I had a four-day weekend that happened to overlap with my birthday, so I decided to get myself a present and I booked the four days out – I wanted to visit the Spanish island of Tenerife. I seemed to have a streak of luck finding a decent flight, a couple of good hotels and a free permission to visit the peak of Mount Teide, a non-extinct volcano that happens to be the highest peak in Spain. I also decided to rent a car for the first time so I could travel around the island and do different activities in different places.

The plane left on time at 8:15 on Saturday – and I have to say that I love my IKEA travel bag, because it has a huge capacity but the perfect size to place under the seat, therefore I do not need to queue up for boarding to make sure I can stow the carry on. We taxied at the correct time, but when we got to the runway, we stopped. It turned out that one of the sensors was giving a warning of a 400 ºC temperature on one of the wheels. It turned out to be a false alarm, but we ended up with an hour-long delay that ended up cascading.

I reached the airport and got my rental – Volkswagen Polo I had to learn how to reverse. Once I was done with that, it was surprisingly easy to get by. I drove off to San Cristobal de la Laguna and went off to visit the historic quarter, which is a Unesco World Heritage site as an example of colonial architecture – Centro Histórico de San Cristobal de la Laguna. Most of the buildings date back to the 15th century, and the design was then copied in different colonial cities in South America. The houses are painted in different colours and most of them sport amazing woodwork in their doors or balconies.

It gave me a pretty distinct “Disneyland” feeling as the pedestrian streets are plagued with cafés, brand shops and bars. It was packed with tourists like myself flocking in guided tours from the tourist office, which seemed to only open to gather groups in order to hold those tours. As the week before my trip had been work-crazy, I had not been able to plan in detail, so my plan was to hit the tourist office, gather information and move on. This did not work out, and on top of that, the cathedral Catedral de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios was already closing down when I arrived – due to the delay. Other interesting but closed buildings included the church Iglesia Matriz de la Concepción, and several palaces including Casa de los Capitanes and the reconstructed Palacio de Salazar.

I’m not going to say that I was disappointed, but I was really not digging the atmosphere, so I decided to move on. Instead of following the initial rough plan, I decided to head off to the tiny village of Bajamar to see the “sea pools”. Built in the petrified lava coast, the Piscinas de Bajamar are swimming pools fed by ocean water that keep swimmers safe from the rocks and the waves. I was lucky enough to find a very good and easy parking spot.

I wandered around the promenade Paseo Marítimo de Bajamar, saw the pools, the beach, and the mini lighthouse Faro de Bajamar.

I moved onto Santa Cruz de Tenerife afterwards, ditched the car and checked into the hotel, then went off to explore. I walked by the market complex La Recova, also called Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África.

The tower of the church Iglesia Matriz de la Concepción (yes, again, but another one). The church has been repeatedly rebuilt and renamed between the 15th and 18th centuries. The current building is Canarian Baroque / Tuscan style.

My first real destination was Plaza de España where the defensive castle Castillo de San Cristóbal used to stand. Now there is a fountain / pond and you can see the foundations of the castle.

Next, I found another important square, Plaza de la Candelaria, but it was unfortunately under construction.

So I moved on to the science and anthropology museum Museo de Ciencia y Antropología de Tenerife. It was rather underwhelming at first, as most of the “exhibit” were photographs. Eventually I reached the “good” stuff, with reconstructions of ancient and extinct animals such as the Canarian giant rat and the Goliath Giant lizard – we’ll come back to those eventually. There were butterfly collections, reproductions of marine animals, rocks and meteorites. In the archaeology ward there were mummies – that was a little unnerving to be honest, I thought we had learnt a little more respect about the ancient cultures.

Before the Europeans arrived in the Canary Islands in the 15th century, there was a previous civilization in Tenerife, called the guanche. The guanche settled in the island around the 6th century. While it is not clear where they came from it is thought that they came from the north of Africa, as their language was similar to those in the Berber language group. They lived off the cattle and the land, and their economy was clearly based on the goat, which they used for everything – food (meat and dairy), clothing, bone tools, and mummification material.

After the museum, I walked along the harbour and saw the modern concert hall Auditorio de Tenerife, designed by the famous architect Santiago Calatrava, whose style is easily recognised – even though in recent year he has drawn criticism for going way beyond budget and his building having problems due to “over innovation”.

A few steps further stands the tiny fortress Castillo de San Juan Bautista, built between 1641 and 1643, and rebuilt the following century. I would have loved to see the botanical garden, but it closed early – as most things seemed to do.

I took a small detour to see the former arsenal Casa de la Pólvora, built in masonry in the 18th century. Eventually, I went to the supermarket to buy some dinner and snacks for the upcoming adventures, and called it a day after 14 hours on the go.