Christmas on Tenerife

I think it’s fair to say that our first couple of Christmases on Tenerife were not quite what I’d hoped they’d be.
The first year we’d only been here for a couple of months when Jack’s family descended on us en masse – bless them. Not wanting Jack and I to be lonely on our first [...]

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The Tapas Route –a sort of Cordon Bleu pub crawl

Sunday was the last day to participate in the Puerto de la Cruz Ruta de Tapas and we’d only managed to try three restaurants and six tapas so far. This was our last chance to notch up a few more.
We began at La Clave on Calle Puerto Viejo. A stylish Galician restaurant with tables and [...]

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Bitter and Twisted – a great night out in Puerto de la Cruz

As usual, time was way ahead of schedule leaving us breathless in its wake.
Trying to herd visitors through the streets of Puerto de la Cruz on a Saturday night when there’s so much to see, was proving a difficult task. We’d been told that if we didn’t get to the Majestic before about 9.15pm we’d [...]

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Quentin Tarantino and the Art of Communication

It was one of those perfectly fortuitous sets of circumstances that very rarely come your way.
The Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA) in Santa Cruz were screening Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in its original language at 7pm and we were collecting Jo from Santa Cruz bus station at around 9.30/10pm. So we were off to [...]

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Clash of the Titans and Taking the Piss

It’s a big week for Tenerife. It seems our little island in the sun is making headline web news, some of it exciting and some of it, well…embarrassing.
There’s been a buzz about the place over Google’s launch of its new street map which enables you to see places up close and personal. It’s a fabulous [...]

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Is there anything more romantic than a big moon?

Heading into Puerto de la Cruz last night, we arrived at San Telmo to be stopped in our tracks by the sight of the moon. Larger than a Star Trek holodeck creation, it hung over the horizon in the perfectly still, cloudless night casting its luminous glow over the La Orotava Valley and the Ocean.
It [...]

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Speaking Spanglish

We were just admiring the magnificent view of Mount Teide from the putting green outside our gate this morning when José and Glenn came wandering past. There followed a short conversation during which each showed due deference to the other’s native tongue.  So Glenn, Jack and I spoke in Spanish and José answered in English.
It [...]

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Fancy a FREE Holiday at Sands Beach Resort in Lanzarote?

There’s nothing quite like nights drawing in to bring home the fact that you’re in for a long, cold winter during which any semblance of a sun tan carried over from the summer hols will fade inexorably to milky white dotted with goose pimples and a vaguely blue aura.
But the new season also brings some [...]

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Having a Bad Day

Last week we had a meeting in the south of the island at 10am and not being sure how bad the morning traffic into Santa Cruz would be, we decided to set off by 8am. It’s a journey that would normally take us just over an hour so we were erring on the generous side.
At [...]

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Almond Cakes – one of life’s little disappointments.

We were hiking in the Chinyero Reserve on Tuesday and when we finished
we headed to the Las Fleytas bar and restaurant for our customary post-hike beer. The restaurant has a deservedly good reputation for tasty, plentiful food and is also known for its almond cakes.
With Richard and Nikki (and of course Basil, the Tenerife Dogs [...]

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