The first of the Canary Islands we approached will come as no surprise to you because the likelihood of you landing on this paragraph of text without knowing the title of this page is so ridiculously small I’m just not going to entertain the possibility. We opened the curtains to our cabin to see we were on the final approach to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the island of Tenerife. Directly across from us on the sail into the port we could see a couple of AIDA cruise ships seemingly at anchor just off the coast and assumed that we might be joining them with potentially tender boat operations to follow but it was to the main cruise terminal we headed instead.

We will often take excursions when we travel, and especially on the first visit to any destination, because we like to get to know a place before wondering if there are things we’d prefer to see on our own, and thus it was at Tenerife too. In fact, we’d seen an excursion we really liked the look of because it would include two of our favourite things: an observatory and a volcano. We’d previously visited an observatory in Chile – the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Coquimbo – and we love spotting volcanoes when we travel. The trip to the Teide Observatory would be right up our street…

… only the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge was erupting on the island of La Palma during our visit and scientists wanted to monitor it using the solar telescopes we had been due to visit. Shakes fists at scientists.

The result of all this was that our excursion was changed. No more observatory, and instead a more general visit to Teide National Park. Oh well.

After a reasonable drive up winding roads climbing up hills, and with a running commentary on the island’s geology and history we stopped at an observation point that not only afforded some views across to the volcano that gives this national park its name, but also the observatory that we should have been visiting – thanks for that – and exposed geological formations showing how layers of different minerals were laid down over time and then pushed up by tectonic shifts and volcanic eruptions on the island.

Ah, what could have been.

Our viewpoint was to the east of Teide. In addition to being a volcano, Teide is both the highest point in Spain and the highest point of any island in the Atlantic. If you look at the photo below then you should be able to make out cable car pylons along the left edge so it is possible to ride to close to the summit, and if you’re keen on walking then a limited number of permits to walk to the top of Teide – at 3715 metres above sea level – are issued each day. Cruise excursions did include the option of taking the cable car up the volcano but you would have needed to have booked those fairly early as they’re popular, and if you’ve had the misfortune to have your actual excursion cancelled at the last minute and swapped for something else like a certain person writing this sentence you might be loosely acquainted with, then you’re shit out of luck. We weren’t that bitter though, as we’ve ridden a chairlift up a volcano before, don’t you know? Yeah, we’re a bit fancy.

The next stop on our drive through Teide National Park was at Portillo Alto. This small hamlet mostly consisted of a restaurant, some government-run lodgings, a small shop, and some parking spots. The primary reason for stopping, though, was because it had public toilets. We do understand that as people get older they can’t go quite as long without needing a pee, but it still puzzles us when we see some make a rush for the toilets during an excursion stop, then immediately grab themselves a coffee afterwards. Do you people have no comprehension of biology and chemistry at all? As for us, we simply stretched our legs and admired a little of the Tenerife landscape until our group started to climb back aboard the bus.

Continuing with the theme of Not Quite What Was Intended that formed this cruise excursion on Tenerife, our next stop was supposed to be to La Ruleta Vista Point. In fact, we did drive there, but the area consists of a road with a roundabout at the end of it for turning, and with parking all along the road for buses, cars being expected to go elsewhere. Well, they may have been expected to go elsewhere but they didn’t, which meant the road was a chaotic mess of cars blocking the buses, buses queueing and struggling to turn around, and us being sat on the bus for over ten minutes before the guide decided we’d try what should have been the last stop first then come back to this spot.

Off we set for Zapato de La Reina, also known as The Queen’s Shoe. You can immediately see why from the photos below as the erosion of this particular rock formation has left a natural arch resembling a high-heeled piece of footwear. If you’ve ever fantasised about being a tiny human trapped on a planet full of giant women – and statistically-speaking, around fifty percent of the sorts of people who read this will have – then this is the place to visit.

