3 reasons to travel to Tenerife (in addition to its beaches)

Sitting on the left side of the cabin, when the plane approaches Tenerife North Airport, I press my face to the window and think that my senses are deceiving me because my eyes say that I have two seas in front of me.

The largest of the Canary Islands has been shaped by the most powerful forces of Nature, the volcanic energy that created it in the first place and the Atlantic that has patiently smoothed away the roughness of its shores. Although in the winter days they have temperatures around 20º, on my first trip to the Canary archipelago I have come to look for, beyond the topic of the sun and the beaches, reasons to recommend that you travel to Tenerife. And I think I found them.

To begin with, almost half of the island has some type of government protection, reaching a total of 43 protected spaces, so sign up for green as the preferred color for the landscape. This happens, for example, in the mountains that surround the Bolico Hostel, within the Teno Rural Park. In fact, there is more area of ​​the island covered with forests (25%) than urbanized (22%).

Have you heard of the Canary Island pine ? It is an almost indestructible tree that no matter how much it burns, its heart is still alive and although it is charred on the outside, it does not take long for green shoots to emerge from its trunk (the real ones, not the ones that they say our economy has had for a long time). Couple of years).

If you don’t know what Tajinaste Rojo is, don’t worry because I didn’t either until I traveled to Tenerife and they explained to me that it was the name of an endemic plant from high mountains , thin and that can grow up to 3 meters. Judging by the photos I saw of late spring, when it blooms, the contrast of its vivid colors with the wild surroundings is simply spectacular.

Of course, the best known of the landscapes is probably the Teide Natural Park and its scenarios so extreme that they have served as the setting (yes, I delight in the appropriate redundancy) in several film shoots , set in Prehistory or with a mythological theme. like Clash of the Titans. The peculiarity of the environment has also attracted scientists, especially when they look beyond our planet (from the network of telescopes of the Teide Observatory), and here they have come to test instruments that ended up traveling to Mars.

Culture

In the small fishing village of Garachico, irony becomes a statue and takes the form of Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, better known as Simón Bolívar , since a certain branch of his paternal family hailed from here. In Spain we are so happy and in 1970 we erected a monument to whoever put an end to our colonial adventure in the Americas. Let’s run a thick veil and it is that 200 years later we are all sister countries, as it should be (this time, without irony) and Past History does not move the mill .

Regardless of the above, behind the color and tranquility of the small historic center of Garachico hides the memory of a double tragedy , human and economic. In 1646 a landslide claimed a hundred lives and sank dozens of ships in its important port. Sixty years later, a volcanic eruption that caused no victims put the finishing touch to Garachico’s decline by covering the port.

When UNESCO declared La Laguna a World Heritage City in 1999 , it did so because it was a unique example of a non-walled colonial city or, so that we understand each other, the first non-fortified Spanish colonial city whose design inspired the settlements in the Americas . Wide avenues linked the public spaces (the squares) and form the grid on which the smaller streets are born.

In the Lower City. the original layout survives along with civil and religious buildings from the 16th to 18th centuries, such as the Iglesia de la Concepción, the first on the island and whose dark tower dominates the square on which it sits. A list of all the buildings of interest that you can observe, and visit, in the old town of Tenerife, would require an article three times as long as this one, I assure you.

I’m going to start by talking about something that is traditional to accompany a meal, wine. Good wine is produced in Tenerife, as I was able to verify on a visit to Bodegas Monje, with a privileged location by the sea.

Working with Listán Negro, Listán Blanco, Negramoll, Tintilla, Vijariego Negra and Marmajuelo grapes, they obtain products protected by the Tacoronte-Acentejo Denomination of Origin , which groups 40 wineries in the area. The facilities of Bodegas Monje can be visited and Felipe Monje, who is in charge of them, has no qualms about spending some time chatting with those who come there.

Also somewhat spicy, and although it is from another island (La Gomera) in Tenerife the almogrote , a cheese-based pâté with garlic, olive oil and hot pepper, was never lacking on the table . Delicious.

If we want a dessert, let it be the frangollo , based on milk, flour, lemon, eggs, sugar, butter, raisins, almonds and cinnamon, accompanied with palm honey, the honey that is not honey. Sounds weird, right? But it is that instead of being the product of the work of bees, it is obtained from the sap of the Canarian palm tree.

How to finish a good meal in Tenerife? Well, asking for the typical coffee of the Canary Islands, the barraquito : a coffee with condensed milk, cinnamon, lemon and liqueur. If you are in La Laguna, it is highly recommended to enjoy it on the terrace of Café Melita, a German pastry shop in Plaza de la Concepción, a place of obligatory passage, but calm, for the people of La Laguna.

Nature, culture and gastronomy should be sufficient and weighty reasons to travel to Tenerife, but they are not incompatible with enjoying the privileged climate of the Canary Islands on their beaches and swimming pools , right?