It’s unlikely that Tenerife is ever going to be the choice of destination for the majority of savvy British travellers. I know that, I’ve always known that. It’s an unfortunate state of affairs and sometimes it feels as though I’m banging my head against a lead wall studded with razor blades when I tell people that:

One face of Tenerife...

“‘honestly, it’s only a teensy, weensy part of Tenerife which has football strip wearing lobster red beer bellies tucking into Desperate Dan sized plates of chips washed down with jugs of lager at 10.00 in the morning. Most of it is nothing like that and it’s a beautiful island with a great culture.”

This usually elicits a knowing:

“Hmmm, really…if you say so.”

The latest example of this was when I was re-connected on Facebook with a friend from about 20 years ago. He’s a really nice guy and a ‘call a spade a spade’ sort of person. However, he was never the most cultured of blokes. I remember once when we went to one of my favourite restaurants in Manchester, That Café in Levenshulme and he told the waiter to “get that bloody rabbit food of my plate.” He was referring to the salad garnish on his ‘well done’ steak.

When he heard that Andy and I were living on Tenerife his response was ‘That’s where all the chavs go, isn’t it?”

And there you are. That’s not an uncommonly held image of Tenerife. Maybe ‘chavs’ is a bit of an exaggeration. That’s my mate’s way of talking, but you get his drift. Now you got to ask yourself where did people like him pick up this impression of Tenerife. It wasn’t from the Spanish, or the German’s…it was from the Brits themselves.

Now we can blame the media for portraying a skewered view of Tenerife until the cows come home, but there aint no smoke without fire. The real curse of the image of Tenerife is what the ‘average’ man and woman in the street tell their mates when they return to blighty.”

Here are a couple of quotes from a Tenerife Forum thread which are quite illuminating:

“Tenerife is just that…Tenerife, us Brits go for the sun and good weather.”

“…Believe it or not, a lot (tourists) come just to chill out by the pool/sea and have no wish to go further.”

This is the curse of Tenerife. Many, many British people who come to Tenerife come purely for the sun and the familiarity of resorts which have British bars and a lively nightlife. It is the populist image of Tenerife and It’s the reason why many ‘travellers’ who want to experience a different culture don’t view it as a serious option.

...and another. The one which travellers from bygone days were familiar with

The paradox of this is that it’s also the reason why Tenerife is one of the top holiday destinations for millions of Brits and has brought much needed revenue to the island.

It’s a double edged sword for sure, but I’ve said it before and no doubt I’ll say it again and again…until someone listens. The beauty of Tenerife is that if you want roast beef and Yorkshire pud followed by a pint or two of John Smith’s while listening to a Rod Stewart tribute act, or indeed the real thing himself, then that’s fine. If you want something a bit more sophisticated; fine dining and trendy bars in a modern upmarket resort, you can have that as well. But because the majority of visitors opt for a teensy weensy area in the south of the island, the bulk of Tenerife remains distinctly Canarian, so if you want to experience the real Tenerife, there’s a lot of it out there.

The curse of Tenerife also means that much of it is still relatively ‘undiscovered’ in tourist terms.

The Tenerife Forum have just announced that they have over 13000 members which an amazing number of people with an interest in Tenerife.

The forum is probably now the most useful real time information resource about Tenerife. Whether you are looking for the best deal, or services on offer, you want to buy a bike, sell your camera or just want to know about everything which is going on, the Tenerife Forum is the place to drop in.

The Tenerife Forum has provided support for many people in their quest to find out all about Tenerife and we recommend joining if you have any connection to the Island. Whether it be for holidays, coming to live here or joining a local social group, you will be made most welcome.

You will find the forum can be very absorbing, it is a great source for breaking news about Tenerife. Very little escapes the notice of Tenerife Forum members on this Island.

The Tenerife Forum will also surprise you, especially the Tenerife Community spirit which is also very warm throughout.

