Tenerife

Spain·Europe

Currency

EUR

Language

Spanish

Timezone

Canary

Continent

Europe

Our guide

Discover Tenerife

Tenerife is not a beach with a volcano behind it: it is a 3,715-metre volcano with an island around it. Teide is the highest point in Spain, and the UNESCO-listed national park around it looks so little like the rest of Earth that science-fiction films have been shot there. In the north, La Laguna — San Cristóbal de La Laguna — is an intact colonial town, also UNESCO, whose grid plan became the model for Latin American cities; its cathedral is the centre. Puerto de la Cruz keeps the air of the island's first resort, opened to the British in the nineteenth century. In Santa Cruz, Calatrava's Auditorio stretches its concrete sail above the port. The Pyramids of Güímar, in the south-east, sustain an archaeological controversy that will not be settled here.

When to go

All year, which is the island's argument: twenty degrees in January, twenty-eight in August, and water that rarely drops below nineteen. The real variable is altitude, not season — it can be twenty-five on the coast and freezing on Teide's summit the same day, with snow in winter. The north is greener and cloudier than the dry, sunny south, which is why the resorts are southern. February and March are worth it for the Santa Cruz carnival, one of the largest in the world.

Getting around

A car changes everything: the island is eighty kilometres across and coast-to-summit distances are measured in hours of hairpins. The green buses — guaguas — link the main towns very cheaply and serve Teide. The cable car climbs to 3,555 metres in eight minutes, but the final two hundred metres to the crater need a free permit applied for online, often weeks ahead. A tram links Santa Cruz to La Laguna. Two airports, north and south, an hour apart.

Where to eat

Papas arrugadas — small potatoes boiled in heavily salted water until the skin wrinkles — come with two mojos, red with chilli and green with coriander. Gofio, toasted grain flour, is the Guanche inheritance and turns up everywhere. Fish is eaten in the coastal villages, plainly grilled. Tenerife wines grow on volcanic ash and deserve better than their reputation. Melvin by Martin Berasategui holds the high end in Puerto de la Cruz.

Good to know

The euro is the currency, but the Canaries sit outside European VAT — alcohol, tobacco and electronics are markedly cheaper. The archipelago keeps its own time zone, an hour behind mainland Spain all year. Ten sites are free. The final ascent of Teide needs the permit mentioned above; without it the cable car stops at the viewpoint. And the altitude sun burns even at twenty degrees.

Smart Planning