The remote and mountainous north west corner of Tenerife has received a major boost with news that work has started on what is likely to be the most expensive stretch of road anywhere in the Canary Islands. The new road, between Adeje in the south west and Santiago del Teide in the north west, is one of the few remaining sections required to complete the island’s equivalent of London’s M25 orbital motorway. The civil engineering challenges to be faced in the project are huge, with tunnels, viaducts, underpasses and overpasses all figuring in the construction work, which it is estimated will cost a staggering €168,000,000. Critics of the scheme, led by the environmental lobby, say it will cost much more than that. The building of another section of the road, between San ...

They seldom need much of an excuse for a fiesta in Tenerife. But in Puerto de la Cruz in the north of the island they’re planning two fiestas in one day on Thursday May 3. First up are celebrations to honour the founding of the town way back in 1651, involving elaborate and colourful processions through the streets. Before that Puerto was part of the neighbouring town of La Orotava and and indeed was known as Puerto de La Orotava. Puerto had grown in importance because the merchants and traders of prosperous La Orotava needed an outlet for their goods to be shipped off to the Spanish mainland. The Spanish settlers weren’t the first to appreciate the potential afforded by this sheltered little bay. There is evidence that the native Guanche people, who inhabited the island before the Hispanic ...

Grape varieties used in wine making in Tenerife are among the few survivors of a disaster that struck the European wine industry nearly 150 years ago. An aphid from America was accidentally imported into France in 1860, destroying vines that had been refined and nurtured over hundreds, if not thousands of years. Phylloxera spread across the continent, bringing the European wine industry to its knees in little more than ten years. Wine producers turned to different grape varieties, mostly phylloxera-resistant imported from America, and slowly the industry recovered. Tenerife and the other islands in the Canarian archipelago survived the ravages of phylloxera and the ancient grape varieties that European settlers brought with them to the island after the Spanish conquest at the end of the 15th century continue to flourish to this day. They make the wines produced on the island today unique. So much so that the island authorities are now ...

A survey of the punctuality of the departure of flights from UK airports has revealed that services to the holiday islands of Tenerife and Lanzarote are among the top performing. The two Canary Island destinations had on-time departures of over 65 per cent and average delays of less than half and hour. With our skies getting more and more overcrowded, however, the statistics revealed by the Civil Aviation Authority painted a less than rosy picture. Their survey, covering the last quarter of 2006, covered ten British airports, with only one, Edinburgh, reducing delays when compared with the same period in 2005. Gatwick recorded the biggest increase in average delays, climbing from 26 to 35 minutes. The heavy fog which caused widespread disruption to flights in the south of England between December 18-23 contributed to half of the fall in punctuality for scheduled services and all of reduction for charter flights. A ...

A tapas contest is one of the more unusual features of colourful celebrations to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Tenerife capital of Santa Cruz. A full range of events is planned for the week-long festival, starting on Sunday April 29 and continuing through to Sunday May 6. They take place across the city, but mainly in Plaza del Príncipe, Parque García Sanabria and Calle La Noria. The colourful series of events include an International Marionette Festival, several other puppet shows, an exhibition of flowers, a concert of Canarian music, and a flower crosses workshop and competition. The whole city will be decked out with traditional floral crosses and the highlight of the programme will be on the evening of May 2, a Great Canarian Fiesta with traditional Canarian dress a prominent feature. In 1999, the party, known as the Dance of Magicians, went ...