Ten minutes of admiring the landscape – and it is surprising just how attractive mostly dry and rocky, undulating hills dotted with tough-looking bushes and grasses is – followed by another ten minutes of our bus trying to reverse out of the car park because some car had thoughtlessly parked where it fancied instead of where it should have been – again; I’m sensing a theme here – which then caused tailbacks along the road by the viewpoint.

Seriously, people, tourists hiring cars, whatever: just, please, have just the slightest bit of consideration for others when you’re travelling, and especially if you’re travelling to somewhere popular. If it’s a spot you’re not supposed to park in then here’s a crazy idea: don’t park in that spot. There’s probably a reason for it even if you’re too lacking in imagination to think what that might be. I know nobody who’s actually the sort of complete arsehole who thinks rules apply to other people and God forbid that you should have to walk a little further or maybe wait a little longer for something! will ever read this, and I know I’m just shouting into the void here, but there’s a therapy in that action. I’m trying to reduce the blood pressure that’s been raised just recalling how infuriating it was on this trip to lose a solid 20-30 minutes of our paid excursion because of other people’s selfishness. Some people don’t have websites like this and they can’t vent in the same way I am. Those people might die. Every time you park like a prick you might kill someone. Murderer.

Anyhoo…

Back to La Ruleta Vista Point we went, and after what looked like another fruitless attempt to find a space, but seemingly with the approval of a person wearing a police uniform or other uniform indicating officialdom in some capacity at the location, our bus driver said “Fuck it! Everyone off, and I’ll wait here in the middle of the road!” He said that silently, in his head, and in Spanish, which I don’t speak, but sometimes you just know from the slump of a pair of shoulders and the smallest shake of a head.

La Ruleta is situated almost directly due south of Mount Teide on Tenerife and so it provides good views of the volcano if that’s what you’re looking for. But the real reason that this area of the relatively flat basin beneath Teide is so popular with tourists is not so much the mountain, but rather the rock formations. These are the Roques de García.

Rocks in distinctive shapes acquire names over time, and the rocks in this part of the national park were no exception. People with cameras and with tinnitus who are easily distracted tend to not pay a lot of attention to what’s being said by guides about those rocks and names, and this was also an occasion where no exception was to be found. I have a vague recollection of having one of the rocks pointed out and a name attached to it along with a description like “And these are the two mythical lovers who are holding one another and gazing into each other’s eyes” and thinking “Ha! Yeah, no, it’s just a pointy stone but I can see that intense dehydration out here might affect a person.”

In the photos below you can see some of the flat landscape between Teide (which would be to the right of these pictures) and Pico Viejo, another high peak and part of the chain of mountains visible. This is the Las Cañadas caldera and the different colouration of the ground you can see illustrates the split in the caldera caused by tectonic and volcanic activity of the two mountains either side of it. It’s this which also led to the formation of the rocks.

In a shocking example of me having a bit of a search online I have found the names of two of the rock formations in Roques de García that I managed to take photos of during our Teide National Park tour. In the foreground below you can see El Torrotito which Google helpfully translates as “el torrotito” so many thanks for that, giant technological behemoth. The rock behind it with the narrow base supporting the bulk above is called Roque Cinchado or “Stone Tree” and it’s considered a symbol of Tenerife, having previously appeared on banknotes.

We’ve never been to the Vasquez rocks in southern California, but based on its many appearances in TV, and most notably Star Trek as far as I’m concerned, the rock formations at La Ruleta felt a lot like a European version of them. I could easily see a Spanish Captain Kirk fighting a Spanish Gorn amongst the arid, appealing, attractive landscape. Perhaps over the Gorn’s terrible car parking that had forced the Enterprise to circle around for a while looking for a spot to stop.

Our Teide National Park excursion on Tenerife came to an end and we headed back across the island towards the port and our waiting cruise ship, with just one more stop at Portillo Alto for those whose coffees they’d had last time at the hamlet had now worked their way through their systems and who were in desperate need to relieve themselves.

