The Best Travel Guide to Tenerife

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Tenerife

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Provided by: Turismo de Canarias

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Tenerife

With your kids Lazy beach days Be Active

The guide was updated: 2018-12-17

Apart from having the best climate in Spain, Tenerife is a place where you can really relax and enjoy yourself. This island, crowned by Mount Teide, has picturesque villages, incredible landscapes and idyllic beaches.

Here you will be able to enjoy fiestas where you will feel as though you are just one more reveller from Tenerife. Guess why over five million people have chosen this Island as their holiday destination. Just come and have a great time.

Facts

Population:	Approximately 1,000,000
Currency:	Euro (EUR) €1 = 100 cents
Search Accommodation:	Hotels »
Emergency numbers:	Emergency: 112 National Police: 091 Local Police: 092 Civil Guard: 062
Newspapers:	El Dia Diario de Avisos La Opinion In English: Tenerife News English Daily News
Website:	www.webtenerife.com
Opening hours:	Normal opening hours in Tenerife are from 10.00 to 13.30 and 17.00 to 20.30 hours. However, in tourist resorts the opening hours are longer from 10.00 until 22.00, sometimes even later. Shopping centres are also open throughout the day from 10.00 to 22.00 hours. On Sundays and Bank Holidays only the shops in tourist resorts are open, those in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and La Laguna and other non-tourist towns are closed. However these shops do open in December and a few Sundays during the year.
Tourist information:	Get all the information you need in the tourist information offices and points of the Infotén network. In the offices scattered around the Island, we will help you to find out about everything Tenerife has to offer. www.webtenerife.co.uk/useful-information/tourist-information-offices/

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Section in Tenerife

There’s no time to be bored in Tenerife, which has many theme parks where you can enjoy unforgettable experiences. The island also boasts 43 protected nature areas which occupy half of the island, and the list of outdoor activities to choose from during your holiday is endless, from riding through spectacular landscapes on your mountain bike or on horseback, to climbing the many rock walls and mountains found all over Tenerife. The island is also a leading European destination for paragliding thanks to the air quality and climate. We have over 100 sites that are ideal for this increasingly popular sport.

Sendero de los Sentidos

Sendero de los Sentidos

In order to decipher all that Tenerife’s countryside has to offer, we recommend visiting the Sendero de los Sentidos (Path of the Senses), a true natural landscape with information panels that will help you to stimulate your sight, hearing, touch and smell.

Canyoning

We also suggest you try canyoning, an activity attracting new participants on the Island every day and for which there are a great many suitable canyons (Tenerife is crisscrossed by hundreds of them); and caving, to explore underground caverns hidden beneath our feet.

Lava Tubes

Lava Tubes

One activity which cannot be enjoyed anywhere else is the chance to explore a lava tube such as Cueva del Viento (Cave of Wind), at Icod de los Vinos. At 17 kilometres in length, it is the longest in Europe, offering an unforgettable journey into the depths of the Earth and a perfect chance to discover the Island’s volcanic past.

Bird Watching and Stargazing

Bird watching, as the Canary Islands and Tenerife are the first places you can see birds on their annual migration to Equatorial Africa, or stargazing, because the Island has some of the clearest and least polluted skies in the world, are two more great options for enjoying the open air.

Natural Wonders

There are outstanding landscapes to admire on Tenerife, such as the Laurel Forests, a lush magical relic from the Tertiary Period, or El Acantilado de Los Gigantes (The Giant Cliffs), which can reach up to 600 metres in height. But above all, you have endless options for outdoor activities. Hiking, for instance, is one of the best ways to explore Tenerife’s amazing variety of natural beauty spots along hundreds of kilometres of signposted trails.

Water Activities

There are as many things to do in the water as on land, including deep-sea fishing, sailboat trips, windsurfing, kitesurfing, kayaking and diving. The crystal-clear waters of the Atlantic around Tenerife, combined with the rich diversity of marine life, make it a veritable treasure trove for all who enjoy diving, as well as those who wish to try this exciting sport for the first time.

