Decorated Fountains in Puerto de la Cruz

Chorros enramados, Puerto de la Cruz. Jose Mesa Some rights reserved

The one part of the Fiestas of San Juan in Puerto de la Cruz that was able to take place last year - so fingers crossed for this year - is the Chorros Enramados (Decorated Fountains) - similar to well dressing in England - which begins on the evening of 22 June each year, with the 23 June being the day to walk around to view them, in various parts of the town. These water sources were very important when they were installed in the 19th Century, bringing indispensable water close to homes and, as such, are celebrated.

Map of the fountains' locations | More images

Enrame de los Chorros 2018 Puerto de la Cruz

Town Hall of La Guancha

Town Hall of La Guancha

Ayuntamiento de La Guancha, Calle la Alhóndiga, 1, 38440 La Guancha, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. +34 922 828 002. Website | Facebook | Twitter

Traditional Fiestas in La Guancha

Granadilla Rally Saturday 19 June 2021

The 29th Rallye Villa de Granadilla takes place this weekend on Saturday 19 June 2021. The administrative and technical checks will be carried out on Friday 18 at the Los Hinojeros pavilion, and then go down to the closed park located in El Médano, which will receive the first participants from 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. At 8:00 p.m. they will proceed to the park established in the SIEC San Isidro. The competition day will start on Saturday 19 from 08:30 a.m. and it is planned to reach the end of the event at around 6:00 p.m. with the delivery of trophies at 6:30 p.m. in the Plaza de El Médano. 

29 Rallye Villa de Granadilla | Escuderia Atogo

Rally Villa de Granadilla 2019

The Plaza del Príncipe in Santa Cruz de Tenerife hosts a Handicraft Market

Plaza del Príncipe de Asturias in Santa Cruz de Tenerife Koppchen, CC BY 3.0

This Thursday 17 June 2021, the Mercado de Artesanía del Príncipe (Crafts Market), opens to the public in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, now that conditions allow. The fair, in the Plaza del Príncipe, will be open until June 22 from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. with a break from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. In this market, 38 artisans, who had already been selected for the Three Kings Fair will participate, who will offer the visiting public 21 artisan modalities, among them: dolls, enamels, traditional costumes, macramé, modelling, recycling, bookbinding, jewellery, soap, ceramics, fabrics, leather goods, paper and cardboard, dressmaking and crochet, in addition to the traditional cigars and pottery and cutlery. 

La Plaza del Príncipe vuelve a acoger el Mercado de Artesanía

The tradition of churros with chocolate

Churros con chocolate Toni Kaarttinen, CC BY 2.0

Churros con chocolate are a delicious tradition in our country. In La Laguna on Corpus Christi Day we love to get up in the morning and leave the house to go to the nearest churrería (churro shop, a place that sells churros). We can eat them there or we can also take them home in the popular “cones” of paper. The tradition of eating churros con chocolate has been in our islands for years.

Contrary to how it may seem, the origin of churros is in China. Specifically ‘youtiao‘, a dish eaten for breakfast that consisted of strips of fried and salted dough. The expression translates to ‘demon fried in oil‘ and referred to Quin Hui, a Song dynasty official and his wife, who were considered ‘demons’ responsible for the death of a renowned general.

How did it end up in Spain and becoming churros? It's said, the visits of Spanish and Portuguese merchants to China led them to the Iberian Peninsula. At first, it became a typical dish among poor people who worked in the fields. It's said that the name ‘churro’ is derived from the name of churra sheep, whose horns resembled the fried dough.

Later, and after the discovery of America, cocoa and sugar reached the Peninsula and were added to the dish. It went from being a shepherd's meal to being a delicious delicacy that has eclipsed in all the cities and traveling fairs. And that's how the first churrerías were born. Today we can enjoy churros with chocolate anywhere.