So, what did we think about this excursion? We got to see impressive landscapes and a volcano from a distance. And we like those things. We also got to see some lovely rock formations in a caldera. And it turned out that we like that too. The biggest disappointment would be that we didn’t visit the observatory, of course, but that’s not in the hands of the tour organisers or the cruise line so I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. There was a fair bit of driving but we knew this anyway. It’s the small price you have to pay to get to see some interesting things sometimes, and the commentary on the bus took us through a range of topics relating to the island including its economy, some weird Scottish immigrants connection, and numerous other things, so it was educational and enjoyable. Issues with “other people” and their parking is again not the fault of the tour guide or driver, but it felt like it was something that was to some extent predictable given just how horrible and selfish people generally are so it would’ve been nice for a quicker alternative plan to have been enacted in order to give us extra time at the photo stops. But then again, all the plans in the world can’t account for people being dicks.

In the next part of this Ventura travelogue series we’ll be back aboard the ship for the late afternoon and early evening ahead of our sail away to the second of the Canary Islands on this cruise.

We headed up onto the top deck to grab some lunch from the buffet and some obligatory shots of Santa Cruz from Ventura. I did think that the buildings of the port city against the backdrop of the mountainous landscape of Tenerife through patchy clouds of sun and shadow looked very attractive.

We decided to take a wander around the top deck. Views out to sea and the AIDA ships at anchor, as well as a higher viewpoint down to the steamship docked nearby greeted us

In the last of the pictures in the set of photos below there are two interesting pieces of architecture on display: a dark brick building and a curved white structure behind it. The building is the Palacio Insular council headquarters, constructed in 1940 and designed by the architect José Enrique Marrero with a fair dose of Art Deco there as influence. The clock on its tower was commissioned in 1950. The curved white structure beyond that is part of the gorgeous Auditorio de Tenerife, a venue for the arts designed by Santiago Calatrava and inaugurated in 2003. These two structures would be very prominent on the Tenerife coastline when Ventura eventually sailed out later in the day.

We caught some trivia – we didn’t win – then spent some time back in our room, on the balcony with a drink and our books, awaiting Ventura’s departure. Occasional ferries and catamarans popped in and out of the port as the clouds billowed over and the sun began to set. There was a delay in us leaving Tenerife but it either wasn’t announced or we missed the announcement because we were on the balcony. We might have had time to explore ashore after all. There’s always a next time.

Eventually, though, in full darkness, our cruise ship finally pulled away from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, shadowed by the pilot boat and granting us some pretty views back to the council building and the auditorium reminding us of Razer, one of the robots from Robot Wars. The low clouds over the hills and mountains behind the city reflected its orange-hued lights, lending the dusk landscape an ominous, suffocating blanket.

Once Ventura had cleared the port area the combination of night and a bit of a sea breeze made it too chilly to remain outside. Besides, there was eating and drinking to be done.

First up was a visit to the Tamarind Club for a couple of cocktails while listening to Nikki Jayne singing. She was fabulous, and since this cruise she’s gone onto hosting the Limelight Club on Iona, so a step up for her. Edit: and since then she’s become a cruise director with Princess Cruises!

We’d eaten more in the buffet than we’d planned to when we got back aboard Ventura so decided we’d try something a little smaller than a main dining room meal for dinner, opting to eat in the Glass House instead. A lighter meal was the plan, but somehow we probably ended up eating more than if we’d just stuck to the complimentary food option instead. It was all very good, though.

We treated ourselves to a nightcap before heading back to our room reasonably early as we’d have a fairly early start the following morning on an excursion on the second of the Canary Islands we’d be visiting, Lanzarote.

We awoke in the morning already docked and stepped out onto the balcony to a wonderfully clear sky and a heat that was building already.

