My Birthday in La Orotava

On my birthday, Jon had not only packed presents in his carry-on bag but had also slipped in a coffee and walnut cake, which we ate for breakfast. As in previous years, the reception staff had slid a birthday card under the door - awww! So, what were my birthday plans? A trip to the flea market or the monthly car boot sale at All Saints church, a trawl of Puerto's vintage & charity shops, a swim at the Lido, a day  in the island's capital, Santa Cruz.....no! The previous evening we'd popped into a shop selling vintage travel posters and after falling in love with an image of the historic mountain town of La Orotava, I decided that was where I wanted to spend the day.

Lying 4km from Puerto de la Cruz, La Orotava is 400m further up the slopes of Mount Teide, a 20 minute bus ride away and within seconds of disembarking I was already in love.

Poinsettias are everywhere in Tenerife in the Winter and look far healthier than those feeble specimens we see in garden centres here, rarely surviving until the New Year. 

The church and former monastery of St Augustine was built between 1671 and 1694. The monastery is used as the town's cultural centre but, as 6th December is Constitution Day in Spain, it was closed when we visited. 

We ordered cappuccinos from a cafe next to the bandstand in Constitution Square, drinking them in the 25°C sunshine. The town square was bedecked with decorations, there was a tiny market with stallholders dressed in antlers and Xmas jumpers selling nativity figures, home-made biscuits and artisan chocolate with Wham's Last Christmas and Feliz Navidad blasting out over the tannoy. It doesn't matter where I go in the world, Jesus always has to gatecrash my birthday! 

The Taoro Lyceum, a former school, is directly opposite the bandstand. It was built in 1928. Talk about an imposing staircase! 

The ascent was worth it, check out the view! 

The Lyceum hosts regular (free) exhibitions and our visit coincided with their Xmas one, in all of its gaudy, pastel-coloured glory. The nativity scene even had real trees.

Next door to the Taoro Lyceum you'll find the Victoria Gardens. When Diego Ponte del Castillo, the son of one of the wealthiest families in Tenerife died in April 1880, because he was a Freemason, the bishop and the Catholic Church denied him a Christian burial. Given the negative response of the Church, his mother, Sebastiana Castillo Manrique de Lara, commissioned the construction of the mausoleum on one of the properties owned by the family in which to lay her son's body to rest. Made of marble imported from Lyon, the building was completed in 1883 under the direction of the celebrated French architect Adolph Coquet with the pathways, fountains and gardens surrounding it were laid out in a symbolic arrangement linked to Freemasonry. 

The carvings and notifs are also all related to Freemasonry. 

The Hijuela del Botanico Gardens are located in the former orchard of the town's old San Jose convent. They were created in 1788 and originally conceived as a nursery for the Santa Cruz Botanical Gardens but are now gardens in their own right.

I don't think you'll find any two people less interested in Xmas decorations than Jon & I and it wasn't until we got to La Orotava that we discovered that the town was known throughout The Canaries for its lavish Christmas decorations and their life-size belenes (cribs)!  

We got caught up in everyone's excitement and thoroughly enjoyed all the intricate details - especially the merchants selling carpets and trinkets! 

Our personal favourite was this chap...I'm sure we've met him at Glastonbury....

We made our way along the cobbled streets, lined with beautiful ochre, green and cream coloured buildings to The House of the Balconies, one of several historic Canarian houses open to the public.

Casa Fonseca was built in 1632 and belonged to wealthy merchants.

 

And, as it was only around the corner, we visited the Museo de Gofio del Hoyo, an 18th century mill where the Canarian superfood, gofio, used to be produced. (We visited a gofio mill in Fuerteventura HERE) 

Since 1913, La Orotava has been famous throughout the island for its Corpus Christi Carpets, an annual display of larger than life, biblical scenes made from natural materials like flowers, stone and sand, which takes place in July. The museum had an example of one - made from sand....pretty impressive, huh?   

The marvellously Baroque church, Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (Our Lady of Conception) was built in 1798.

El Drago - the amazing Dragon tree. 

By now we were ravenous but, with the 6th December being a public holiday, every bar we passed was rammed. We eventually found a tiny hole in the wall bodega in the shadow of the church. All the tables in the dining room were occupied but there was space in the bar and, next to sitting outside in the sunshine, my second favourite place to eat in The Canaries is perched on an old wine barrel, so I was more than happy. 

Papas Arugadas con mojo, a Canarian cheese platter drizzled with local honey and a basket of bread, straight out of the oven, along with pints of Dorada Especial - a birthday feast. Turns out we turned up at the right time...check out the queue when we left! 

According to The Lonely Planet: The north coast of Tenerife presents an entirely different complexion to the sun-baked, resort-encrusted south coast: geographically, culturally and climatically. A more cultured atmosphere reigns and a greater diversity is present in the landscape. The weather is a bit cooler and more unpredictable, with slightly more rain, though you'll get loads of sun too. Even individual towns enjoy their own microclimates – it can be raining in one town while the sun still shines on an adjacent village. This is so true, we'd spent our day in La Orotava in glorious sunshine and, just 4km down the mountain, Puerto de la Cruz had been battered by torrential rain!

There was no sign of any rain when we got back, spending the rest of the afternoon swimming and lounging beside the rooftop pool.

The evening was spent wandering the old town, drinking cocktails inside and outside any bars that took our fancy and eating pinsa, a Roman flatbread believed to be an ancient precursor to the pizza. It's said to be more digestible than its contemporary cousin, too.  

 

 

Cocktails in the Old Town are very reasonable, these daiquiris were €5. 

 

What a fabulous way to spend my 59th birthday despite Jesus trying to gatecrash my day..here's to the last year of my fifties being equally amazing!