La tradición de los churros con chocolate

And in case, like me, you're salivating: Easy Churros With Chocolate Sauce

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival 2002

Carnival Queen in Santa Cruz de Tenerife 2002, Lorena Díaz García

Carnival queen in Santa Cruz de Tenerife 2002, chosen unanimously, was Lorena Díaz García with a costume entitled, "Alta temperatura" (High temperature), designed by Miguel Ángel Castilla and sponsored by the Centro Comercial del Mueble (Furniture Shopping Center).

In 2002, the court was made up as follows:

1. 1st Maid of Honour: Nuria María Gutiérrez, with a costume entitled “Arsinoe”, representing Grupo AC Bingo Colombófilo and designed by Juan Carlos Armas.
2. 2nd Maid of Honour: Beatriz Díaz González, with a costume entitled “Inmensidad” (Immensity), representing Centro Comercial Santa Cruz - Carrefour and designed by Santi Castro.
3. 3rd Maid of Honour: María del Cristo Sosvilla Pérez, with a costume entitled “Mata Hari”, representing El Corte Inglés and designed by Leo Martínez.
4. 4th Maid of Honour: Yaiza Rueda Cabrera, with a costume entitled “Eféntia vitae”, representing Peña Salamanca and designed by Octavio, Sergio y Daniel Hernández.

Theme of carnival in 2002 was "The Roaring 20s". The scenery in the Plaza de España was decorated with motifs of the first two decades of the 20th century. The Eiffel Tower was featured on stage, with the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge behind it.

Coronación Reina del Carnaval de S/C de Tenerife 2002

British Princes Albert and George in Tenerife

The British Princes Albert and George V, sons of Edward VII

The stay of the British princes Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale and George Frederick Ernest Albert (later George V) in Tenerife

The Canary Islands, in its privileged location on the transoceanic routes and during all those centuries in which only maritime navigation existed as a means of transport, was turned into an almost unavoidable stopover for all those vessels that wanted to go to southern Africa, America and Oceania. This strategic circumstance gave us the opportunity to count, especially in Tenerife, on illustrious visitors, as happened in December 1879, when the corvette, HMS Bacchante brought princes to the island as naval cadets (midshipmen), Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, 15 years old, and George Frederick (the future George V), 14 years old, sons of Edward VII and Alejandra of Denmark. 

This vessel, which had sailed from Portsmouth on July 15, 1879 under the command of Captain Lord Charles MD Scott, had one of its objectives to contribute to the cultural and personal training of both princes, visiting not only the territories belonging to the British Empire beyond the seas but all those places of interest that arose in its path ... and Mount Teide, and Tenerife as a whole, were among them.

The logbook, based on private records, letters and documents of both princes, and subsequently drawn up in publication format by the chaplain of the Bacchante, John Neale Dalton, is our best source of knowledge of the circumstances of their stay on the island. Through their annotations, we know that they spotted the Pico del Teide, covered in snow, at noon on December 1, 1879, giving themselves the curious circumstance of taking advantage of the journey between Madeira and these Islands to delve into Canarian history and culture. In the well-stocked library they carried on board they had the latest editions of the Hakluyt Society, with updated texts on the conquest of the Canary Islands and its main benchmarks. 

At 11 am on December 3, the corvette bottomed out in the Santa Cruz de Tenerife bay, 25 fathoms deep, saluting the Spanish flag with a salute of twenty-one cannons. The carousel of formal visits on board then began, led by the captain and the captain of the port, followed by Vice Consul John Howard Edwards and the consignee Charles Howard Hamilton. There was a curious coincidence, reflected in the newspaper, that they came to share anchor for a few hours with the French ship Le Tage, loaded with prisoners and convicts destined for Cayenne, but which soon set sail for its destination.

One of the first things that all travellers who arrived at the port of Santa Cruz notice, and this time it was not going to be different, is the sensation of heat that they felt as soon as they dropped anchor. After lunch, the princes and their cohort of consular representatives and officials disembarked and went first to visit the city museum, "which is arranged in what was once an old convent." There both are surprised not only by the excellent anthropological collection they show them but by the expressions of its curator (which we assume was the doctor and researcher Juan Bethencourt Alfonso), who told them “that he would be very happy to exchange [anthropological material] with other museums to obtain skulls and remains of other ancient races”.