After breakfast and the gathering of camera equipment, water, and sun cream for the day, we headed off the ship and immediately started moving roughly south from where Caribbean Princess was docked. Of course, you can’t get far from a cruise ship in a port before running into the ship photographers but that’s where having my own camera comes in handy as I always try to take pictures of them instead of having them take pictures of us. We don’t like having our photos taken and we’re never going to buy any so we’re saving everyone time and effort there, plus I’d like to think that it gives the photographers a bit of a break. Or a taste of their own medicine. You choose.

The visit of Caribbean Princess to Santa Cruz de Tenerife coincided with an 8K, a 21K, and a marathon taking place which meant a lot of barriers up and a lot of crazy people in running gear. The barriers and activities didn’t affect those of us on foot and it was nice to see so many people out and about even if it’s not something that I or my wife would ever do. It’s not because we wouldn’t want to but that both of us have histories of injuries. But it’s also because we wouldn’t want to.

As this cruise was taking place fairly late in the year it wasn’t a complete surprise to see a Christmas Tree up, although that name is a bit misleading. A Christmas Cone would be more accurate. Clearly, it’s better for the trees if they’re not chopped down, transported to an environment they really won’t thrive in, decorated, then left to die, but it’s still not right to call a cone a tree. Somebody has to say it.

Anyone who knows me – and very few people know me – will know that I do like architecture and history even if I’m not remotely close to being an expert in either subject. Whenever you’re travelling you’re bound to encounter things that incorporate one or both of those elements, though, and sometimes they can surprise you. Take the Monument to the Fallen below (the cross-shaped structure). The name and design might simply suggest that it’s to honour the dead, and that’s true to a point, but it’s a problematic piece because the dead it’s honouring are the fascists who died in support of Franco in the Spanish Civil War and its construction made use of forced labour by political prisoners.

The Insular Palace is the home of Tenerife’s governing body. The building was completed in 1940 and is Monumentalist, typical of the works preferred by fascists. Big and imposing for no good reason? That’s what the fascists love. Looking to build a giant ballroom when you clearly can’t dance? You’re probably a fascist. Thinking that a giant arch in your country is needed that’s bigger than everyone else’s arch even though it serves no purpose and you just want your name on it? You’re probably a fascist. You’re definitely pathetic. Oh, I appear to have veered off into topics of current political events for some reason. Anyway, the palace is notable for its clock tower and, apparently, the stocking it puts over its head when it’s about to head off somewhere and rob a bank.

If I know you half as well as I think I do then I know that whenever you see a church you ask yourself “How many naves does that thing have then?” The sixteenth century Church of the Immaculate Conception has five naves, you’ll be pleased to learn. The tower was an eighteenth century addition.

The first thing we properly wanted to see up close was the massive monument to Razer from Robot Wars. Wait, I’ve just checked, and it turns out that this is in fact the Auditorio de Tenerife. Regardless, it’s a lovely-looking piece of architecture that’s hard to miss along the waterfront area of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The auditorium was completed in 2003 and inaugurated that same year in the presence of Prince Felipe, who at this time is now King of Spain. At night the building is lit up in white (although other colours can be used for special occasions) and we’d seen it illuminated in the darkness as we departed Tenerife on our first visit to the island.

The auditorium offers guided tours, although we didn’t know that at the time, so it’s something we might do on our next visit.

Right next to the auditorium was the Castle of John the Baptist. Castle is pushing it a bit. It’s really a fort. While the defensive structure was originally built in the seventeenth century what we saw now was the mid-eighteenth century rebuild with squat, circular tower.

Historically, there’s a connection between this castle and ourselves, though, and that’s the Portsmouth connection with Lord Nelson. The castle was one of the defensive locations that helped the Spanish inflict a crushing defeat on an overconfident Nelson and his fleet in 1797 and it was the battle in which Nelson lost his arm. Some of the combat details of the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife are interesting enough but it’s the aftermath that’s most fascinating to me, where the defending commander, Lieutenant General Antonio Gutiérrez (who had previously defeated the British in battle twice and had out-thought Nelson in this fight too), agreed honourable terms for a truce so the British could return to their ships with the promise not to attack again, and even loaned two schooners to the British to assist in their return to England. Nelson subsequently sent Gutiérrez beer and cheese along with a letter of thanks, and Gutierrez replied with Spanish cheese and wine. Can you imagine that sort of thing happening these days?

