Aparthotel Udalla Park Playa de las Americas

I first visited Tenerife in 1970 with my parents, it was our second holiday abroad. I have been returning ever since. First with my young children, and now just my wife and I. Although the children, now adults in there 20s still ask, 'when can we come'.

A couple of years ago, we bought a second home just outside Puerto de la Cruz, with a view of spending the winter months here in our retirement. In the meantime we come out two or three times a year 'on holiday'.

Ein bisschen wie nach Hause kommen...
im Anflug auf den Nordflughafen kommt der so oft erklommene Teide mit seinen nun allerdings betrachtet ein wenig laecherlich anmutenden 3817 metern in den Blick,
ein Schritt aus dem Flughafengebaeude und man ist in bekannten Gefilden, wartet auf den seit Jahren bekannten Bus und steht eine halbe Stunde spaeter vor dem wohlbekannten Appartement in Puerto de la Cruz...
mit einem eigenen Herd, einem Kuehlschrank ...

... view. The hotel also boasts the islands largest seafront swimming pool. Travelling along the same coast in another five star hotel the Gran Tacande, this leads on to the Playa del Duque beach with the spectacular Gran ...

... the whole photogs mafia went for a lunch to our favourite chinese restaurant. Yep, I spent my Birthday in Tenerife, Canary Islands. And it was a really nice one. I really didn`t need anything else to be happy. But 2 nights later on something totally unexpected happened. It was right after formal night, which technically meant I felt super tired. The only thing I was dreaming of was showering and catching up with sleep. Suddenly Ronnie knocked on my door ...

Andy was feeling better after the sleep - his cold is still bad but at least his ear ache is better. Today we just took it easy - preparing for the flight to Barcelona tomorrow. John and Dale did laundry (3E each for wash and laundry!). The weather was overcast with a light drizzle a couple of times so no sun tanning today. I went to a cafe that had free wifi if you bought a drink so I had a couple of cups of coffee as I caught up my blog, surfing etc. It was alot easier than the ...

Today, we caught our tour bus at 8:30 am (man it was tough to get up that early! Yes, we are spoiled...) to Mount Teide. Mount Teide is the highest volcano on the island, at 3700 meters. (for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide). The 1/2 day took us to the mountain and we paid to go up the cable car to take us to 3500 meters above the sea. The bus was full with about 40 people picked up at other hotels. The ride took about 1 1/2 ...

... homemade tapas, we had our John's coconut shrimp, Andy's Cesear salad, 'croquettes' (frozen from supermarket, cooked on stove), bread and cheese, prosciutto and ham, olives and finally, red wine. It was very good and much easier then trying to figure out which restaurant to go to! Afterwards, we played Kaiser again (and drank a wonderful Spanish bottle of cabernet wine) and as usually, John and Andy kicked our butts.

Today we just walked around the beaches and shopping areas of Los Cristianos and Los Americanos - the 2 resort areas of the southern tip of Tenerife. It looked like it was going to rain in the early afternoon but it again cleared up and was a beautiful 20 degrees. Andy and I had a wonderful pistachio ice cream cone on sitting on a bench by the beach. We also had a lousy burger ...

... ocean. The only downside is we can't hear the ocean (it's a 15 minute walk away) but you can't have everything. The weather is a little overcast but very warm, around 18-20 degrees and humid. Since we have a kitchen , we went and located a supermarket to get breakfast and essential food supplies (Ie. coffee, beer and wine). The wine is really cheap, ranging from 2 to 10 euros We were tired so instead of cooking dinner, we wandered down to the boardwalk and ...

... the interpreter did a head count and she replied "I think that's right off we go" (a quick tally of participants on her excursion sheet would have confirmed how many there should have been.) The journey up to Mt Teide was spoilt in part by atrocious weather as we went through the clouds snaking our way up the mountainside through the Esperanza Forest, but as we approached the National Park of Las Canadas we punched through the clouds to brilliant ...