For Christmas and New Year's Eve I went to Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The weather was like Vancouver summers - warm in the day, and brisk in the evening.
Santa Cruz is a good base to travel around the island. One day I went to Las Americas on the southern end of the island and it was a totally different scene. It was tourist central. Santa Cruz is a port city, and the main tourists they see are those stopped in for the day on a cruise ship. That said, I was pretty surprised at the lack of English language in Santa Cruz. I ended up speaking some crazy mix of English, Italian, and the little bits of Spanish I could remember from high school.
One of the coolest things that I happened upon, because no one seems to write about it, are all of these painted rocks behind the auditorium. I wish I had more information to give you, but I can't seem to find any! Anyway, if you go to Santa Cruz, check these out.
The island has a lot of great museums, but I was fooled by everyone's reviews about the museum of Science and Space in La Laguna. We took a day trip there, and as soon as we walked in I realized I had just paid to enter a poor man's version of Science World!! I guess that's all part of the learning experience...
I was also somewhat fooled by the reviews everyone had of shopping in Santa Cruz. People raved about The Meridiano, and seeing as I'm a buying student, I thought that I should do some homework and go shopping! It was pretty dismal. But that's the review by someone who lives in Milano. ;)
Overall, it was a great week. They really know how to do Christmas (they have their own song!) and New Year's Eve there! We went to a huge outdoor symphony and fireworks on Christmas, and another outdoor concert and fireworks for New Year's Eve.
The week inspired my New Year's resolution, which is to travel to the seaside at least once every 6 weeks just to breathe the ocean air. Those of you who have spent the majority of your lives by the ocean will understand!
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