No we did not get out with it, it was too crowded with a long line of families with many kids to enter, so we opted out and had a nice coffee break there instead.

©Lifecruiser Love Boat Tours
 

Next time before going to Tenerife, we will do more research and planning what we would want to see and do at the island. Last time we did go on a last minute trip, not planning anything at all.

There is a very long beach promenade that begins at Los Cristianos in the east and continues for miles to Playa de las Americas and on to the resort of La Caleta in the west.

It was very difficult to spot where one place ended and another one did begin. Take Torviscas, San Eugenio and Fanabe as an example, they had no visable borders, very confusing. There were clearly places that were more luxury than others and we’ve heard afterward that San Eugenio represents the less fancy, Fanabe posh, Torviscas in between with both budget and chic places.

Spending part of our holiday at Costa Adeje, we could not miss the two top attractions of 1) Las Americas Beach – spending time at the more lively beach promenade, eating and drinking watching the sunset – or doing some shopping in the nice little town of 2) Los Cristianos.

Costa Adeje has very high quality Blue Flag beaches which we loved, it’s a pity though that we totally missed doing a whale watching tour there. I would have loved to spot some whales – or at least dolphins.

Another thing we missed were to do a trip to the nearby island of La Gomera. We did intend to take the ferry for a daytrip over there, perhaps staying over for 1 night only, but somehow our time were not enough. Too much to explore!

An absolute must is to visit the Mount Teide National Park, which has the highest peak of Spain – 3.718 meters above sea level. Try to visit a day when there is clear weather, to be sure to really see the peak and the surroundings. It felt like being on the moon!

Don’t miss that now you can obtain the permission to climb the peak of Teide online.

From Costa Adeje, you can reach Teide by the roads of Vilaflor or Chio. It was quite a nice roadtrip and we actually did it twice. Different days, different roads. Day two we saw a couple in an open sport car – and it started to snow, so be aware that you may need extra clothes…

Further away from the coast is the old town of Adeje and nearby is the impressive Barranco del Infierno – Hell’s Gorge, the deepest ravine in the Canary Islands. It’s 16 km and takes around 4 hours to walk – if it’s open. It might be closed because of rain damage.

Adeje is also home to Siam Park, the largest water park in Europe, which claim to have the largest man made wave in the world: about 3 meter or 9.8 ft. You will find it through the TF1 highway.

Lifecruiser ♥ Costa Adeje

Lifecruiser’s other posts about Tenerife:

Las Americas Beach Tenerife
Swedes Los Cristianos Tenerife
Playa de la Arena Tenerife
Playa de la Arena Surfer
Los Gigantes Tenerife Island
Tenereffic Romantic Sunset
Green anaga Mountains – The Hidden Tenerife
Las Galletas Cool Shop Colors
The Virgin of Calendaria
El Medano Blow Away Sway
Tenerife Stop at Top Beach
Tenerife Horse Power
Tenerife Island Triptease
Mountain Roadtrips at Tenerife Island
Different Roadtrip Experiences Tenerife

The photo above is taken in the spring last year by hubby in El Rocio, Andalusia, Spain, Europe. Slightly experimentally edited by me to get the most out of it.

The most colorful flower photos we’ve been taken, has been on our trips. That’s another reason why I love to travel: I get to take photos I never would have taken here at home.

Why not? It’s the photo moments that’s been offered abroad that I can’t seem to find when at home. I don’t go out exploring as much here at home, that’s true, but even our cold climate don’t offer as much opportunities either.

I’m no fan of pink, but this Hibiscus I found in Tenerife, Spain in January were just irresistible.

That’s another interesting aspect of travel photography: that our best flower photos are the ones with colors that we normally aren’t that fond of.

Take this photo below: I can’t even say which color the background has, it’s a weird one but goes so well to the yellow. A dirty color, but it makes the photo so clean.

No favorite colors, yet we find these photos gorgeous!

It’s like people, we don’t always think their attributes are the most beautiful if looking at them separately, but if looking at the human in whole we may end up loving him/her…

Lifecruiser ♥ Travel Photography
 

Another flower post by Lifecruiser:

Orchid Creatures Exhibitionists
 

Tenerife is one of Spain’s volcano islands with a landscape similar to a desert at some places, but it also has the very opposite: very green areas. You can get it all at this island.