Dolphin and Whale Watching

Tenerife is today a top destination for whale and dolphin watching. 21 of the world’s 79 species of dolphins and whales inhabit our waters, including a permanent colony of some 500 pilot whales and 250 bottlenose dolphins. They are most commonly found in the waters between the south coast of Tenerife and the island of La Gomera. They are also very close to shore, about three miles, allowing them to be seen all year round.

Siam Park

Siam Park (Costa Adeje) is Europe’s largest water park, occupying 185,000 square metres. Entirely themed on the Kingdom of Siam, it boasts some amazing attractions: an artificial white-sand beach with three metre-high waves, the Tower of Power (the second highest ’kamikaze’ water slide in the world) and many others, ensuring a fun day out with family or friends.

Loro Parque

Loro Parque

Loro Parque is an incredible wildlife park and aquarium visited by millions of people each year. The orca show is the star attraction, though the penguins are a close second, living in an exact replica of their natural frozen habitat; Katandra Treetops, an aviary with hundreds of birds from around the world, Bengal tigers, dolphins... and, of course, all the fun of the parrot show. Parque Loro has the best and largest collection of these intelligent, friendly birds in the whole world.

Jungle Park

Jungle Park

In the south of the Island you can visit Jungle Park, a jungle setting full of wild animals, where there’s even a bird of prey freeflight exhibition including eagles. Test your driving skills at Karting Club Tenerife or enjoy the thrills and spills of the water slides at Aqualand; so many things to do during your holiday, and what better way to round it off than a visit to Forestal Park, an adventure playground boasting over a hundred tree-top attractions where Tarzan would feel right at home.

Tenerife Cinema

Tenerife encompasses a huge diversity of landscapes, making it a unique setting for all kinds of filming and photography, a natural mini-continent-like stage endowed with every possible landscape. Thus the Island is frequently chosen by film producers to serve as backdrop for their stories. To that end, the Island has set up the Tenerife Film Commission (TFC), the department in charge of promoting the Island as a movie set.

Spas

Not only do Tenerife’s natural assets give you energy and vitality, but a visit to one of the spas, located across the island, allows time for relaxation. A number of these facilities are located within upmarket hotels and resorts and offer a wide variety of treatments. Guests can choose from therapies with hot stones, aromatherapy, exfoliation and others to combat stress. Spa lovers can go the extra step and enjoy fruit masks, oxygen therapy, snow cabins, the Photon capsule, and much more.

Medical Tourism

Tenerife boasts a hospital network with leading qualified professionals and the latest technical and surgical advances. The centres meet the medical and sanitary standards of an EU country but with significant economic advantages over most European countries and America. This network even has a dedicated customer service team for international patients. Furthermore, it is possible to arrange transfers, accommodation pre- and post-treatment and to organise additional leisure activities.

Language Learning

Thanks to its climate and leisure options, Tenerife is emerging as a top destination for language learning – travellers interested in learning or improving their Spanish can find language schools to cater to all levels. These centres offer group and individual classes, intensive courses and complementary activities for language learning so it is fun and engaging and not only an academic pursuit.

Museums

Museums across Tenerife promise to expand your knowledge on nature and natural history in a fun and informative way and are great places to start or finish off a day out on the island. The Museum of Nature and Mankind, the Museum of Science and the Cosmos, the Museum of History and Anthropology, and the Centre for Canarian-Latin American Documentation are all worth a visit.

Cultural and Architectural Heritage

Tenerife boasts a cultural heritage on a par with its natural beauty, as seen in the historic areas of its cities, like La Laguna, Garachico, La Orotava and Icod de los Vientos. There’s never enough time to fully admire each town’s churches, convents, buildings, plazas and palaces. Tenerife is also renowned for its avant-garde architecture, with such names as Santiago Calatrava and Herzog & De Meuron leaving their mark on the island.

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