Take an evening stroll through the town before adjourning to seafood specialist Restaurante Arístides, where traditional simmered octopus and fresh fish prop up the menu. Terracotta-roofed houses huddle under the bell tower of the village church and a buttercup-yellow convent, while old men play dominoes and children scamper in the leafy Plaza de la Libertad. In the absence of big hotels and blockbuster beaches, it’s also one of the best places on the island to measure the pulse of traditional Canarian life. Partly destroyed by lava flows in the 18th century, the little village of Garachico was subsequently rebuilt and is perhaps the most graceful settlement on Tenerife’s north coast. Re-emerge to savour the sunset at nearby Charco del Viento, a little rocky peninsula with distant views of neighbouring island La Palma. The labyrinth of tunnels, which snakes through Mount Teide, was once used by the pre-Hispanic Guanche people. Afterwards, escape the sunshine with a 10-minute hop up the hill to the entrance of Cueva del Viento - the evocatively named ‘Cave of the Wind’ - for a guided tour of Europe’s largest network of lava tubes. It’s a 30-minute drive to the little town of Icod de los Vinos to see its semi-mythical dragon tree - a bizarre, banyan-like plant rumoured to be 1,000 years old. After you’ve dried yourself off, the old-world Ébano Café is a fine place for a late-morning coffee under the gaze of a 17th-century church.įrom Puerto de la Cruz, the coastal road snakes westward between forested hills and the sea. Don’t leave without going for a dip at Lago Martiánez, a historic water park designed by the Gaudí of the Canary Islands, César Manrique, centred on a series of serene, saltwater pools, where aesthetics and inflatables collide. It’s easy to while away a morning watching the fishing boats from its sunny promenades, or wandering under date palms and beside lily ponds in its excellent botanical garden. Today, it’s in rude health as the north coast’s main town, sprawled lazily along a series of coves. Puerto de la Cruz blossomed as a health retreat in the 19th century. Climbing or driving towards the summit affords truly almighty vistas along the heavenly north coast - towns, forests, beaches and banana groves shaded by the ever-shifting shadow of the mountain. It marks the loftiest point on Spanish territory and was once believed by the Guanches to be a domain of the gods. The creator behind this volcanic geography is, of course, Mount Teide - the 12,188ft stratovolcano that lords over the island at its centre. Of course, beaches have long been the primary draw for visitors to the Canary Islands, and the north has them for all occasions, be it blustery beaches for surfers or serene coves for sunbathers - all formed from brooding, black volcanic sand. In the far north west, meanwhile, the mist-shrouded spine of the Anaga Mountains loom, where mighty rock buttresses preside over on silent beaches. It’s a place where you can swiftly strike into remote and otherworldly landscapes: head north east on ear-popping mountain roads to reach basalt cliffs teetering over a blue sea. Here, you’ll find historic, mustard-hued towns and shadowy caves that echo with the legacy of the Indigenous Guanches people. The north coast of the largest of the Canary Islands, however, is a different beast: buffeted by bracing trade winds and blessed by Atlantic rain showers, it reveals a greener, wilder and less familiar side of the Canaries - an area where visitors can burrow into the island’s fascinating past. When people think of Tenerife, they often picture the island’s south coast - home to a warm, dry and eternally summery climate and resort towns strung along the shore.
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