One of those green areas are Anaga up on the north tip of the island, which we could explore a bit of one of our days there. Unfortunately not enough, but it gives a picture of it.

This region still hides small picturesque villages, cut off from the main roads and perhaps even the rest of the world?

This might be the real hidden Tenerife. It’s said that there still are some people living in adapted caves there. I sure would have loved to meet a genuine caveman!

The road goes along the Anaga massif with a couple of fabulous Mirador-spots (View spots). Make sure you got plenty of time when going there, so you can make plenty of stops and some detours at the few places it’s possible.

As in other places at Tenerife Island, there was mountains to drive up and down, with breathtaking views. Despite its generally rather modest elevations, the Cruz de Taborno has a height of 1,024 meters.

At one spot along the road, we were literally driving at the top edge of the mountain and this rock below was the absolute top.

It’s a pity that I couldn’t show you how high up we were at this point, but I took the photo from the car and there was vegetation at the sides, so it would not have shown anyway.

I must compliment Tenerife (and actually all we have seen of Spain) for their excellent care of their roads though. Everywhere they were as well taken care of as you see in our photos from there. No problems at all.

At one point we got to see those awesome rock formations, like sea stacks, but on land and looking like some kind of figures, at least one of them or what do you think?

This road trip was something different than other mount trips we’ve made. Beautiful in another way with it’s green valleys, not only breathtaking views because of the heights, but also with interesting mountain ranges.

Not scary heights, just relaxing, beautiful views. No need to be covered in sweat when arriving the goal, as I use to be…

We did spot some wanderers on the road a couple of times and I think there are some over-night cottages or similar at some spots in the area, well worth to investigate if you’re into hiking in the mountains.

When coming down at the north-north-west side of the island you really get to see the mountain ranges dropping down to the sea.

The road really went down to the sea level from there, making me wonder if it can be flooded if the Sea is high.

There are two beaches on this coastline: Playa de Almaciga and Playa de Los Roques, both with black sandy beaches and as we could see: popular for surfers.

There even was a small surf bar, probably very popular during summertime.

We went back home just before the sun did set since I don’t like to be up in the mountain in the darkness. We just had time enough to get down from the Anaga mountains before it turned real black.

When going South again we did choose another way than the usual TF-1 highway which we already had traveled so many times. We tried the smaller C-822 in hope to see some small villages along the road.

It turned out to be not so good idea when you’re afraid of heights. There were no signs on our map that this would be such a curvy mountain road, but it is!

Behind that road fence, it’s steep, right downhill the high mountain side, so we had to drive slowly, in case we should meet some one. This was how the road looked like for very long.

By now I was covered in sweat, we had to turn back to the highway again at the first place we could, because I really couldn’t stand it.

No matter how romantic it truly was totally alone with only the moon shining…

Lifecruiser ♥ Anaga
 

The beach in the small village of Las Galletas, in the South of Tenerife Island. One of the shortest road trips we made when we were there in January, to the next village.

The Marina over there had an interesting blue building.

By the Sea were a nice walkway, which we did walk along several times. It doesn’t look much at this photo below, but it was popular, not only by us, but of a lot of people – all places were full.

It was such a lovely weather, warm and sunny, so we wanted to sit down at one of the restaurants and enjoy. Finally we found two free chairs.

After that we went for a walk around the village, but it was during siesta time, so not much were open. We didn’t mind since we were there to just have a look around and maybe find some nice photo objects.

This shop entrance was one of the things we did catch, quite creative mind that come up with this, wouldn’t you say?

If the walkway were quite gray and dull-looking, there were obviously a lot of other more colorful findings to make around there!

Another painting that got my attention were a Hip Hop shop. At first sight I thought it were just Graffiti on the wall.

I guess this car has some connection with the Hip Hop shop above….

There were a couple of more photos taken there, but I placed them in the general photo folder where you can see all Lifecruiser’s Tenerife photos so far.

Lifecruiser ♥ Las Galletas Colors
 

One of the most magic things we get to see when we’re out on a trip is the rainbow. Here over the mountains at Tenerife Island, Spain, in January 2009.