Join the Tenerife Forum

Blog posted by Expedia Property SL – Tenerife Estate Agents for Tenerife Property

Mount Teide on Christmas Day - A White Christmas with Blue Skies in the north

Anyone who’s been following TripAdvisor or the Tenerife Forum (not to be confused with The Tenerife Forum) over the festive season will no doubt be under the impression that the weather in Tenerife has been pretty poor over the festive season with cool cloudy days and even some torrential rain which caused havoc on streets which weren’t built with flash flooding in mind.
Sitting here in my house in the allegedly ‘cool and cloudy’ north of Tenerife, I’ve followed threads on community forum websites with interest, especially considering that for the last two weeks (since my last post) we’ve had beautiful sunny days and temperate nights here in Puerto de la Cruz in the La Orotava Valley (apart from Tuesday 30th December when it chucked it down all day).

It’s been an absolutely wonderful Christmas, weather wise and I’m really pleased for all the many nationalities that chose the north of Tenerife as a destination to celebrate their Christmas.
This year the south got unlucky and I feel it for people who were looking for a warm escape from their dreary northern European winter, but it might make the people who always dismiss the north as being cool, rainy and cloudy in winter think again.

They say that there are only two things in life which are certain…and the weather isn’t one of them.

A ‘discussion’ has been raging on the Tenerife Forum on the subject of “Do you think that Tenerife is nothing without the sun?”
It seems that the recent cold (circa 20-22°C) and cloudy weather we’ve been experiencing across the island has forced Tenerife’s ‘fair weather friends’ to show their true colours. Faced with the prospect of a day where they can’t just lie around the pool in their hotel complex, people are actually angry about the lack of sun and threatening to holiday elsewhere in future.

A perfect 'sabina' tree

Meanwhile, away from the pleasure dome of the south resorts, I went to a Bonsai exhibition in Puerto de la Cruz yesterday. This was two ‘firsts’ for me; I’ve never seen a Bonsai exhibition before and, despite having lived here for over 5 years, have never been to the ex-Convento de Santo Domingo where it was being held.
Circling a beautiful traditional Canarian courtyard with its wooden, carved closed balcony, were placed about 50 Bonsai exhibits in exquisite containers.
There were formal and informal uprights, slantings and cascades. The perfect symmetry of the branches or the sensuous curves of the trunks were indeed things of beauty. I’ve never really looked at Bonsai trees before and therefore have never really appreciated the skill and patience that must go into their creation. I was amazed at the feeling of wellbeing I got from looking at some of them, as if they were giving off a gentle karma and I found myself grinning like a fool as I worked my way around the courtyard.

I left the ex-Convento de Santo Domingo and headed to Casa Ventoso to see the exhibition of belénes (nativity scenes) currently on display there. I was disappointed, if not amused, at the exhibits in the outer courtyard which seemed to consist of a great number of artificial hens and eggs, mannequins draped in plastic robes and toy ducks floating on a pond. But then my eye was caught by several rooms off the courtyard and further exploration revealed a whole series of intricately designed belénes featuring scale models of life in Bethlehem at the birth of Christ.

Juggler, clown, uni-cyclist and all round nice guy at the Festival de Los Cuentos in Los Silos

They all had the ubiquitous Wise Men, the angel appearing to shepherds and of course Mary and Joseph and the holy infant in a barn with cattle and a donkey, but they each had their own characteristics of what surrounded the main characters. A desert landscape in which the tiny village of Bethlehem is set and the rhythms of the daily lives of those who live there are carried out in multiple moving parts. But there was something here that I’ve never seen in belénes before. On several of the models, day turned to night and fires and lanterns burned beneath a star studded sky. After a minute or so, daybreak began, accompanied by the sound of a cockerel crowing before once again, the sun rose and life began to stir in the little village.
By now, my grin was fixed.

Earlier in the day we’d taken a trip to Los Silos to see their lovely Festival de Los Cuentos, the festival of stories, where we’d watched storytellers and clowns hold groups of youngsters enthralled. There was singing and uni-cycle riding, story telling and juggling, book fairs, jewellery stalls and an assortment of delicious food stalls all set in the beautiful little plaza of this charming village.

The hard to ignore, giant, green Big Wheel at Puerto's annual fair

As we walked back through the busy funfair at Puerto where the giant green Ferris wheel was catching the last of the sun’s rays, I found myself hoping that all those who claimed there was nothing to do on Tenerife when the sun didn’t shine would find their Little Britain abroad where the sun shone in a cloudless blue sky for 365 days a year, where the bars had TV sports coverage, where everyone spoke English and lager was €1 a pint and I hoped once they’d found it they would stay there, and leave the real Tenerife to the rest of us.