Autumn break at Tenerife

A mid-day view over the Teide mountain with sea fog flooding the valleys.

We are back from our first autumn break this year. I got really mixed feeling about Tenerife.

Pros: There are not too many of these. We tasted a couple of local wines and found our favorite: a red Suertes del Marques made on the northern slopes of the island from the unknown for us before vine Listan. Floatarium in our Spa was definitely a place to be - a wonderful pool with high concentration of dissolved mineral salts where you can float endlessly and lose yourself in a state of infinite abyss- it was absolutely relaxing ( but obviously had nothing to do with a Tenerife island ). Mountain of Teide ( 3,715 m ) , the highest elevation in Spain, and the surrounding post-volcanic landscape of black sharp rocks were quite interesting. You can drive through it with a moderate interest and take some photos.

Cons: Herds of tourist were everywhere ( and we are still receiving those skewed news about an "economical crisis", don´t we ? ). There are infinite number of horrible hotels designed for mass-tourism located all over the coastal areas. Main avenues close to the beaches are outlined with an never-ending strip of ugly bars, crappy restaurants, gift-shops and "bazaars" - all with primitive aluminum walls, plastic chairs offering a non-recognizable kind of "international cuisine". All over the island there is a spread of chaotic urbanization. The Spanish villages don´t look nice ether.

The verdict: We have already traveled to other islands of the Canaries before. In 2006 we found two islands: Fuertaventura and Lanzarote together with the Kempinski hotel where we stayed quite nice. But Tenerife turned out to be an not-so-pleasant place to be. We probably will never go back there again.

Maciek.