Sharon you live in paradise. :)

What a fun day. Those streets are very steep. Was there a lot of traffic? I think I would be nervous traveling on some of these steep narrow roads. Thanks for sharing the pictures, I always love "participating" in your outings!

The picture titled Mes a del Mar & El Pris shows a tall building on the edge of a cliff. Is that a resort?

Sharon, again, thanks for the peek into the truly beautiful place you live.

Didn't your friend Ann move to another area farther away from you? For some reason I thought she moved? Anyway, I'm glad you two can get together and visit the wonderful places you take pictures of. Thanks for sharing!

I also thought I remembered that Anne had moved. I'm glad you got to spend some time together.

That steep hillside picture is the place where I wouldn't like to drive, I think. The steak looks perfectly done and the sea is beautiful. Thanks for the pictures, it's like getting a postcard from somewhere wonderful.

Annie

Doris...
The tall buildings at Mesa del Mar and El Pris are touristic hotels or holiday apartments. There are also some private homes on the terraced hills there.

As a matter of fact Wolfram owned a house there years ago before I knew him which he eventually sold for our present home which is on the edge of town. I visited it one year as the current owners are friends of ours. The view over the Atlantic was sensational, and facing right into the setting sun.

There wasn't much traffic at all that day as I guess families were congregated at home or already together for lunch as it was a holiday. Those steep and narrow roads are nothing compared to the ones higher up ! Then it becomes quite frightening to drive, and yet the locals seem to manage with no problems and the garbage trucks and buses even get around there. I should go on a bus trip to the top one day with my camera. There are places where I've closed my eyes rather than look out the window LOL.

My friend Anne is widowed and has another little apartment and car in England near her daughter's home. She does what many part time resident do - live part of the year here and the rest of the time up in Europe. They're called 'swallows' as they follow the sun LOL.

Anne plays tennis several times a week and keeps herself busy and in shape by swimming in her apartment pool and joining aerobic and keep fit classes. (Hmmm I don't do either of those but I know I should.) I know several women alone here who keep themselves busy with tennis, line dancing or outings. Some are working and others are retired. With the mild weather here, people tend to meet and go out with friends for their entertainment rather than stay home and invite friends in.

SharonCb

A little slice of heaven! Thanks for sharing.

Catherine

I must agree with everyone~you do have a bit of heaven there. If you wouldn't mind me asking -Is the weather nice year round and how is the cost of living? Is the population diverse in regards to nationalities? It looks like a wonderful place to visit!

Pauline...
Yes the weather is mild here year round which is why this is called the "Island of eternal Spring". The winter is naturally cooler than the summer and although our nearest neighbour is the Sahara Desert, the islands are cooled by the trade winds.
Average air temperature in winter is 59F and in summer 75F. Here there is the lowest temperature difference in the world between summer and winter.

Here are a couple of websites dealing with the climate. Some of the info on these websites is out of date. Also don't believe when it says there is no need for central heating in winter LOL. The outdoor temperature in winter can go down to 55F at night so we have our central heating turned on, while some tourists in apartments with no heating have to turn on their kitchen ovens to warm up. And it can go up to 95F in summer some days.

Site One

Site Two

There are markedly different climates in the north and south of the island due to the effect of the volcano Teide in the centre which causes clouds to form in the north, making it cooler and greener. This is where we live. It's a popular area for tourists who don't want to spend all their time on the beach, although there are beaches here as well.

The south is much hotter and as it has many beaches, it is a popular and built up touristic area with a great number of hotels and holiday apartments, world class golf courses and the largest of the two airports on the island.

Cost of living is moderate. They say it is much cheaper to live here than in England but I don't have anything to compare it to, other than seeing the prices when we're on holiday in Canada. It certainly is not expensive to go out to eat regularly as there are an endless array of inexpensive mom & pop restaurants where fresh vegetables and homecooked soups and stews are always available. The least expensive places are down in the centre of our town where there is more competition between restaurants. An average cost for a dinner for two in a modest place such as we frequent would be anywhere from $10 to $13 US dollars per person including a glass of wine and a coffee.

A larger meal, such as I had with out Anne which included soup, best steak, flan and 1/4 liter wine each as well as coffee came to $24 US dollars each. A meal in a gourmet restaurant with best wine can cost around $60 US dollars each and up. Anne was telling me about the special Christmas meal she had out with friends at one of the up market restaurants here where they had several elegant dishes including partridge. It costed 50 Euros per person or about $60 US dollars each.

On the other hand there is maximum luxury in hotels which often house visiting kings and queens of Europe. This one is very near our house. If you let the intro play to the end you'll see a link 'gastronomy' which will show the four restaurants of that hotel. Michael Jackson stayed here one year and we couldn't sleep due to the girls outside chanting and calling to him all night long LOL.