The next item on the agenda was a visit to the church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción –which is erroneously referred to as a cathedral–, to contemplate “the two English flags that Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson lost here on July 24, 1797. Both are Union Jacks without the St. Andrew's cross and are much larger than the common flags used today. They are kept coiled in two long glazed wooden boxes arranged one on each side of the altar in a chapel on the north side of the nave. "Today they were lowered and placed on a large table in the sacristy, and they were unrolled so that we could handle and examine them conveniently”. At this point we could not resist including a complementary note, extracted from an article entitled Glorias Canarias, written by Leandro Serra Fernández de Moratín for the newspaper "La Ilustracion de Canarias", dated July 31, 1882, in which he recalled that particular visit to the flags in the chapel of Santiago. This author told us: “Frequently [the flags] are visited by foreigners who come to this Capital: lately they have been visited by the sons of the Prince of Wales, who, as midshipmen, came in the Bacchante. The eldest of them gazed attentively at the imprisoned standards, and with a moved voice said: "For them my father would give a treasure." To which one of those present replied: "Your Highness is unaware that they are the glory of our grandparents?" 

The princes continued their visit to the temple and accessed the top of the tower, from where they enjoyed a magnificent panoramic view of the place, drawing their attention to the huge slopes planted with nopales - a common name in Spanish for Opuntia cacti (commonly referred to in English as prickly pear) - for the production of cochineal.

On the day of December 4, after resting on board, the delegation passed from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to the neighbouring city of La Laguna, where they were entertained at the residence of the British merchant Benjamin Renshaw in Orea. The ascent to the old capital seemed to them "very steep and hot", with a dusty road in which "many of us were very happy to shorten its multiple curves by doing the route on foot". They continued the journey and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon they were already in La Orotava, a valley that surprised them by its vegetation and its “rich volcanic soil”. After the obligatory visits to the Botanical Garden, to the site where the Drago de La Orotava was - of which they commented "of which now there are only a large pile of fragments" and one of whose branches, according to the testimony of travellers, could be seen in the gardens botanists from Kew, London - and prepared for the next day's project, which was none other than the ascent to the peak. 

The journey to Las Cañadas, which began at 3 am on December 5, focused the attention of the princes, who did not cease to admire the contemplated landscape. As a curiosity they pointed out that "the guides who run alongside the ponies seem to know the way even though it is still dark", showing once again the experience and importance of these almost anonymous individuals on this journey of travellers to Teide through the ages. The princes recorded the cold that was noticeable at the summit, but their effort was worth it, as their own words attest: “From this point we get one of the best views we have seen. These are the gardens of the Hespérides, as the Carthaginian colony of Cádiz called them; it extends into an amphitheatre that faces west, delimited in the extreme south by Icod and in the north by La Matanza; between which there is a great slope of eternal fertility and beauty, similar to the slopes of Etna, only here, in addition to the corn and the greenery of the rich crops, we have palm trees, bananas and other semi-tropical foliage. There is the highest peak on which Greek eyes rested: the Atlantean column of heaven. Here the wandering Perseus and Heracles arrived in search of the golden fruit guarded by the dragon, whose remains we saw in the dragon tree that we admired yesterday in La Orotava”.

The return to Santa Cruz de Tenerife took place throughout the same marathon day, stopping at La Orotava and La Laguna on the way back to Bacchante. A memorable dance, performed in tribute to the officers of the British corvette, was the perfect counterpoint to that busy day. Finally, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on December 6, 1879, they set sail for Bermuda, leaving behind that memory of a princely visit that was to remain etched in the retina and the memory of the island of Tenerife.

La estancia de los príncipes británicos Alberto Víctor y Jorge Federico en Tenerife

Town Hall of Icod de los Vinos

Town Hall of Icod de los Vinos

Plaza Luis de León Huerta, S/N, 38430 Icod de los Vinos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.

