Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Arico Nuevo, and old village up in the mountains

@brittarnhild

 

We have to admit it, it is winter in Tenerife, even though all days have temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius and we are just outside Africa somewhere. The clouds continue to come. And I don't mind, there is so much to explore and I love it when Terje folds out the big map after breakfast and starts to make suggestions for what to do during the day.

 

Today we drove up in the mountains. Had our morning cappuccino in a small café we discovered many years ago, a place we calm back to again and again. Not because of its view, but because of the very good home made pastries.

Then we continued, along hairpin bended roads, to Arico Nuevo, a small village which has its history back to the 1700th century when springs were found here.

Today the village has some kind of status as Historical Site, UNESCOs World heritage List or I am not sure.....

 

One long street down, down, down, all the houses freshly white painted with olive green shutters, and in a corner of the small market place in front of the church, we find the only restaurant in the village, Alcandora.

Though the rest of the island has stored Christmas away by now, it is still to be found up here.

 

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Blogs with new posts:

Fløy en liten blåfugl, my birding journal

Med bøker på menyen, my reading journal

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my journal

maskerade - my knitting journal

Akeleiehagen, my garden journal

Blåklokkeveien

 

Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife

@brittarnhild

Another cloudy morning means another day of exploring. Our goal today is Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, north east on the island. We have been there before, but know that there is still a lot to explore. We park the car close to the Opera House, and start the day with cappuccino in the outdoor café there.      

Then we walk, and walk and walk, and walk some more. We ask locals for a place to have lunch and have to walk even more, up the hills to Taberna Ramón, a small, local restaurant with a few wooden tables, chairs without backs, a waiter who can't speak English but is all smiling and helpful, and great food.

 

On the way back to the car we discover that the outdoor swimming pool area near the Opera House is open and the sun is out. Can you imagine a better place for sun bathing and swimming :-)

 

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Blogs with new posts:

Fløy en liten blåfugl, my birding journal

Med bøker på menyen, my reading journal

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my journal

maskerade - my knitting journal

Akeleiehagen, my garden journal

Blåklokkeveien

 

On the beach, birding and fish soup

@brittarnhild

We started the day at our favourite beach, where Terje sun bathed, I read and went for a long walk. It was a bit windy, so there were not many people on the beach yet, which was perfect for us.

 

Not far from this beach is the little town El Médina, a surfer´s paradise and a place very different from Los Cristianos, where our hotel is situated. El Médina has, like all places here, a lot of cafés and restaurants, the one more charming than the other.

We decided to have lunch at a tiny little fish restaurant, where we have eaten several times before, were lucky and got one of the few tables situated just above the waves, and had a yummy fish soup. The wind, the sun, the soup, the company.......just perfect.

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From where we sat we could watch a little flock of sanderlings having their lunch among the lava stones,

and on the drive back to our hotel, we stopped where I knew there are spectacled warbles.

All in all, a perfect morning :-)

 

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Blogs with new posts:

Fløy en liten blåfugl, my birding journal

Med bøker på menyen, my reading journal

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my journal

maskerade - my knitting journal

Akeleiehagen, my garden journal

Blåklokkeveien

 

New day, new place for coffee

@brittarnhild

 

We do not plan actually to go to new places every day. We plan to live the slow life. But it is vacation, we have all the time in the world and we have a rented car, so why not :-)

Again, after hours sun bathing, and a light lunch at the hotel, we drove out for coffee, this time to the town Adeje, up in the hills some miles north of Los Cristianos.

The reason while we went to this town was that I had googled for yarn stores on Tenerife and google maps told me there were two here.......which we found, the first one closed because of siesta and from what I could see through the window, nothing were of interest from me, the second one was no yarn store at all, but some kind of office.......

So instead we found a café with home made cakes, and a park with amazing murals.

 

 

Afternoon coffee in Los Abrigos

@brittarnhild

 

The first whole day is almost over. This is our 8th visit to the islands, and for the first time we sill stay not only one week, but two. And because of this we feel we have all the time in the world :-) We had a long morning sun bathing near the pool at our hotel, and then went for a long walk in Los Cristianos, where we stay.

Then, in the afternoon, we decided to drive somewhere out of tron for a coffee. Ended up in Los Abrigos, one of the fishing villages not too far away, where we had cappuccino and a home made lemen pie. Today is a red kalender day, to mark the arrival of the Magi, and while we were sitting outside the café, a smal chapel on the across the street opened its doors and a service started.

Darkness comes fast here, and shower us with moments of beauty.

 

 

We arrived together with The Magi

@brittarnhild

 

Up even before the wee hours of the morning, in the taxi to the airport wondering "have I remembered the passport?", 6 hours on the plane and then I can look out the window to see beautiful Teide.

Our 8th time now,

and it kind of feels like coming home :-)

Some arrive by plane, others by camels.

From my facebook page:
It has been a long travel. But now The Magi has arrived with gifts for baby Jesus  for all Spanish children and even some greedy adults. And the camels can have their rest.......

 

Los Cristianos, like all other Spanish cities, towns and villages I believe, have their epiphany parade. The one in Los Cristianos is a kind of combination between a 17th of May parade in Norway, and a Disney parade. Hard to belive it has something to do with christianity, but then, at long last, the three wise men, the three kings, come, riding their dromadars, throwing out sweets.

 

The next morning the parks are filled with waste sweet papers, like tiny little new sprung flowers.

 

 

 

Terje´s birthday

@brittarnhild

Today is Terjes birthday, his 64th.
We had family over for coffee, cakes and Christmas cookies.

Since we are flying down to Tenerife first thing tomorrow morning, for two weeks, we had planned to put away the Christmas tree tonight, a bit early. But it did not feel right to do it. Torgeir, our oldest son who lives in Sweden, will stay in our house while we are away, so Christmas will still be here for him to enjoy :-)

Mother of Pearl

@brittarnhild

First of all, thank you so much for all your lovely comments on yesterday's post. They told me that people still care about my blog, about my pictures and words, and they inspire me to continuing posting :-)

I will take up my weekend morning photo walks, but not for a few weeks still. Sunday morning Terje and I fly south. It is time for our annual visit to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands.

I've had today off work and with a snow storm sailing outdoors it has been very cosy to stay indoors working on a new episode on my YouTube channel. It takes hours to getting an episode ready, but finally, as the short winters day was fading, I sat down to knit. And to look out at the birds in the garden.

How absolutely lovely then to find the sky outside our living room window covered in mother of pearl clouds.

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Blogs with new posts today (will as always be updated throughout the day):

Fløy en liten blåfugl, my birding journal

Med bøker på menyen, my reading journal

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my journal

maskerade - my knitting journal

Akeleiehagen, my garden journal