Tenerife – Arrival

We love Tenerife. So much so that we have been coming here for more than twenty years, year by year the place has changed and every year as we walk the Geranium Walk we see these changes and usually applaud the improvements. Just a brief note about our home for a couple of weeks. Parque del Sol is at the western end of the resort called Playa de las Americas in the area known as Playa Fanãbe. We first found it more than twenty years ago and have been visiting every year since. We love it!

Parque del Sol reviews

Day one of this year’s holiday was almost like returning home, familiar faces, familiar smells and the warmest welcome you could imagine. Our apartment in Parque del Sol was ready on our arrival and Maria, the receptionist, was full of excitement and enquiries about our children, grandchildren and our own activities. Within moments we were unpacking cases and settling down to relax on the balcony overlooking the pool and with a rare sea view (if you stood on the balcony and craned your neck in a perilous manoeuvre south towards the beach no more than 250 metres away.

We chose to spend the evening in quiet relaxation, having woken up at about 4 am and having to be at the airport by 07:30. Lunch was needed so we headed uphill to a local cantina which had, the previous year, been closed off and half demolished. The renewed shopping centre was excellent and I settled down for tropical salad and a beer. The salad was short on variety but the combination of olive oil and white wine vinegar brought flavour to the salad, full of avocado and cherry tomatoes. By the time I had finished I was fully sated and ready for a relaxed evening ‘indoors’. Indoors is an unusual concept in Tenerife as normally everything is done outdoors and only the infrequent bad weather drives a person to eat inside.

For dinner I cooked a Mexican chicken dish, enchiladas, from a pack of spices we had brought with us and chicken and sundries from the nearby Hyperdino supermarket, Half a bottle of Sangria de Toro and I was already feeling sleepy. We watched a couple of episodes of Chicago Fire (I bring masses of films and TV shows on USB discs whenever we are abroad – the local TV offerings are pretty bad, mostly German and far worse than Channel 5 in the UK, we don’t know how lucky we are.

Tomorrow is a day of promise and excitement. Sleep well!