government offices and the main tourist office.

Shopping area

Running up from the Plaza de España is Plaza Candelaria, where a statue of the island’s patron dates from 1772. This is the start of the main pedestrianised area and the pavement cafés are a popular meeting place. Calle del Castillo B [map], the principal shopping street, heads inland past the Parlamento de Canarias (tours, also guided, every Sat 10am–2pm), on the right. The 1898 neoclassical building, designed by Antonio Pintor, has been augmented to include the buildings fronting Castillo, with a green metal construction on its upper floors. Calle del Castillo ends at Plaza del General Weyler, where the white marble La Fuente (The Fountain) by Achille Canessa is overlooked by the Capitanía General, the islands’ military headquarters. This is where Franco was stationed when he started the Civil War.

Record carnival

Santa Cruz entered the Guinness World Records when a record crowd of a quarter of a million filled the Plaza de España for the 1987 carnival. The Tenerife carnival is one of the biggest in Europe.

On the north side of Calle del Castillo is the Plaza del Principe, one of the town’s most pleasant squares. On the square’s south­east side, near the Circulo de Amistad, is the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes C [map] (Tue–Fri 10am–8pm, Oct–Jun Sat–Sun 10am–3pm, Jul–Sep until 2pm; free). The front of the building has busts of poets, philosophers and musicians. Inside is a library and, on the first and second floors, a gallery of 16th- to 20th-century paintings. These include a panoramic picture of the foundation of Santa Cruz by Alonso de Lugo in 1494, two years after he had taken the island, and among portraits of local aristocracy is one of the French consul and botanist Sabin Berthelot, who did so much for the island’s plant life.

Behind the museum is the Iglesia de San Francisco, founded in 1680 and part of a former convent where concerts sometimes take place.

The oldest church

Eight years after Santa Cruz was founded, the town’s first chapel was built where the city’s main church, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción D [map], stands today, just to the southwest of the Cabildo Insular. The cross that de Lugo brought ashore is among its treasures. In 1652 the church was rebuilt after a fire, its octagonal tower acting as a look-out point. The lovely balcony on its exterior, a feature of church architecture throughout the island, gives its southwest front a domestic appearance. Inside, the space is cool and impressive and the beautiful coffered mudéjar-style ceiling is also typical of the island.

In the streets around the church are some of the oldest buildings in Santa Cruz and they have been attractively maintained in warm earth colours. Stop for a drink in J.C. Murphy’s (daily 4pm–2.30am) in the little church square. This area comes alive at night, with busy cafés and bars open until the early hours. Where Calle Dominguez Alfonso meets Puente General Serrador there is a small square where evening concerts are held.

If you are strolling here in the evening, you may be lucky to chance on street theatre where the actors use the doors and balconies of the houses in their performances. Nearby is the Teatro Guimerá (www.teatroguimera.es), named after the playwright Ángel Guimerá, who was born in Santa Cruz in 1849, and made his name in Barcelona with Terra Baixa in 1896. It also features concerts and dance performances. Not far, on Calle Clavel 10, is yet another cultural centre – Equipo Para (www.equipopara.org) – a meeting place for artists and intellectuals as well as a concert, workshop and exhibition venue with the benefit of a small bar.

The façade of the Teatro Guimerá

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Across the Barranco

From Nuestra Señora de la Concepción a bridge crosses a barranco (dry river bed) to the former town hospital, now the Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre E [map] (Tue–Sat 9am–8pm, Sun–Mon 10am–5pm; www.museosdetenerife.org). As the name implies, all island life is here, and this is a good starting point for understanding Tenerife’s geographical and historical aspects. Set out on three floors around two courtyards, it swa...

Table of contents

• Tenerife’s Top 10 Attractions
• A Perfect Day In Tenerife
• Introduction
• A Brief History
• Where To Go
• What To Do
• Eating Out
• Reading the Menu
• Restaurants
• A–Z Travel Tips
• Recommended Hotels