Pueblo Torviscas Apartments 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 ...

... hotels in our programme the boutique hotel Sir Anthony, small and exclusive, and the Villa Cortes. There are a few four star hotels we would also recommend such as the Arona Gran in Los Cristianos overlooking the harbour ...

... 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 ...

... darker thena the surrounding ground and no vegetation had taken hold yet. We had 1 more stop where we had the 'opportunity' again to buy stuff such as catus berry jam and spreads. We didn't. And then we arrived back to the resort area but it took an hour to deliver all the other people to their hotels before we arrived at ours. While I loved the views, next time we would book a private van or a smaller tour group so we could have more time ...

... 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.

... it was only halk cooked) at a cafe. You win some, you lose some. We watched some surfers along the Los Americanos beach. They are always amazing to watch (and the ocean feels so cold!). The wetsuits must help. For dinner, John and Dale made a wonderful coconut shrimp dinner with vegetables and rice. The shrimp was freash from the supermarket. The 2 bottles of wine and sitting ...

... a cheap Chinese buffet restuarant. It was only 6.75E. The best part was the coconut ice cream. One annoying feature of the boardwalk is that each restuarant has a 'hawker' outside of it trying to get you to eat there. You have to just ignore them. There are alot of British tourists here and it doesn't feel very Spanish in this part of the island. On Wednesday, Andy and I went exploring along the boardwalk. It was partly sunny and warm - it feels great to ...

... 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 ...