#Tenerife

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Adiós Tenerife; Re-bonjour Paris (Goodbye Tenerife; Hello again Paris)

The 4:30 am wake up alarm came awfully early on Monday, September 26th and Lynda and I were awake before it went off.

We got showered, dressed and finished our packing before it was time to leave at 5:30 am to return the rental car and check in at the airport for our flight to Madrid on our way back to Paris. The clouds were still looking like there was more rain to come but it wasn’t raining as we left for our drive to the airport.

We had come on a direct flight but in order to get the good deal we got for the flights and apartment, there was to be a 4 hour stopover in Madrid on the return leg. I’ve been liking Spain so far so how bad can that be?

After dropping off the car we walked into the terminal at Aeropuerto de Tenerife Sur and preceded through the check in/ security check with no real problems.

Boarding seemed to take the longest. Why planes aren’t loaded from the back, forward is beyond me. It feels like it takes you 20 minutes to get down the isle to your seat near the back of the plane.

It was still dark as our Airbus A321 climbed out for our 2 and a half hour flight and headed north towards Spain.

The weather cleared up as we approached Madrid and we enjoyed a nice smooth landing.

The Madrid airport is a very long building with some nice design features. (One would think I would of taken photos of such things, but one would be mistaken in that belief.)

We passed the time with people watching and airport food.

Finally, it was time to board another Airbus for the hour and a half flight to Paris.

Another smooth landing at Aéroport de Paris-Orly was appreciated by all.

The nice thing about these flights were we didn’t have to go through Customs upon arrival so it was pretty quick to get through the airport for the taxi queue. It was a whole lot longer than the one Lynda and I got into when we got back from Nice.

It really wasn’t all that long before it was our turn at the front of the line.

We told the fellow directing people that there was 4 of us and he pointed at a sedan. The driver started to protest but we told him that’s were we were directed to, so he loaded us up and took us.

We got safely back to the apartment and decided to head out for supper.

It was a really long walk of a block and a half over to L’Amiral Chicken for really good kebabs and fries.

Views in Tenerife were a bit better

It was a pretty quiet night for us as all we did was wander back to the apartment to call it a day.

Even with it being a travel day, I still managed to almost get my 10k in steps topping out at 9552. I know it was close but no cigar (I draw the line at trying wine).

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Tenerife, Day 4

It had rained pretty hard at times overnight but there was a pause in the rain when we got up on Sunday, September 25th.

The weather wasn’t expected to be any better than yesterday and a lot of places were still closed so we went back to Sweet Franks for breakfast. It was just as good as it had been yesterday.

As we sat and eyeballed the cloud cover, we decided we’d drive up to see it conditions were any better at Parque Nacional del Teide to see the volcano. We didn’t really believe they would be but we set off to find out anyway.

Hard to get good images out the car window

Soon we were climbing the hills in a dizzying array of switchbacks. I don’t want to say the Spanish are crazy but according to the GPS, the speed limit was 90 km/h on that stretch of road.

It wasn’t long before we were at the top of the mountain. At least it looked that way as you couldn’t see up hill very well.

You couldn’t see down all that well either.

So, back in the car to climb higher.

The big patches of white are banana plantations.

Sometimes we’d get out of the rain into patches of almost blue sky, but then it was back to rain and mist in no time.

Apparently the storm was causing problems with flooding and damages in places around the Canary Islands but the most we saw was debris on the road.

We did see a lot of places with rocks and such on the road but no real damage otherwise.

What you could see of the landscape looked kind of cool.

The rain was down to a mist as we passed Paradores Cañadas del Teide on our way to the cable car at Teleférico del Teide.

Visibility was good enough for us to see the road closed gate and not much else.

We were a bit bummed but not surprised by this and we headed back to see what was at Paradores Cañadas del Teide.

It’s a visitor centre with a restaurant, washroom and giftshop.

Lynda and Lucille did some shopping in the giftshop and found a few nice things to bring home.

With our planed outing being a bust, we headed back down a different road in search of lunch.

We ended up in a familiar place; Centro Comercial Safari shopping mall. We knew things were open there so we thought we’d play it safe to find food.

We ended up at Roma Restaurant – Pizzeria; right beside where we had lunch yesterday.

It was very good Italian food and drink.

It wasn’t raining when we had finished eating so we walked about a block to Playa del Camisón beach to could check it out.

It was another really nice beach and we walked in the surf for a while.

The breakwater made the water quite calm but my bride showed a lot restraint and only waded knee deep as she walked along.

We walked along the beach for a while and decided to head back to the apartment.

With our late lunch, no one was really needing supper so Lucille and Curtis went in search of potato chips. We had other snacks and drinks to finish off before our flight out in the morning.

The weather still wasn’t all that great as we waited for them to get back and the pool was still closed so I grabbed a couple of “weather” shots.

About my only disappointment (And I wasn’t all that disappointed) with Tenerife was the boring sunsets we saw. I know the storm may have something to do with it but it literally went from light out to dark out with next to no sunset colour. It is just a minor niggle to me because, even with the storm I was really enjoying the island.

It was getting dark when I shot my last photos of the day. (And as it turned out, trip.)

