Tenerife – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, ‘almost’ the capital of the Canary Islands

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the “second” capital of the Canary Islands: it has long competed with Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) for that title. For the time being, the two cities alternate in this function ;)

Getting to Santa Cruz by car is very easy. From Puerto de la Cruz you go all the way along the highway, and the roads are very well marked (as they are throughout Tenerife, by the way). We recommend getting there just from this side – super views of the sea.

Playa de las Teresitas – the best beach in the Canaries?

First we made our way through the city to the beach in the north of the city – Playa de las Teresitas. Very large beach, clear water, fine sand – definitely recommended. In our humble opinion, this is the best beach in Tenerife and (probably) the best beach in the Canary Islands! Well, at least one of the best :-) Anyway, see for yourself….

The only downside we found in Teresitas was the cold water, but it’s good to cool off on warm days.

In addition, there is free parking at the beach (it is very large, so there will always be a place). There are free toilets and showers at the beach entrances! There are also bars with food and drink. However, sunbeds and umbrellas are payable. There are palm trees and palm trees on the beach, in the shade of which you can hide if you are lucky.

Teresitas beach itself is an artificial beach. Tenerife previously did not have a real beach (with yellow sand), with which it lost in competition with Gran Canaria. The current beach was created from sand brought from Africa. It was worth it. The beach is amazing… we returned there more than once :)

After getting our feet wet, we headed toward Igueste to a nearby viewpoint. Nice views, right? :)

We also found interesting paintings at the top ;)

After testing the car’s capabilities and the driver’s skills for driving up sharp hills, we decided to return to Santa Cruz to see the capital, and left the sharp climbs into the mountains for another time :)

Sightseeing in Santa Cruz de Tenerife

The tour of the center went quite quickly and smoothly. The most important attractions are not far away, so the only challenge left was to find parking (for motorists, of course :-)). After a few attempts, we managed to make a deal with one local resident by signaling, who confirmed that you can park for free in the center (maybe not the center itself, but near Plaza Espana). If there are no spaces, you can use the paid parking lot, which is located under the square, or park in some shopping center.

We began our tour of downtown Santa Cruz with the aforementioned Plaza Espana – a large plaza with several sculptures and a fountain.

We then walked through the Plaza Candelaria and came to the Iglesia de San Francisco – to tell the truth, we took a while to figure out which church we were referring to, because they are, as it were, two churches touching each other.

Since time was pressing us, we quickly backtracked and went to Plaza Isla Madera, where, in addition to the theatrical mask sculpture, there are: Teatro Guimera and Centro de Arte La Recova.

From there, we headed toward Plaza Iglesia and to our eyes appeared the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion – seemingly the biggest attraction, but frankly not very impressed.

Next door, there is a streetcar line connecting Santa Cruz with La Laguna (the former capital of Tenerife).

And that would be so much capital…. We managed to see the most important places before sunset :) Impressions? About that in a moment…

Primark in Tenerife?

Finally, we went to the Meridiano Mall. There were two reasons: restocking at Carrefour and PRIMARK! :-)

The center is home to well-known Spanish brands like ZARA, Bershka, Pull & Bear etc, and right next door to them is the famous Primark ;) Since we saw the advertisement of this store at the airport we started to worry about excess baggage, but unnecessarily ;) The selection is poor, no sizing, some seasonal stuff, and the rest as if flipped from other continental stores (from previous seasons). We were very disappointed :(

Summary

Can we recommend a visit to Sanra Cruz? Of course! While in Tenerife, be sure to stop here at least for a while and be sure to hop over to Playa de las Teresitas and the viewpoint above it! Of course, the capital of the Canary Islands (one of two) is not Barcelona or Paris, but you will find some interesting backstreets there.

If you want to stay here longer, we rather advise against it. That’s not why you fly to Tenerife to live in a city (not a big one, but still) when you have so many cool places nearby ;)

We recommend our gallery, you can find more photos from Santa Cruz there:

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