Tenerife

A hotel/resort holiday is not our usual get away  Our holidays are mostly self driven round France or Germany or cruising with Marella although we have stayed at Sea Star hotel in Icmeler a few times.

Having visited the Canary Islands as day stops on our cruises so decided to have a week in Tenerife to explore the island more .... it didn't quite go as expected but we have some super memories. 

It was lovely to see Mount Teide high above the clouds, it's Tenerife's largest volcano and is responsible for much of the pumice and black soil found all over the island.

Our flight also flew over our holiday destination. This part of Tenerife has developed mainly through tourism. There's a 10 mile promenade starting in Costa Adeje - further left of my photo - along Playa de las Americas and on to Los Cristianos - a working port on the far right of my photo.

Our hotel was not in the hub of the hotels, bars and restaurants but slightly inland next to the large golf course. It was a 20/30 minute walk to the sea front taking various routes. Our hotel is where the red dot is, the blue dot is a building that featured in our time in Tenerife but more of that later.

We had no knowledge of where to stay and booked the holiday fairly close to actually going away. We chose Villa Mandi simply on value for money and reviews, we did book as a package through Tui.

It was a lovely hotel resort, built to look Moroccan or Turkish in style it's apartments were more like small village houses with many walkways and stairs.

Our apartment was on the ground floor and faced the pool with plenty of palm trees. We could see a little bit of the golf course. 

Inside was superb; a small kitchen with fridge, hob and microwave, a lounge with tv, large bathroom with twin hand basins and separate bedroom with plenty of storage space and a very large bed.

We are not sunbathers so did not sit by the pool and sadly our terrace was always in shade from having the apartment above ... this turned out to be a bonus as it also meant we were sheltered from the rain. 

The pool was always busy with people there quite early in the morning but never overly loud, I think it would be in the high season. When quiet the view from our patio was lovely, especially at night.

The first few days were filled with blue skies and a lovely light breeze. We strolled along looking at bars and restaurant menus as this holiday we booked room only (another first). The second day was St Patrick's Day and everywhere had green themed decorations up with the numerous Irish bars preparing for a very busy day.

The coast was lovely, great views in both directions. A storm was forecast, this has been the worst winter for the Canary Islands with rain and high winds most weeks which is unusual, people holiday here for some winter sun. By the third day the wind was quite strong and the dark clouds moved in.

The main mile in Playa de las Americas is known for its high end shops, plenty of restaurants and the famous Hard Rock Cafe. It was all a bit blingy for us with everything obviously built for tourists, although impressive we missed seeing old buildings.

The promenade goes through a tunnel as it enters Los Cristianos which has been decorated with some amazing artwork. The detail is incredible and certainly makes a feature of what otherwise would be plain concrete. The turtles were my favourite, so beautiful.

Our island stops whilst on our Canary Island cruises has sparked an interest in succulent and cactus plants. We now have quite a few at home but nothing the size of those in Tenerife, some are many years old, they grow so well on the dry volcanic soil.

Of course our holidays wouldn't be our holidays without discovering and enjoying food & wine. We had some lovely meals out, a full English breakfast one morning, as well as cooking in our apartment. 

The Cava from the local Mercadona supermarket was superb, I'm not a Cava fan but this was lovely, maybe because is was semi secco so not very dry.

We found bottled wine to be surprisingly expensive, maybe because we were in a touristy area and not really Canarian wine so we took a chance on boxed wine... it was ok but nothing special.

We did however try and really really like the Tenerife Barraquito, a layered cocktail of condensed milk, Liqueur 43, black coffee and frothy milk.

And of course on St Patrick's Day we did go to the Irish bars where a pint of Guinness was a must, as was wearing a Guinness hat hee hee

Unfortunately day four of our holiday things changed.... the weather was very wet and very windy. We stayed at the apartment in the day but did go out later for a meal in a Tapas rest we had prebooked. Plans changed as the restaurant was closed with a handwritten note on the door, we're not sure but the rain was causing flooding and it was a cellar restaurant.

We had a lovely meal at a restaurant on the promenade all be it under the tentage with the rain pouring down. Taking a taxi back to the hotel everywhere was wet and unfortunately I tripped up rushing into the hotel. 

After a few hours in the hospital (the blue dot on the photo) we returned to the hotel early hours of Friday, me with a broken right wrist (plastered), a right black eye, a bruised left hand, two bruised knees and broken glasses. 

A return visit to the hospital for a fit to fly document followed the next day. It was not how we thought our holiday would be but with Hubby's help we still enjoyed our last few days .... cake and wine sort out most of life's hiccups. 

All in all not the hols we expected, I am now under the care of our local hospital and hopefully the cast will come off soon and all will be well for our upcoming cruise.

Tenerife was not what we expected, the area we stayed in was very touristy, mayhem we should have stayed in the north of the island. It has made us realise that we enjoy our cruises where we can explore a new place every days out and our European road trips more than hotel resorts but it's always good to explore the world and we did discover Barraquitos!