We refused to travel to the Canaries for so many years, but have now found ourselves going there for the second time in a very short time 🙂 But not on the same island of course. This time it fell on Tenerife, and the idea was once again hatched by our friends from Brussels, who planned their stay there throughout the Christmas holidays. We decided to join them in the first week of January. Of course, it was not without complications, because according to the plan we were supposed to fly on January 1st, and as a result of canceled flights, we flew on New Year’s Eve 🙂 We spent the first 2 days in Puerto de la Cruz and visited the northern part of the island, and the next week, we rented a house together in the south of the island.

First things first. Currently, to enter Spain, you need to complete the form on the THIS website and generate a QR code for each passenger. When completing the form, you must indicate whether you are vaccinated, recovered from covid, or whether you have a negative test result (it is enough with Antigen). At this point, we must enclose a certificate confirming one of these things. Children up to 12 years of age are exempt. You can read about the current entry regulations and restrictions HERE. There are generally 4 risk levels in Spain, and depending on where you are, there are different restrictions. Tenerife was on risk level 3 around Christmas and New Years, but is currently on level 4! It didn’t really make much difference to us, because we don’t take part in any nightlife anyway. Only problematic is buying tickets for various attractions that now have a limited number of people who can use it at the same time (e.g. the Teide cable car). Theoretically, they should always check the vaccination or test certificate in restaurants, but to be honest we were checked maybe 2-3 times. In addition, a maximum of 6 people can sit at the table in a restaurant, but once we managed to eat lunch all 9 of us together 🙂 Masks are now mandatory everywhere, even outside, but we must admit that practically no one obeys this rule or controls it. In February 2021 it was a completely different story and even people walking their dogs were wearing masks. Nowadays, it is rare to find someone outdoors with their mouth and nose covered. Of course, in restaurants and shops, everyone wears it and possibly on a crowded street in the town, but not in the national parks, etc. The biggest absurdity was the question of masks in Siam Park! Because of course in the water you do not need to have a mask, but while standing in the queue to the slide you do 🙂 And I witnessed how the lifeguard turned people back from the queue, because they did not have masks. Fortunately, they didn’t chase kids for it.

Apart from the first 2 nights we spent at a hotel in Puerto de la Cruz, we stayed in a house in the very south of the island, in a very calm area, right next to the airport. Here you can check it out. The house itself is brand new, very well equipped, with 4 bedrooms and a heated swimming pool (very important this time of year). The owner is very nice and helpful (and talkative!). There are small shops in the area, and in 10 minutes by car you can get to larger supermarkets. The only downside is unfortunately the proximity to the airport. Because all planes literally land over our heads. You can get used to it and it is comforting that they stop flying around midnight 🙂 It is worth noting that the house is not located in any larger town, so if you are looking for a place where you can go to eat something on a walk or like larger towns, then it’s not for you . For us, it was perfect, because we got in the car every day and went on our way. As always, we rented a car for the entire vacation. Unfortunately, the car rental prices surprised us very negatively. In Gran Canaria in February 2021 we paid 55 € per week, and now for 9 days over 700 € !!! In addition, finding a car was almost a miracle. The truth is that we started it quite late, a few weeks before the travel, but we had never faced such a situation before.

And what was our impression of Tenerife itself? Probably a bit worse than Gran Canaria, but I think it has to do with the fact that in February 2021 hardly anyone traveled and there were very few tourists. And now there are big crowds everywhere. And we don’t like crowds. Apart from that, we had a few negative culinary experiences (the food itself was tasty, but if you wait 2 hours for dinner, or the service does not bring bread, even though we asked 3 times, nothing can improve the experience). We deliberately avoided all the popular resorts in the south of the island (e.g. Playa de las Americas), but we still had problems with parking, e.g. in Puerto de la Cruz or Los Gigantes.

But most importantly! We had a great time with our friends and we were very lucky with the weather! Everyone said that such temperatures at this time of year doesn’t happen often. Especially in the north of the island, where I never dreamed of sunbathing, but we did it and even the guys were swimming in the ocean. In addition, we managed to do everything we planned: have an all-day fun in Siam Park, reach the volcano peak (Tomasz walked the trail!), go on a ocean cruise in search of dolphins, visit a banana plantation, Anaga park, the charming village of Masca and admire a lot of beautiful views. I will describe the details of our trips in the next posts 🙂