Even the clouds gives an unreal touch. Soft like cotton.

….and so is this video:

If you’re not somewhere over the rainbow after watching the touching video with Connie Talbot above, your heart must be of stone!

Lifecruiser ♥ Rainbows
 

This Tenerife boat on the road is exactly like me right now: stranded. I have no idea what so ever what it did there – and not what I’m doing over here either.

I long for the Sea just as much as that boat probably does!

Lifecruiser ♥ Boats
 

Playa de las Americas are situated in the South of Tenerife Island, Spain. Combined with an attractive beach walkway, lots of sport activities and the wonderful climate, it’s not so difficult to understand why it’s so popular.

The South is more sunny and warmer than the North side, we could clearly notice the difference. Tenerife island is also known as the island of eternal spring.

I would also call it Tenerife’s most popular tourist destination. It stretches for quite a bit of the coast with different beaches almost all the way with breakwaters to stop the imported sand from Africa from being washed away.

I’m not sure if the beach above really contained imported sand from Sahara, it looked rather black to me. Perhaps it get mixed up after a while.

I’ll show you a close up of the sand on that beach, in which you clearly can see that it has some darker lava sand in the mix.

For us, Las Americas seemed to be a bit lacking of the genuine Canarian culture though, if you wanna experience something local while there.

The explanation of that is that many tourists from northern Europe comes here frequently during the whole year and especially in the winter, when their home countries are cold. We noticed very many Brits here, but also Swedes.

There’s also lots of shops, bars and restaurants and it’s here the most lively nightlife is, filled with pubs, disco’s and shows, ranging everything from low budget to luxury. I would even call it exhausting nightlife.

Especially if I should judge from an older TV documentary (Tenerife Uncensored) I’ve seen reporting from here, but it might have shaped up a bit since then.

That’s also the reason why we didn’t stay there later in the evening than we did, just enjoying the sunset at a seaside restaurant.

We had a nice relaxed evening there, me with drinks in the same color as the sun, hubby was not as lucky since he had to drive us home.

Lifecruiser ♥ Beaches
 

An old fishing village from the beginning, now growing tourist spot – as so many other places in Spain.

As a matter of fact, it was because of a Swede who came there in 1956 suffering from multiple sclerosis, hoping the climate would help, that tourism in Los Cristianos developed. The word spread and it became a rehab resort for many Swedes and still is.

That’s also why the main street in Los Cristianos is known as Avenida de Suecia (Avenue of Sweden) and there is the Casa Sueca, a Swedish Lutheran Church, down by the seafront.

However, we didn’t know that fact when we came there and I only took photos of the other church in Los Cristianos, which actually were the first thing we saw there since we were able to find a parking spot right at the side of the church.

As you can see in the bottom of the photo, there is a Christmas scene there, a nice sight at the square in front of the church.

Of course there are opportunities for a lot of shopping there too, though as usual, I were hunting for some where to eat and therefor only bought a pair of shorts (which you will see in another of my upcoming posts).

Now, you might wonder what’s special with the photo above? It’s the name of the shop: DASS, which actually is a Swedish slang word for: toilet!!! *giggles*

Los Cristianos also got a lovely pedestrian walkway – wheelchair friendly – with nice cafes, which runs along the shore and port. There are lot of people strolling around enjoying the sunshine.

There are several beaches, including a more new and man made beach: Playa de las Vistas, that one as well as Play de las Teresitas as I mentioned earlier is covered in sand imported from Sahara.

In their rather small port, the ferries to the nearby islands of La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro is embarking. Oh, and even boat trips for dolphin and whale watching.

We didn’t go over to La Gomera, despite that we had thought of it earlier, because it were very cloudy over La Gomera every time we were close, so we skipped it.

Instead we sat down at one of the restaurants at the seafront, enjoying a wonderful and relaxed dinner together.

We can’t always run around seeing as many things as possible, we have to stop and really take in the wonderful scenes we’re offered at the moment also, right?

Lifecruiser ♥ Los Cristianos
 

We’re not the only ones that love Playa de la Arena – obviously the surfers did love it too, because it were a bit windy with great waves the day we were there.

Lifecruiser ♥ Beaches