On our second day on Tenerife, we drove from our apartment in Santa Cruz de Tenerife to Puerto de la Cruz, on the north side of the island. The main points of interest there are the Jardin de Aclimatacion de la Orotava (botanical garden) and the Agatha Christie painted stairs.
We parked in the parking lot adjacent to the botanical garden (Adequate, convenient parking! A rare commodity on our trip.). After visiting the garden, we walked twenty minutes to the stairs. Our walk took us through a charming, upscale area of resort hotels, restaurants, shopping, and nice homes.
Here’s a sample of the many curious and beautiful plants from around the world.
Agatha Christie visited Tenerife in 1927, seeking respite after a difficult period following her mother’s death and her husband’s infidelity. She stayed in Puerto de la Cruz, where she found inspiration and wrote parts of The Mystery of the Blue Train and the short story The Man from the Sea. The town now hosts the International Agatha Christie Festival, and a street and painted stairs are named in her honor.
This scenic overlook is near the Agatha Christie painted stairs.
This neighborhood is next to the scenic overlook. Our impression of Puerto de la Cruz is that it would be a pleasant place to live, albeit a bit touristy. Some celebrities and wealthy people in Europe own homes on Tenerife, and we suspect many of them are here.
We ate lunch in one of the restaurants between the botanical garden and the Agatha Christie painted stairs. Since we were in Spain, we were eager to try the paella. Sadly, this batch looked delicious but tasted rather bland. We had better paella in Carvoeiro, Portugal. (The paella Jeff makes at home is better, too.) But we enjoyed the ambiance nevertheless.
After lunch, we drove up… up… up… and further up through winding mountain roads to the Mount Teide observatory. We passed from the sunny, tropical climate of the coast, through forests and clouds, to the high-altitude desert above the clouds that you see here.
The elevation at the observatory is 7,841′. The elevation of Mount Teide in the distance is 12,188′. It’s the highest point in Spain.
We hoped to tour the observatory. The internet said it was closed on Mondays, but we visited on a Sunday and found it closed. The observatory houses telescopes from different countries around the world because of its excellent astronomical viewing conditions. It is well-suited for viewing the universe at night, both due to the lack of light pollution and the moderate temperatures. We still enjoyed the views.