My Birthday On La Isla Bonita

This 6th December wasn't the first time I'd woken up to heat and sunshine on my birthday, I've celebrated many in India and, last year, a bit closer to home in Malaga. After consecutive birthdays spent in the UK either soaking wet, snowed on or freezing cold, I've promised myself that however many 6th Decembers I have left, they will be spent in the environment that makes me the happiest - warmth! 

After opening my presents -and a card from the hotel staff who must have seen that it was my birthday on their records -  we set off in search of churros & coffee and, suitably stuffed, went off to explore more of Puerto de la Cruz.

After a sunny start Mount Teide had all but vanished behind the cloud but, as you can see from our Summery attire, it was still a fabulously warm 24°C.

Being the little weirdo that I am, top of the list for birthday adventures was the Cementerio Ingles (The English Cemetery). Long before the mass tourism of the twentieth century, there was already a substantial British population on Tenerife, mostly involved with exporting Canarian wine and the island's sugar, since the early part of the 18th Century. Back then the Catholic church was opposed to the Protestant religion but exempted foreign residents, granting permission for a small cemetery for deceased ex-pats to be established. This opened in 1757. 

From the closing years of the nineteenth century, North Tenerife became increasingly popular as a destination for the wealthier members of British society to spend the winter months.  The island was known for its mild climate and pure air and, as such, routinely recommended by doctors as a place for those suffering from illness - particularly tuberculosis - to convalesce although, by the number of graves occupied by the young, many must have succumbed. 

Although created by British residents, the cemetery was also used by Protestants from other countries. By 1958 it was almost full so, to utilise the space, the dead were interred in niches in the walls. In recent times, with the preference for cremation and, in many cases, repatriation by air, the number of interments have dropped to around 3 to 4 a year.

In the bottom left hand corner of the first collage is the grave of Osbert Ward, who died in 1949 at the grand old age of 93 and is famous for writing the first ever guide book to Tenerife back in 1886. I had to smile at the inscription he'd had etched on Mrs Osbert Ward's head stone, The Best of Wives....it sounded like Osbert kept a harem.

I mentioned in my first Tenerife travelogue how Agatha Christie had visited the island in 1927, the year after her infamous 1926 disappearance and subsequent discovery in a hotel with no apparent memory of how she got there. Following successful psychiatric treatment, Christie travelled to Puerto de la Cruz with her daughter Rosamund and her secretary Carlo and was inspired to write several books set in the town during her stay. 

Mr. Satterthwaite went on, past the palm trees and the straggling white houses, past the black lava beach where the surf thundered and where once, long ago, a well-known English swimmer had been carried out to sea and drowned, past the rock pools where children and elderly ladies bobbed up and down and called it bathing, along the steep road that winds upwards to the top of the cliff. For there on the edge of the cliff was a house, appropriately named La Paz. A white house with faded green shutters tightly closed, a tangled beautiful garden, and a walk between cypress trees that led to a plateau on the edge of the cliff where you looked down--down--down--to the deep blue sea below.’’  The Mysterious Mr Quin, 1930

The bench we sat on to take this photo is labelled Agatha Christie's Viewpoint.

The Agatha Christie Stairs on Paseo San Amaro speak for themselves, apparently photographing them is an Instagram thing. 

Thank goodness I'm no longer on IG, I committed a major faux pas by wearing the same dress I'd worn the previous day!

Puerto de la Cruz is not only the first place in the world to name a street after the author but also hosts an annual Agatha Christie Festival every November. Not quite Glastonbury but I bet it's fun.

There's a great view at the top of those steps. The more eagle-eyed amongst you might notice that the pavement looked a bit wet, we had about five minutes of rain.

We continued our ascent up through the Orotava Valley and with popping ears finally reached our next destination, The English Library. 

Set within beautiful subtropical gardens, the library is home to 20,000 English language books covering everything from cookery and the classics to music and gardening with everything else inbetween. There's also over 5,000 DVDs.

