San Miguel de Abona

The church bell strikes eleven and a waiter in La Tasquita de Niño is already pouring the second glass of Listán negro. Outside, volcanic stone houses cast pencil-thin shadows across Calle San Miguel; beyond the rooftops the Atlantic glints like polished steel. You are 580 m above the southern package coast, yet only 15 minutes' drive from Tenerife Sur Airport—close enough to hear aircraft when the wind turns, high enough to need a jumper after sunset.

San Miguel de Abona is the point where the island stops showing off and gets on with life. Banana plantations give way to prickly-pear hedges, golf hotels thin out, and the TF-1 motorway finally surrenders to a winding, well-surfaced road that climbs through terraces of almond and vines. The temperature drops about four degrees on the ascent; humidity falls even faster. British walkers arriving from February half-term in Playa de las Américas often stand in the plaza and utter the same sentence: "It feels like spring in the Cotswolds—only with better coffee."

A Town That Refuses to Be a Resort

The historic centre is small enough to cross in ten minutes, large enough to occupy a morning if you succumb to its rhythms. Start at the sixteenth-century Iglesia de San Miguel Arcángel: stone doorway framed by carvings of grapes and pomegranates, inside a cedar retablo blackened by candle smoke. The church is usually unlocked until 13:00; if the oak doors are shut, the square still works as a natural theatre—old men feed pigeons, delivery vans squeeze past with millimetres to spare, and the smell of grilled pork drifts from a bar that opened at dawn for farm workers.

Behind the church, lanes narrow into a lattice of single-storey houses painted ochre, mustard and terracotta. Many still have tea-wood balconies; one or two display the original coat-of-arms of the Captain's House, reminder that this was once the island's grain store. You will not find souvenir stalls—instead, a baker sells crusty loaves for €1.20, a chemist displays after-sun beside blood-pressure cuffs, and a tiny hardware shop stocks both goat bells and British AA batteries. The effect is less "time capsule", more "working town that happens to be photogenic".

Between Barranco and Blue

Leave the plaza by the small footbridge and you drop into the Parque Lineal del Barranco de Herques, a reclaimed riverbed planted with tamarisk and palms. The path is flat, push-chair friendly, and delivers instant countryside: hoopoes pick through leaf litter, lizards skitter across warm stone, and every bench faces south-west so you can watch the sun sink towards the sea. Walk fifteen minutes and the gorge narrows; almond blossom snows down in late January, making the ravine smell of marzipan. Carry on another hour and you reach the abandoned village of La Bocana, but most visitors turn back after the first mirador—partly for the view, partly because the only loo is back near the bridge.

Upstream paths climb steeply to the merchant trails that once linked San Miguel with Vilaflor and Granadilla. Signposting is improving, yet it is still normal to ask a postman for directions; he may reply, perfectly pleasantly, that he has no idea. The safest short circuit is the PR-TF 82, a three-hour loop that gains 300 m of elevation then returns along cobbled caminos where stone walls keep out neither the sun nor the goats. Take two litres of water per person between May and October; the shade-to-sun ratio is brutal.

What to Eat When the Altitude Makes You Hungry

San Miguel punches above its culinary weight. La Tasquita de Niño occupies a former tobacco warehouse on Calle de la Iglesia; blackboards list papas arrugadas with green mojo, grilled vieja (parrot fish) and a goat stew that arrives bubbling in its own copper pot. House red is poured from unlabelled bottles—Listán negro grown on the north-facing shoulder of the municipality—and costs €2.50 a glass. Staff speak enough English to explain dishes but not to hover.

Round the corner, La Pimienta Verde specialises in enormous slabs of beef from neighbouring Gran Canaria; vegetarians simply ask for the catch of the day, usually sea bream served with Canarian potatoes and squash. Pudding is either almond tart or gofio mousse—imagine malted-chocolate blancmange with volcanic crunch. A three-course lunch with wine rarely tops €25 a head, and portions are calibrated for farmers, not calorie counters.

If you prefer to graze, Friday market fills the plaza with stalls selling smoked cheese, honey rum and bags of dried oregano that smells like proper pizza. Be early: traders pack up at 14:00 sharp and parking spots are commandeered by locals who know exactly how wide a SEAT Ibiza can be.

Coast Within Reach—But Not Within Earshot

San Miguel's municipal boundary touches the sea at Golf del Sur and Amarilla Golf, ten minutes downhill by car. The shoreline is black, volcanic and British in accent: seafront pubs advertise Sunday roasts, and yachts moor in a marina designed for northern European draft. You can be on a sun-lounger by 11:00, back in the hill-town cool for a late lunch, then down again for sunset cocktails. The contrast is deliberate: residents speak of "bajando al sur" as if crossing a frontier, and many keep a set of golf clubs in the car boot for impromptu nine-hole escapes.

Beaches are functional rather than Caribbean. Playa de San Blas is a crescent of grey sand sheltered by a breakwater; the swell is gentle, showers work, and a beach bar serves acceptable chips-with-everything. Walk 200 m east and the promenade ends at a lava flow where locals fish for bream at dusk. Bring rock shoes: entry is sharp and sudden.

When to Come, What to Know

Spring and autumn are sweet spots—daytime highs of 22 °C, nights cool enough for a fleece. In July and August the thermometer can touch 35 °C; walking is best finished by 11:00, and bars close between 16:00 and 20:00 for siesta. Winter brings daytime 18 °C and the occasional cloud bank rolling up the barranco; it rarely rains hard, but paths become greasy and cobbles lethal.

A hire car is almost essential. Bus 483 links San Miguel with Los Cristianos and the airport, but the last return leaves at 20:15. Taxis from the coast cost €20-25 each way; Uber exists but drivers sometimes refuse the climb. Park in the signed underground garage beneath the plaza—first hour free, then €0.60 per hour, and you avoid the narrow one-way system designed when carts had donkeys for power.

Sunday morning is blissfully quiet; Monday everything reopens but feels sleepy. Market day Friday adds colour yet snarls traffic. If you self-cater, stock up at San Blas commercial centre before the ascent: village shops shut 14:00-17:00 and Marmite is unheard of.

The Honest Verdict

San Miguel de Abona is not a destination that will swallow a fortnight. It is, however, the easiest way to taste working Canarian life without abandoning the southern sunshine. Come for half a day and you will leave with decent photos; stay two and you will recognise the baker, know which bar serves coffee in proper cups, and have an opinion on whose mojo is sharpest. Combine it with a morning on the golf coast or an afternoon hike into the pine forest above Vilaflor, and the island suddenly feels larger, layered, less like a brochure and more like a place that was here long before the first package flight landed.