Tenerife, Canary Islands

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Day 8 Tenerife

We joined a Cunard full day tour “Beauty of Mount Teide", we began by driving through the Esperanza Forest, stopping at Ortuna viewpoint for views over the north coast. The higher we climbed the more dramatic the landscape became, finally turning to lava with Mount Teide rising to 12,300 feet. Mount Teide has been dormant since 1909 and is in the centre of a crater over 29 miles in circumference.

We stopped at a locally café where we had the best hot chocolate we have ever tasted, thick, sweet and very creamy. We continued through the National Park of Las Canadas to a view point at the base of Mt Tiede, the section of the park has been utilised for a number of movies, it looks like something between the wild west and a moonscape.

Our next stop was the town of Orotava, this market town is one of the oldest on the island. We visited a house in the colonial district that dated back to 1637, the house is famous for it's orginal ornate verandahs made out of Canary Island pine. It was interesting to see a large sand carpet (painting) in one of the shops in the town, apparently the Canary Island are famous for these carpets made of volcanic sand. Our guide told us the Queen of England has one at Buckingham Palace, the paintings are supposed to be walked over and the sand scattered when they are complete. We were told the Queen has had a glass sheet laid over her painting allowing her to walk on it without destroying the picture.

We stopped at the restaurant at “Pueblo Chico” for a delicious lunch, Ron was very impressed with the small potatoes cooked in sea water, the cooking process gave them a delicate salty flavour. The restaurant was set on a hill amongst a park filled miniatures of the Canary Islands major sites.

Our final stop on the tour was at Puerto de la Cruz where we had time to walk along to sea promenade. Along with black sand beaches there were a number of lovely pools along the beach front. We stopped for a beer at a small cafe, Ron enjoyed the beer and liked the beer glass. Ron decided to ask the waiter if we could buy the beer glass as a souvenir, we were surprised when the owner told Ron to keep the glass and even put a fresh one in a plastic bag for him and would not take any payment (the kindness of strangers).

We arrived back at the ship just before departure, ready for another evening of delicious food, dancing and trivia.

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