Nationalities living here are the local Canary people and mainland Spanish. Foreign residents are mainly English and German and there are enough of them that there are several local small newspapers printed in both languages. But there are people living here from all European Community countries as well as South America. There aren't many Americans and Canadians permanently residing here, probably because it's more difficult for them to get a work permit if they so desire as they aren't part of the EU.

I guess that more or less covers everything. But I'm happy to answer any questions.

SharonCb

Here is a link that might be useful: One of my Tenerife Photo Albums

Thank you, Sharon.

You really should get into touristry-between your photos and the lovely way you describe your home~you have put Puerto De La Cruz on my short list of places to visit. Eternal Spring-eh?

Okay, that chart is simply wrong!! I collect atlases, and the latest one I have shows that there are many equatorial places with essentially no change at all between summer and winter, and Costa Rica has probably the nicest temperature ranges. Even here where I live in Venice, the mean temperature in winter is 57 and the mean temperature in summer is 66°, which is less of a difference than Tenerife. You can't believe everything you read on a website, but then I think a little variation is nice and prevents boredom.

Love your pictures - they do remind me very much of Southern California and Mexico, but I still want to visit the Canary Islands and take some interior hikes. I saw a TV show recently on PBS that showed some really unusual hiking spots, some of which reminded me of Death Valley.

Lars

Those pictures are gorgeous. I miss warm weather.

AM

Lars it seems there is no one chart which describes the temperatures accurately here as there is such a difference from one end of the island to another. The south is much warmer and Santa Cruz - the capital city about a half hour drive from here on the east coast - has another temperature range again.

Here's the official temps for Santa Cruz from the Spanish Office of the Environment:
Coldest month Dec....mean temperature is 66.2 F. (19C)
Warmest month Aug.....mean temp is 77F. (25C)
Yearly mean temp is 70.16 F. (21.2C) That's taken from a study 1971 to 2000.

Another range of temperatures comes from the north airport - Los Rodeos, and still another from the top of the volcano area. Sufficient to say that it's shirtsleeve weather during the day most of the year - except when it rains, or if you're hiking up on top of the mountain when there's snow LOL.

One of my ex-work colleagues in Ibiza lived for years in Costa Rica and her sons now live permanently in San Jose. She told many stories of her interesting life there. One of my cousin's sons has also settled somewhere in Costa Rica.
I hear many Canadians have retired there because of the beautiful climate and peaceful life.

Lars if you like hiking then this is hikers' paradise. Our German friends love coming here and spending many days climbing all around the ravines and the volcanic area. There are many hiking groups here which organize and transport folks with buses to the main starting points for hikes from the easiest to those reserved for experienced alpine climbers. It is a common daily sight to see people walking around wearing German hiking shoes, shorts, walking poles and knapsacks. They will have just come off a bus after having been somewhere up in the mountains.

The large older crater area at the base of the volcano is called "Las Cañadas" and it has an amazing lunar-like landscape, part of which was used in filming the original Planet of the Apes. You can see plenty of images of that on this Google image link. Teide is the name of the volcano. There was a cable car which ran nearly to the top which may still be in operation. My brother once took it and walked right up to the existing crater where it was hot, and the air was thin. Another beautiful hike is to the mountain hamlet of Masca. (Click to enlarge the photo at top left corner.) There the roads are so steep that I am nervous even driving in a car. There's a very steep hike from there down to the sea, where a small boat will pick up the hikers, but it's really for only the most experienced mountain climbers. Needless to say I haven't done that myself but I love to see the photos LOL.

Ilisa I think everyone is feeling the cold right now even in Europe. A friend just e-mailed me that it's -0.4F in Munich, Germany right now ! Guess I shouldn't complain when I have to wear an extra sweater at night !

SharonCb

I had no idea that any of Planet of the Apes was filmed there - most of it was done in and around Malibu Creek State Park, which has a museum with artifacts from the movie. I'll have to watch that movie again - it's interesting because I hike in many areas where it was shot, which are very recognizable to me. {{gwi:1468185}} also has a moon-like appearance, and it is an impact crater (like the moon) instead of a volcano.

Jakarta, Indonesian could probably claim to have the least seasonal variation, but this would be boring, I think. It's nice that you have different elevations (as California) so that you can get different climates by short travels. We like to take the Palm Springs Tram where we can go from a hot desert climate to an Alpine climate (8,000 higher) in just a few minutes. We taken some good videos of that tram ride! How far are you from your nearest tram? Does it go up the volcano? Our nearest volcano (that I know of) is Mount Lassen, which I've visited, but it's hundreds of miles away.

