PUERTO DE LA CRUZ - A-Z Challenge

A PAEAN OF PRAISE!

PUERTO DE LA CRUZ  in the north of Tenerife gives those of us who live in the south a lovely PLACE to escape to for a short break. If you pick your dates carefully the B&B cost can be as little as E25.

 Although there are many modern hotels, I like the old colonial hotels in the church square which  are elegant and reminiscent of a bygone age. This is the fantastic lobby of the Monopol.

 My daughter and I spent a few days there last year. By tradition, the owner's wife lines the steps each day with flowers.

 The old town with its myriad wooden balconies is compact enough to explore on foot.

 You can eat and drink all day and night if you want to - we ended up in a night club where some locals who had been celebrating a fiesta were still wearing traditional clothes.

We ate garbanzos - chickpeas - with chorizo, bread and wine one evening in a tiny Tasca called simply, The Side Bar.  

 ...  and there were shops, and a one-man-band (amazingly talented!) being watched by a boy and girl on their way home from their First Communions - 

 -  and there is always the sea and fabulous sunsets.

PERFECTION

24 HOURS IN PUERTO

 To anyone who lives in Tenerife, and to knowledgeable visitors, ‘Puerto’ can only mean one thing – Puerto de la Cruz.

Don’s son treated us to a night there on Tuesday, and although the drive up took little more than an hour, it felt like a holiday.

Puerto is on the north coast, and its exuberant verdancy is in stark contrast to the arid south where we live. Both are beautiful in very different ways, but a change is always refreshing.

We stayed in Hotel Marquesa – one of the old hotels in the centre of town, with wooden balconies overlooking an internal courtyard - 

– so much more atmospheric than a tall modern block.

Having checked in – the rooms have been modernised and all are en suite - we walked around the town and harbour. 

Tourists for the day, we admired the castle and the old houses, 

 a bronze statue of a fisherwoman on the quay 

the Fishermen's Fraternity building with some seriously dangerous-looking external stairs,

and a couple of nice young men swimming among the boats.   

We ate lunch and then ice creams and had a siesta, then went out in the soft evening to eat again –dinner this time - listened to Spanish songs over a brandy, 

and then slept, despite the rumble of cars over the cobbles and the chiming of the quarters from the church in the square.

I was up early in the morning to stroll through the old streets alone, admiring the houses, 

some beautifully preserved, others in desperate need of some TLC.

After breakfast in the main square we spent a couple of hours in the Botanical Gardens. I do love trees and added many photos to my album,

but here are just a few of the more exotic ones.

Then it was coffee in Garachico – the last town on the island to have suffered from a volcanic lava flow – and lunch (more food!) in Los Gigantes, home of these gigantic cliffs,

and back to Parque de la Reina.


We seemed to have been away for much longer than 24 hours, but even so there simply wasn’t time to take in the Agatha Christie Festival which I saw advertised in Puerto.