We finished off our snacks and got to bed fairly early because our 5:30 am leaving time would get here soon enough.

It was a bit of a slack walking day and I managed just shy of 7600 steps.

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Tenerife, Day 3

Woke up to lots and lots of rain on Saturday, September 24th.

Apparently our rough seas on the ferry crossing yesterday was the first signs of Tropical Storm Hermine as it approached the islands.

We headed out to Lizzie’s Bistro for breakfast and as we pulled up I got a Facebook notice that they would be closed due to the weather.

We had to go in search of plan B. We didn’t know many places yet so we drove around to see what looked open.

We soon found Sweet Franks. It had a covered patio and promised the best breakfast so we though we’d give it a try.

It was quite a good breakfast and we got some tea for the road as we went off in search of more shot glasses for Curtis at The Hard Rock Hotel on the west side of the island.

It was a fairly high falutin place but they didn’t have any shot glasses.

We decided to make our way to the Rock Shop area.

We ended up across the road at Centro Comercial Safari shopping centre. It’s a nice shopping mall with a a bunch of restaurants on the 2nd level.

All the restaurants looked good and we decided on Hacienda Miranda for lunch.

It was the first Mexican restaurant we had tried on our trip and it was very, very good. The food was fabulous and they made the best strawberry margarita I have ever gotten in a restaurant or bar, anywhere.

To avoid a food coma, we walke across the street to The Rock Shop. Not only did they not have any shot glasses, the clerk was a bit pissy about us bringing wet umbrellas into the shop. (How dare we use them in all that rain.) They didn’t have a spot by the door for them and it’s not like anyone was waving them around, but Lucille did shake out her poncho afterwards.

We re-crossed the street to check out the shopping mall and after a bit of window shopping, were ready to head back to the apartments.

The rain had been varying from misty to pouring rain all day but we still decided to walk over to the grocery store for some tea and other stuff.

Roadside sculpture

It was raining intermittently when we went out for supper but we walked over to Bistró 431, which is in the lower level of the building Sweet Franks is.

Since our lunch had been so big, no one was overly hungry so we just got some Tapas. The food was good but it wasn’t on the same level as lunch had been so it seemed a bit disappointing at the time. (Even though it really wasn’t disappointing at all.)

The plates were super cool

We headed back to the apartments drinks and snacks we had gotten at the grocery store earlier. (I know we had just eaten but there wasn’t much to do in the rain.)

The weather wasn’t looking any better as darkness approached.

Even though it wasn’t cold out, (at least not by Canadian standards) the pool was closed, as it had been all day.

Even with the weather as it was, we managed to get just over 12 thousand steps in today. Not bad all in all. Hopefully, tomorrow will dawn with better weather.

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Did someone say “Tapas”?

The 1st full day of fall had arrived in Paris so it was time to head for a warmer climate.

We arrived at Aéroport de Paris-Orly quite early to catch our flight to Tenerife, Canary Island.

Many years ago I had researched the most temperate climate in the world and Tenerife in the Canary Islands was the answer. So, I told management at work that if they ever opened a store there I would be willing to move there, sight unseen.

Once we had decided to go to Paris, I started checking out inexpensive trips to take from there and Tenerife was in the running to check out.

Lucille and Curtis had never been and Curtis was interested in going so, he booked us flights and accommodations for 4 days.

Hola

Curtis had decided to get a rental car and luckily he gets a deal through work.

We piled into the car and headed to our apartments.

Soon we were checking into Apartamentos Parque Carolina to drop off our stuff and we went looking for food.

Lucille found Flicks Bar listed as being really close and we followed her to find it. Since she isn’t all that great at reading her phone map, we were soon going the wrong way and ended up at Tapas Harry’s Place. It was a pretty cool view but they weren’t serving food yet.

We headed back to find Flicks. We were almost there when we saw an older couple on the deck of their apartment and asked about the bar. They told us it had closed down about 3 weeks ago. I still walked down the path to take a couple photos as I was there anyway.

It was too bad the place was closed because it would of been a great place to sit and have lunch.

So Curtis pulled out his phone to find food and soon we were walking northwest to see what we could find.

We saw a few places but the name Lizzie’s Bistro jumped out at us and we decided to give it a try.

The thing that jumps out at you at Lizzie’s is the drink menu of 64 cocktails.

Looked like a challenging menu to try them all but we thought we should at least try and we each ordered something different.

The first round was good so we had a 2nd round with our food.

We stopped after 2 rounds so we could go check out the pool at our apartments.

The listing for the apartment stated it had an ocean view and to be fair, it was accurate.

The view from our our window

With swim time over, it was time to go and find supper. So back to Lizzie’s to add more drinks to our list.

It was karaoke night and there were a few talented singers to entertain us.

With 2 more rounds under our belt, we headed back to our apartments the same way we had walked earlier in the day. Curtis found the shutter button assembly from Lynda’s camera on a sidewalk. We had found it broken when we were getting ready to go for supper and I guessed it probably had gotten jammed up against something she was carrying and it popped off somewhere along our walk.

The camera would focus with the button but it wouldn’t take a photo so I guess it’s her cell phone for the rest of the trip as need be.

Got about 15.5 k in steps today so getting back on track anyway.