The Canary Islands were formed by volcanic activity many years ago and give the visitor a unique range of scenery from beautiful beaches to lunar landscape in the interior of the islands. Tenerife is the largest island with many facilities for tourists of all sorts. The Canaries were once called the fortunate islands because of their unique climate. None of the houses have fireplaces because winter daytime temperatures average about 23 deg C. In Summer the average is more like 32-35deg C and it rarely hits the stiflingly hot 40 deg C that you find around the Med.
El Medano / Pellada area
El Medano situated on the south of the island, was originally a small , poor fishingvillage, with a shallow harbour and with the town square overlooking the main beach. This beach is notable because it is the only natural white sand beach on Tenerife. The others use imported sand. (The small beach local to
Casa Bougainvilia is a black sand beach) The beach curves away from el Medano for about 1/2mile and finishes under the startling natural landmark of the volcanic Montana Roja (The Red Mountain). This end of the beach catches the trade winds from Africa and is consequently a haven for windsurfers and kite surfers who provide a multicoloured display of their talents whenever there is a good wind. During the last couple of years the weather seems to have changed and the wind is much more unreliable.
With the advent of mass tourism in the latter half of the 20th century, the main development was further to the west at Los Cristianos and Playa De Americas with purpose built holiday accommodation in hotels and high rise apartment blocks and fuelled by package tour holiday offerings. El Medano was left behind in this development, even though it is only 10 mins away from the main Tenerife Sur airport. ( we do get some aircraft noise ) There are two small hotels in the town, but the town expanded very slowly. Latterly the situation has changed, the town council have responded to increasing demand and allowed limited development of low rise apartments and houses for sale and many of these have been bought by Spanish people together with an eclectic mixture of other European nationalities. The effect is quite noticeable. The town is still firmly Spanish ( and long may it remain so) You cannot go to a restaurant for an all day English breakfast and nobody wears football shirts when they go out at night! There is a wide variety of offerings in small bars and restaurants in the evening.
There is one English bar on the seafront, plenty of Spanish bars and restaurants, some catering for childrens favourite meals and others that are more haute cuisine. There are a couple of Chinese, one German , one Mexican, and a couple of Italian restaurants. During this last year two new quality bars have opened which attract the smart set, but many people eat at home then come down and sit around the town square, sip a beer and watch the world go by whilst their kids play football or play on the sand. It's a very safe family atmosphere and because many Spanish children have a siesta it is not unusual for them to be out, playing at 11pm at night.
If you want to drop back into English culture, Golf del Sur , and Los Cristianos are an easy drive away. We watched Manchester United and Manchester City play their matches in the sports bars at Golf del Sur. A car gives you more possibilities. No visit to Tenerife is complete without a trip to the top of the island to see the lunar volcanic landscape just below Mount Teide, there are theme parks near to Playa de Americas, but the best has to be Loro Park near Puerta de la Cruz.
We really enjoy coming to Medano and not some of the more rowdy and touristy places near by, namely Playa de las Americas and Los Christianos mainly because we feel like we are in a different country. There also doesn't seem to be rings of 'looky looky' men (people trying to sell you watches and sunglasses!) disturbing you at every opportunity. Don't get me wrong I have bought things from these men but I travel to Playa de las Americas to do it. El Medano is a lovely lay backed place which has a number of late night bars for night time entertainment.
Getting there
There are a number of airlines which travel to Tenerife which are low cost. Depending on where you want to fly from depends on which airline to use. We generally fly with either Monarch from Birmingham or Manchester or British Airways from Manchester. Just recently British Airways has been coming in cheaper than Monarch and their planes seem to have more bum and leg room. We have paid for 2 adults and 1 baby £399 including all taxes and charges for 11 days in October.
Our House
Our house is rented out to any one and I believe the prices for renting it out are quite typical if not cheap for the area. The house consists of 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a lounge with English TV, DVD player, video player and a kitchen. We also have a heated pool in the back. This property is rented out for between £525 and £620 depending on the time of year.
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Hotel - Calle Gran Bretana - Urbanización San Eugenio, Costa Adeje, 38660 Tenerife, Gran Bretaña, s/n, 38660 Playa de las Americas, Spain - 4 Stars - 404 Rooms
Hotel - Quinto Centenario, 7, Playa de Las Américas, Adeje, 38660 Tenerife, Avenida V Centenario 7, 38660 Playa de las Americas, Spain - 2 Stars - 165, 147, 115 Rooms
Love tenerife...all.of it, although never been here, will have to give it a go next time i'm there...ps i travel agent working from home, send me a private message and i see what flight prices i can get for you...lol
Bollinger28 21.07.2006 17:41
I think I've been to El Medano once or twice - is it the area that's popular with the windsurfers? I also recall a whole row of wonderful fish restaurants alongside a steepish sea front road - which I thought was El Medano? I've stayed at Golf del Sur a couple of times in timeshare accommodation, but the airport noise kind of put me off a return visit. We tend to go further up the coast to Los Gigantes or Puerto del Santiago, as they are really very pleasant, and so much nicer than Los Cristianos or Playa de las Americas. Lexy
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