Tenerife

From the marina in Los Gigantes we went out on a sailing boat along the foot of the cliffs, which drop hundreds of metres straight into the sea. Out on the water we saw whales surfacing next to the boat, most likely pilot whales, which live all year round in the strait between Tenerife and La Gomera. Further along the coast the boat turned back below the mouth of the Masca gorge.

Masca is a tiny village hidden in the mountains of the Teno massif, reached by a narrow road that winds through the ravines. We walked down its stone lanes between palms and prickly pears, past the little church square shaded by a huge tree, with the gorge falling away towards the sea, and had lunch on a terrace looking into the valley.

In the afternoon we drove down to Garachico on the north coast. In 1706 a volcanic eruption buried much of the town and its harbour under lava, and the cooled lava now forms El Caletón, natural rock pools where the Atlantic surf breaks, with the Roque de Garachico standing just offshore.

We spent a day at the beach of Las Teresitas, north of the capital, and the evening in the streets of Santa Cruz.

Two days later we came back to see the Auditorio de Tenerife, Santiago Calatrava’s concert hall on the waterfront, with its huge white wing covered in broken tiles. Next to it stands the small black Castillo de San Juan, and along the harbour wall visitors have drawn on the breakwater stones.

The same afternoon we crossed the island to Puerto de la Cruz. From above we looked down on Lago Martiánez, the seawater pools designed by César Manrique, then walked the old town, with the church square and its palms and the narrow streets of balconied houses.

At the end of the day we walked west along the seafront to the old Castillo de San Felipe and Playa Jardín, a black-sand beach lined with palms, as the sun went down.