The library was founded by Mrs Mary Boreham who arrived on Tenerife with her terminally ill husband, Walter. The Borehams possessed a large and eclectic collection of books which they started lending to other British ex-pats living in the Orotava valley. The books were originally housed in the Anglican church down the road but, as the collection grew, the British community were granted permission for a specially constructed building and The Orotava Library, as it was originally known, opened in 1903. The library remained open throughout both World Wars and is available to the public every Wednesday and Saturday between 10am and 1pm. Annual membership is €40 a year and temporary membership (minimum, one month) is €12. 

When Mrs Boreham died in 1917 her private collection of books was bequeathed to the library, totalling around 4000 volumes. The library's records reveal that it cost 108 pesetas to move the books by horse and cart and another 1169 pesetas to build more shelves to accommodate them all.

It was such a lovely place, the gardens were exquisite and the volunteers couldn't have been more welcoming as we'd arrived shortly before closing time we didn't take advantage of the tearooms.

We passed the 130 year old Anglican church, All Saints on the way back down the hill into town. The gardens are home to a rose garden dedicated to the memory of the 146 passengers and crew who lost their lives when Dan Air charter flight number 1008, inbound from Manchester to the Tenerife North airport of Los Rodeos, crashed in the nearby forest of La Esperanza on 25th April 1980 killing everyone on board.

Back down at the port I whipped off my dress and went for a swim....the Atlantic was too cold for Lord Jon (I'm made of sterner stuff!) so he stayed on shore and filmed me for posterity. I would have gone further but a boat was coming in and I didn't fancy being decapitated on my birthday (although I know of a very nice graveyard in the vicinity). 

Swimming in the sea is a getting soaking wet on my birthday that I can cope with!

 

By now we were ravenous. I wanted to eat on the pavement outside the fabulous Art Nouveau cafe bar we'd discovered on our first day in Puerto de la Cruz but there was a queue and I don't think stamping my feet and demanding a table just because it was my birthday would have cut it. 

Instead we sat outside one of the grand old hotels in the square by the church and enjoyed beer and tapas (tortilla, olives and papas arrugadas with mojo verde and rojo along with a basket of bread) and it turned out that a Danish man on a neighbouring table was - like reader Lynsey - also celebrating a birthday!

We sat on San Telmo beach with a beer and watched the waves for an hour.

Back at the apartment we showered and packed our belongings. You guessed right, Jon wore his new old coat on the journey home and I managed to squeeze my latest second hand maxi dress in my bag. Jet2 flights include 10kg carry-on allowance but my bag only weighed 7kg on the way out and, as we'd used up the toiletries we'd brought with us, I had room to spare.

Although our flight wasn't until lunchtime the following day (Thursday), we'd planned on catching the 6am bus to Tenerife South airport as the next one was two hours later and would have been cutting things a bit too fine. However, as luck would have it, Barry from York, the lovely chap we'd met in our favourite hole-in-the-wall bar a couple of nights ago was having a pint when we popped in and, as a bus enthusiast and a Puerto de la Cruz long-staying regular, told us that we could get a later bus and change at Santa Cruz station, meaning we didn't have to cut the birthday night out too short after all. 

Salut, Barry! 

As I'd enjoyed it so much before, I had another vegetable paella for dinner....

And Jon, who doesn't really like burgers, loved his choice.

The live entertainment was the same beautiful singer as the previous night and she dedicated her Spanish cover of Dancing Queen to me, I must have made an impression!

The following morning we caught the 7.15am guagua to Santa Cruz, hopped on the airport-bound 8am with seconds to spare and disembarked at Tenerife South two hours later. After posing by the Tenerife sign for one last photo, we breakfasted on bocadillos and flew back to Birmingham. Just over four hours later we'd passed through arrivals and were on the train back to Walsall - lunch in Spain, tea in England - short haul travel rocks!

I didn't expect to love North Tenerife as much as I did. With this trip and our January jaunt to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria I've definitely disproved my previous theory of The Canaries being a purpose-built, soulless, cultural wasteland. In fact, I cannot wait to go back! 

Thanks for reading!