We continued to head roughly southwards as we now had an actual place in mind to visit.

The attractive water park area and wind sculpture we passed by were designed by the architect César Manrique.

However, it wasn’t the water park we were interested in seeing, but rather a botanical garden stretching across that hill just behind it in the photograph above. In the next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series we’ll pay a visit to the Palmetum at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

We’re not hugely into plants, or at least not to that extent that we make a point to identify them or notice particular species for any particular reason, but we do like visiting botanical gardens when we’re travelling. If nothing else then they usually provide the opportunity for nice photos of flowers or trees but in the Palmetum’s case there’s also the views from the location to add to the mix. Ultimately, this is a place we could recommend visiting if you’re in Tenerife for a number of reasons: fresh air, exercise, views out over the sea and back to the island, and more palms than you can shake a stick at.

Palmetum’s history can be briefly summarised as a landfill site until 1983, then early formation of the gardens from 1995 until 2000 when funding ran out, general maintenance thereafter, then additional work in phases from 2007 onwards with the first guided tours starting in 2013, and finally general admission for visitors appearing sometime after its official inauguration a year later. The botanical gardens host plants organised in broad geographical groupings with many of the species on endangered lists or categorised as extinct in the wild.

We entered, paid, used the toilets, and set off into the Palmetum. Initially, this required us following a climbing, twisting path on the landward side of the hill.

From this point we could see the Refinería de Santa Cruz de Tenerife which, even if you don’t like the look of industrial buildings and machinery and how they contrast with their environments (and I do, for my sins), is interesting simply in that it dates to 1930 and it was the very first refinery to be built in Spain. It actually closed down in 2015 and is due to be dismantled at some point with the land then to be split between public and commercial uses so this little bit of industrial history may not be around for much longer.

Signs had indicated a variety of birdlife that could be spotted but we saw very little of any animal life other than a few butterflies, some lizards, and some ducks and dragonflies drawn to the ponds around the top of the hill.

Some of the plants in the botanical gardens were more susceptible to the environment than others and were protected under a recessed, shaded area in the centre of the green space known as The Octagon.

Another lovely view from the Palmetum was back along the Santa Cruz de Tenerife shoreline towards the port with the impressive architecture of the auditorium in the middle ground. We could also spot the aft of Caribbean Princess from this vantage point showing just how far we’d walked.

In the next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series we conclude our time ashore on Tenerife with a visit to the Carnival Museum and a stop for some craft beers. No surprise there.

We had a bit of a trek with some backtracking on occasion to get to the museum to start with and that is due to the two-dimensional nature of maps on phones and the three-dimensional nature of some of the roads in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. What looked like a sensible route on the phone ended up taking us over a bridge overlooking the museum before we realised we needed to find a way to descend, walk past, then double-back to the building’s location. Still, it was a fairly nice walk on a hot (but not too hot) day, we weren’t in a mad rush, and I always enjoy chances to snap photos of streets and architecture as we stroll around new places.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is twinned with Rio de Janeiro and part of the reason for that is that both locations hold what are considered to be the two largest and most important carnivals in the world. I won’t pretend that either of us have great interest in carnivals – although I very much enjoyed visiting Notting Hill one year for all the people-watching and photographing it enabled – but we do like museums, especially ones with quirky or unique themes, so the Casa del Carnaval was always going to be something we’d try to look at.

