Tenerife [antikvár]

Tenerife Life A Personal View The beach curves into Playa de las Americas It's all too easy to think of Tenerife simply as sun and sea and holiday fun. After all, it's Europe's most popular winter sun destination, and attracts many visitors in summer, too. A busy tourism promotion department works hard to encourage more and more people to come here. Year round, tourists outnumber island residents by more than six to one. So it is forgivable to think of Tenerife as nothing more or less than an affordable, satisfying break. The layer of tourism that clings to the island's rugged surface is no bad thing. Apart from giving the islanders an income, it is following a 100-year-old tradition, and provides millions of people with a lot of pleasure. Most visitors stay in the rainless, sun-baked southern parts of the island where locals have never lived, and usually remain there throughout their stay. The wetter, more fertile north, where Tenerife's towns and villages have developed over the centuries, attracts fewer visitors. So tourism, while never harmless, does surprisingly little damage to the island's social and physical fabric. But beneath all that commercialism there is something more enduring. Peel back the layer of tourism and you will discover that Tenerife is not just a holiday isle. It has a vibrant life and a vivid colonial history of its own, barely more than glimpsed by the sun-seeking crowds. Here is a Spain we don't see much on the mainland: a reminder of the conquistadores, an immediate sense of Spain's enterprise, power and wealth centuries ago. Like some of the other Canaries, the island of Tenerife feels very close in spirit and in character to the colonies in Latin America, where so many Tinerfeios - natives of Tenerife - went to live. Here, as well, is the Spain of today. Take a side turn, explore the villages, get into the hills, or the backstreets of Santa Cruz or La Laguna,