Phone: +34 922 86 96 00

Website (Tourism) | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Traditional Fiestas in Icod de los Vinos

Eruption of the Chahorra volcano

Pico Viejo and the Narices del Teide Carlos Martin Diaz, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan), on Wednesday, celebrated the 223rd anniversary of the eruption of the Chahorra or Narices del Teide volcano in 1798, which lasted 99 days, one of 16 historical eruptions in the Canary Islands.

Involcan posted on its social networks that it celebrates this volcanic eruption - although many people associate this type of activity as a source of destruction - because thanks to the existing magmatic activity and the countless number of eruptions that have occurred on the islands over millions of years, it has been possible to build the archipelago. "Without volcanic activity the Canary Islands would not have been built and therefore the Canarian society would not have existed," says Involcan to argue the celebration of this anniversary.

It also listed the 16 historical eruptions in the Canary Islands:

1. La Palma with the Tacande volcano (1430-1447)
2. In 1492, Christopher Columbus described a volcanic eruption in Tenerife, although its specific location is unknown
3. The Boca Cangrejo eruption, also on Tenerife, is dated to the 16th century
4. Tehuya volcano erupted in 1585 on La Palma
5. Tigalate in 1646 on La Palma
6. San Antonio between 1677-1678, on the island of La Palma
7. On the island of Tenerife, between 1704-1705 the Siete Fuentes (Fasnia-Arafo) 
8. Trevejo or Arenas Negras volcano in Tenerife erupted in 1706
9. In 1712, La Palma was the scene of a new eruption of the Charco volcano
10. The eruption of Timanfaya, in Lanzarote, took place between 1730 and 1736
11. Chahorra or Narices del Teide (Noses of Teide), in Tenerife, in 1798
12. Tao-Nuevo del Fuego-Tinguatón, in Lanzarote, in 1824
13. In the 20th century, the Chinyero volcano, in Tenerife, erupted in 1909
14. San Juan, on La Palma, in 1949 
15. Teneguía, also on La Palma island, in 1971
16. The last volcano to erupt in the Canary Islands was the Tagoro, which occurred on the island of El Hierro, between 2011 and 2012 and it was an underwater volcano. 

Se cumplen 223 años de la erupción del volcán Chahorra que duró 99 días en Tenerife

Corpus Christi and San Isidro in La Orotava

The Corpus Christi and San Isidro Labrador Festivities in La Orotava, which although this year will not be celebrated as is traditional, due to the current health situation, are taking place between May 15 and June 13, with a virtual program and some face-to-face events under the maximum control and sanitary protocol. 

This year, as with last, the Día de las Alfombras (Day of the Carpets) - due to have taken place today, June 10 - will not be celebrated with the customary carpets made of floral materials in the streets.

This year, there is to be a sand carpet in the plaza in front of the town hall and there have been floral carpets made in various private patios in the town - photos here.

The return of the great Corpus Christi carpet to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento de La Orotava allows the town to recover a fundamental part of the essence and splendour of its main festivals. Being able to visit, although in a restricted and organized way, the tapestry of Teide sand, has meant taking another step towards the old normality. With the pandemic still active and well present in this year's design, today is an atypical day of the Infraoctava del Corpus with only four carpets, a cloistered procession and masses with limited capacity.

During the day today a total of four carpets can be visited: The one in the square, until 9:00 p.m.; one that will be made in the hallway of Casa Monteverde, whose family started this tradition in the mid-nineteenth century at 6 Colegio Street; one in the courtyard of the Ephemeral Art Center of Las Alfombras de La Orotava, next to the Casa de los Balcones, and the one inside the Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. 

Likewise, the Romería in honour of San Isidro Labrador (San Isidro Labrador Pilgrimage) that would have taken place at the weekend, is once again suspended. 

On Sunday, 13 June, from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Town Hall Square, there will be an Exhibition of Traditional Elements of the Pilgrimage and the Carreta de la Romera Mayor (the decorated ox cart of the queen of the festivities). 

Full program (PDF) with some lovely pictures download here.