Tenerife This and Palma That

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I only went down to the port in Tenerife to catch a bus to other parts of Tenerife -  and to see the processions through the hillside gardens for a Festival and then, on leaving, to take the ferry to the big square Palma island - but it’s confusing ‘cos they call lots of places 'Palma' -Palma this and Palma that!...

Anyway...the best bits of Tenerife town are in the old volcano up top! They have a trolley style bus up the steep hill to it. It passes the Uni with big gardens in front of it where one of my couch surfing hosts taught...and he had a lovely flat nearby. 

At the top of the trolley run - it's a sort of walled city...are some entries via a gateway or an arch. A triangular pedestrianised space. I busked here and enjoyed it. Interesting clubs, museums, restaurants and an old fashioned hotel - just out of the pedestrianised triangle - walking downhill. But best of all the LIBRARY!  -               A beautiful courtyard... Look right as you enter at a staircase that goes up to a room where you can use the internet - It has the most magnificent wooden balustrade I’ve ever seen.

In one street there is a double storey beamed café and from upstairs - I looked across at a tiled roof completely grown over with succulents or cacti – holding the tiles on I reckon!

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Take the bus up to the green laced Anaga Forest and walk down into it - across a stream - and then go up to the viewpoints from  where you can see Palma on one side and walk from that side of the island to the other... not too long a walk!

The far side of Palma has a city that has two libraries. One new multi-storey, overlooks the sea, and one old near the centre town is also a museum.

It has a hostel with great old tiles and the flour festival is an amazing experience!!! Yes! - get covered with flour – not flowers! 

I bussed around the island...

I found a hostal in a pretty village with a square sea bay and lovely galleried cafes along it. I stopped off at a couple of other varied coastal towns and villages – one with a vast sheer cliff view, its coastal hotel and a sort of galleried main street with a drop-down gorge view, and one inland, with a busy children's play gardens and an offbeat pub...  I just had to keep bus timetables in mind if I had  nowhere to stay. I had no hosts in this big square Palma.

The main coastal city-port was varied and interesting and I found a hostel and then a cheap hotel opposite a church on a little square. Some of the posh hotels were beautiful old galleried architecture – I went in just to look! I found places to sing acoustically.

Then I took the ferry to the most tropical of them all – that is wedge shaped - and they say may split in two!  I had lovely family hosts here in a big apartment. The interesting main street has an old wooden ship at the top.

I bought a baby goat from the butchers and cooked for everyone. They drove me up the hill zig zag and you can see how much bigger and lusher the plants are - but boy! - is it all zig zag climbing!

I saw tiny drops of islands - probably uninhabited, from the ferry en-route.

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Lanzarote? I wouldn't bother with desert Lanzarote! Boring to me.