What is your favourite holiday during the winter? If it is to lie on a sunny beach when it is freezing cold at home, this post is for you.
The holiday destination is Tenerife.
The main reason for choosing it is the convenient proximity of Bournemouth airport.
From the moment Adrian and I enter its terminal the capable and unattractive face of the mass tourism welcome us.
Our departure is early morning on a Saturday. Long queues for check-in are already formed in the airport hall which resembles a huge tent.
Three young officers take their places at the check-in stations. Their bodies and minds appear sleepy, suffering to be at work. Yet, they are very efficient. They perform their tasks quickly, methodically and professionally. In no time the long check-in queues are transformed into queues for the security checks, then for breakfast and later for boarding the plane.
The aircraft is basic and cold, but it takes off on time and lands on time at the Reina Sofia Airport. The journey feels like being on a conveyor belt – in, out, job done.
The Tenerife sun congratulates us. It smiles through the clouds and lightens the azure sea.
20 mins later we are delivered to the hotel by a petite, delicate female driver who lifts our suitcases like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The hotel is on the beach promenade and is huge.
An incredible amount of people wonder around the hotel foyer, the other facilities and the strangely shaped pool outside.
A businesslike receptionist puts yellow bands on our wrists to indicate that breakfast is part of the deal.
Efficient and unpleasant.
The island of Tenerife is volcanic.
Despite this background the island is a prime example of what business acumen can achieve. The tourism industry here is conducive to all tastes and wallets. The black sand beaches are covered with colourful sunbeds and umbrellas.
Cafes, restaurants and clubs, shops and stalls offer everything the tourists could possibly wish for.
People working in this industry speak many languages, and seem shrewd and hardworking.
Supermarkets’ shelves are full of goods including tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuces.
Police patrols in cars and on motorcycles are often to be seen.
This exuberant island grows on you. The sense of being sluggish slowly changes to a subtle inclination to step up your game. Summer in winter is not an illusion.
It is more where you find it – in the gentle sense of contentment, in the feeling of laziness, or in the compulsion to join the surfing classes or viking boat trips.
You may prefer people watching with a San Francisco con alcohol cocktail in hand – observing the parade of all shapes and colours of bodies, proudly exposing themself to their holiday peers.
2 Comments
Wish I was there! 😉
Ní na, great way to celebrate a mid winter birthday. Thank your lucky stars you didn’t choose another well known Spanish island this week enjoying 20 inches of snow. Roll on summer