Tenerife is home to Spain’s highest mountain, Teide. Towering at almost 4000 metres it dominates the island and is snow capped for most of the year, sometimes as late as May. It lies at the heart of the Teide National Park, Spain’s most visited park, and the surrounding scenery is breathtaking. Huge sunken craters and lava lakes feature in the barren landscape and a cable car takes you to within 200 metres of the summit, which itself is not open to the public. The one way to get to the very top is to stay overnight at the refuge halfway up (the bus that goes form Puerto de la Cruz every day stops there), where you pay 100 pts a night (take sleeping bag and food) and can get up at 3 am to walk to the summit for the sunrise. Be warned though – it is quite a tough walk even when you are avoiding the heat of the day.
Other ‘must dos’ include the Masca valley in the west, a hairy drive through the steep valley with spectacular views. Go through Santiago del Teide with it’s lovely white-domed church all the way down to the coast, stopping along the way to explore the old guanche trails through small villages that as recently as 20 years ago were only accessible by donkey. Stop off at Los Gigantes where impressive cliffs tower several hundred metres above the beach. Other picturesque destinations are found in the far north around the Anaga mountains. I found it easy to walk and hitch to El Baildero, one of the highest points and then walk all the way down to the coast through a millennia worth of volcanically formed mounts that jut into the blue sky.