Casa del Carnaval was inaugurated in 2017 and broadly features two main areas, one with a permanent exhibition including costumes and historical items such as posters for the themes of each year’s carnival. Upon arrival we had a short chat with the people at the entrance who were interested in knowing where we were from and who seemed quite surprised when we mentioned that we’d arrived on the cruise ship. That might suggest it’s not a popular attraction for cruisers (I think there were two other people there while we were exploring and they didn’t look like they’d got off the ship) and that might be explained by the many excursions that tend to take ship visitors off elsewhere on the island along with the museum’s location, far enough back from the waterfront and tucked away to require a dedicated visit as opposed to stumbling upon it by chance. We enjoyed the look around, though, and if it’s not something you’ve done before and you’re after something a little different then it’s well worth the walk to see.

Colourful museum visit complete, we now knew that the craft ale place we’d identified would be open so headed that way. This took us towards the coastline and port, and as we approached the Puente Serador bridge we spotted some very nice, large, and colourful (again) street art decorating the arches. Always love to see street art.

A short walk from there brought us to The Craft Room. It wasn’t a large place, only had a few beers on tap, but had a great range of bottled ales and seating that opened up onto a shaded, peaceful, public square. We stayed for several beers, chatted with some of the locals about the state of craft ales on the islands, and bought some glasses to take home. In fact, the only downside to the place was that it closed during that early afternoon siesta period, and as this was a Sunday, it didn’t open again afterwards, so there was only a short window in which to enjoy the beers before we had to leave.

On the way back to the waterfront area of Santa Cruz de Tenerife we passed a large bronze sculpture of a mask, reminiscent of the comedy and tragedy masks of theatre and appropriately so as it was situated outside Teatro Guimerá. The sculpture is called Per Adriano and was created in 1993 by Igor Mitoraj.

The next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series will conclude our time on the island with a walk back to the ship and sail way from Tenerife to begin the eight-day Atlantic crossing part of this trip.

The Plaza de España was a lovely little spot and full of interest. I’ve already mentioned some of the architecture around the area when we first walked along this part of Santa Cruz’s waterfront earlier in the day. The public square hosts a shallow lake that was sadly dry when we were there and the design of the lake was undertaken by the architects Herzog & de Meuron which tied in nicely with our very first cruise and the pre-cruise tour when we spent time in Beijing and got to visit another of their works, the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium.

The plaza was originally the site of the Castle of San Cristóbel, the ruins of which were discovered during work to install the lake. We’d not realised it at the time, but you can view some of the remains in tunnels under the square, and it’s something we’d probably try to do when we next return.

We continued towards the port and passed a sculpture that caught my eye. Most sculptures catch my eye. This one was Arborea by Fernando García Ramos, and while it was clearly inspired by trees – the name was a big clue – I couldn’t help but notice that it also resembled the Sea Witch logo used by Princess Cruises.

Time for a little bit of ship-spotting now that we’d reached the port.

Firstly, here’s the aft view of our home for this sixteen-day cruise, Caribbean Princess, the only remaining Grand-class ship in the Princess Cruises fleet with that “shopping trolley handle” mounting configuration for Skywalkers nightclub. It may not be the prettiest aft view of a cruise ship but being able to ride the travelator to it is an experience that’s just not equalled on other ships.

Fred Olsen‘s Bolette was in port. At the time of writing this travelogue account we’ve only spent a single night in port on a Fred Olsen ship but we do have plans to cruise aboard Borealis in July 2026.

MSC Cruises Opera was the only other cruise ship docked in port but there were two ferries present, including one – Marie Curie – from Fred Olsen Express, the ferry service run by the operator in the Canary Islands. The other ferry was the Volcán de Tagoro, a fast catamaran ferry operated by Naviera Armas and named after an underwater volcano.

And that was that. We were now back aboard Caribbean Princess and we wouldn’t be getting off for another eight days. We ordered drinks to our balcony and sat out to enjoy the sailaway, watching the volcanic island slide past and give way to unbroken views of the ocean and sky.

We ate, we listened to music, we drank cocktails. All the things you do on cruise ships when you’re not in port. And because this was Caribbean Princess we rode the travelator to Skywalkers late in the evening to dance.

The next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series will cover the actual Atlantic crossing by our ship, starting with some photos of Caribbean Princess.