A lot of the pictures you linked do look remarkably like places in California - especially the desert pictures. They remind me of Death Valley and Anza Borrego. It would be interesting to visit and see how it compares in person. I remember also seeing in the TV show aboaut Tenerife that there were nice places for snorkeling nearby. For that, we generally go to Catalina or Crystal Cove, where there are good tide pools.

Have you been to Southern California yourself?

Lars

Lars sorry it's taken me so long to get back here with this info.

It's strange that there's no mention of Las Cañadas (the volcanic area of Tenerife) in the Planet of the Apes documentation. It would be a hoot if it weren't true as the local people have been talking about it since the mid 1970s and tour bus guides mention it when they take tourists up the mountain LOL. That photo of Death Valley is so very much like the landscape there as well. There are other mountain areas covered with black lava rock.

Raquel Welch did a movie up there dressed in animal skins as well. I don't think it was a great success LOL. Called One Million Years B.C.

Another which used the landscape for some scenes was the 2005 version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They also filmed some dolphin scenes in one of the local animal reserves for that movie. (Loro Parque)

You asked about the tram up the mountain (here called the cable car, or in Spanish the teleferico). It's a good hour and a half hour drive up the mountain from where we live, which is just above sea level. Here are some statistics:

Teide volcano - 12,195 feet high
The cable car goes up to 11,660 feet, and the cable itself is 8,141 ft long. It takes 8 to 10 minutes to travel to the end which is still not the top of the volcano. The car holds about 35 passsengers.
For ecological reasons access to the climb up to the crater has been restricted and a permit is needed. During high winds the cable car service is suspended. It also has been out of service for repairs quite often.

Here's the website of the cable car service, which also has an English option link at top right.

Here are some photos of the cable car and view on that website:

{{gwi:1468186}}

{{gwi:1468187}}

Here is a great website all about climbing the Teide with info about the cable car.

And here a link to some beautiful photos on that same website.

There are some good places for snorkeling as well as whale watching in the south of the island, as well as an east coast beach 'El Medano' where world class windsurfing competitions take place.

Lars I was in Southern California as a young girl when my father was taking some courses at the Gemological Institute in Los Angeles. We went as a family and stayed in Santa Monica a whole summer while my dad commuted every day to LA. I spent that summer on Muscle Beach gazing in wonderment at all the muscles ! LOL.

They may have filmed part of Planet of the Apes at Las Cañadas and then not used it. I'm aware of the other movies being made in the Canary Islands, however. IMDB only lists one movie as being filmed at Las Cañadas, but their list can be incomplete. Possibly because the area looks so much like some of the locations in Southern California, the tour guides thought they could get away with the claim. I visited Tikal, Guatemala the year after they filmed part of Star Wars there, and you can imagine that that was big news for them. BTW, I really like One Million Years BC, and we have it on DVD. Here's the list of movies with Tenerife listed in their location. Again, IMDB lists can be incomplete, but you can write to them to report omissions. I haven't seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but want to.

Mount San Jacinto is only 10,804 feet, which is why it does not get as much snow as your mountain. The tram ride here is steeper, and the car actually revolves while going up, and there is essentially no wind, due to the protection from the steep mountain.

The closest I've been to an erupting volcano was at Lake Atitlán, Guatemala (or was it Antigua, Guatemala?), where I saw smoke coming out of the top of one.

Windsurfing is also big here, but parasail surfing has become more popular in the past 5 years.

Muscle Beach has moved from Santa Monica to Venice - 1959!

Thanks Lars - I'll have a good look at that Muscle Beach link in the morning.

As an aside, I was just looking tonight at that IMDB website again as my nephew Adam Thomas has his acting bio on there now.

He played a small part in 'The L Word' and I had written to ask my sister which episode it was because the series has just started here on Spanish TV and with the original English dialogue. After checking it out I see he's in an episode from the second series, playing the part of a fellow called Gregory. My sister said they went overtime on that shoot and his part may have even been cut out later.

His most recent acting job was in Totally Awesome. Here's the link to his page on IMDB:

SharonCb

Sharon, as always I enjoyed looking at your pictures this morning; I also enjoyed the conversation between you and Lars, lol......

Thanks Mitch...
I just had an e-mail from my sister saying that Adam also played in a TV series called 'Killer Instinct' which after a few episodes was cancelled in North America but will be showing in Europe. It was filmed in San Francisco and Vancouver. She asked me to watch out for it as he could use some of the footage for his video demo tape. Apparently he played a university student who was undergoing a sleep study and wearing electrodes on his head
(lol lol lol lol - I've got to see that) when someone was murdered in the next room. So he was being interviewed by a detective. I have to try and tape his scene on video when it comes on as the series was cut in Canada before his episode was shown.

SharonCb