San Bartolomé de Tirajana

From the top deck of Global bus 18, the Atlantic disappears behind a ridge of pines and the temperature gauge on your phone falls six degrees in ten minutes. San Bartolomé de Tirajana—known simply as Tunte to anyone who actually lives here—begins at the point where the duty-free perfume ads pasted on coastal billboards give way to hand-painted signs for cherry liqueur. The village sits 900 metres above the coastal strip that most Brits still call “Playa del Inglés,” yet the drive takes only thirty-five minutes along the GC-60, a road that corkscrews through so many climate zones you half expect to pass a passport checkpoint.

Tunte is not pretty in the postcard sense. The stone houses lean at angles that suggest they started arguing with gravity centuries ago and never quite resolved the dispute. Balconies painted the colour of papaya and pistachio jut over lanes barely wide enough for a Seat Ibiza, while elderly men in flat caps play dominoes under a ceiba tree that lost its original shape during a gale in 1987. What the village offers instead of picture perfection is a sudden hush: no surf-shop playlists, no touts thrusting laminated menus in your face, just the click of domino tiles and the smell of woodsmoke drifting from a bakery that opens when it feels like it.

That bakery, Panadería San Bartolomé, still fires its oven with almond prunings. Arrive before eleven and you can buy a still-warm pan de leña for €1.80; the crust is thick enough to saw open and stuff with local goat’s cheese that costs half the supermarket price and tastes twice as sharp. Ask for media ración of queso de flor and the woman behind the counter will want to know which ferry you caught, whether the wind bothered you on deck, and why British supermarkets wrap everything in so much plastic. The conversation is part of the service; no one queues behind you because island time stretches like mozzarella.

Walk fifty metres up Callejón Princesa Guayarmina and you understand why the Camino blogs get lyrical. The alley is barely shoulder-wide, paved with water-worn stones that shine like pewter after rain. Overhead, wooden balconies almost touch, turning the lane into a tunnel where swallows dart through shafts of light. Peer through the green shutters of number 14 and you’ll see the original 1690 town hall: a single room with a ceiling of dark pine beams and a ledger open on a desk, as if the clerk has just stepped out to stretch his legs. The ethnographic museum next door charges €2 entry; inside, glass cases hold coffee grinders, sugar-cane shears and a British biscuit tin repurposed to store communion wafers. No one rushes you; the caretaker may offer a thimble of the aforementioned cherry liqueur if the day is slow.

Outside, the plaza is dominated by the church of San Bartolomé, its bell tower repaired so many times it resembles a patchwork quilt in volcanic stone. Mass is at seven every evening; the doors stay open afterwards so the cool air can circulate, and tourists are welcome to sit in the back pews while grandmothers count rosary beads and gossip about almond prices. The temperature at this altitude can drop to 12 °C in January once the sun disappears—pack a fleece even if the coast hit 26 °C at lunchtime.

If you have a car, continue three kilometres beyond the village to the mirador on the GC-60. From the railing you look straight down a 600-metre wall of basalt into the Barranco de Tirajana, where terraces of avocado and custard-apple glow almost fluorescent against the black rock. Across the gorge, the abandoned hamlet of Cercado de Espino clings to a shelf of land like a row of swallows’ nests. A short footpath drops from the viewpoint to the hamlet in twenty-five minutes; the stone houses are roofless but their threshing circles remain, perfect picnic spots if you remembered water—there is no bar, no fountain, and mobile signal vanishes with the first bend.

Serious walkers can join the GR-131 which skirts the village before climbing towards the island’s spine. Allow four hours to reach the pine-shadowed saddle below Roque Nublo; the trail is way-marked but the sun is brutal even in March, and the wind at the top can whip a baseball cap into the next postcode. Cloud often piles up against the caldera rim, so you may pay your sweat equity for a view of grey vapour. On clear days, though, Tenerife’s Pico del Teide floats on the horizon like a snow-topped mirage, 120 kilometres away yet close enough to make out the cable-car dock.

Back in Tunte, Sunday morning feels like a film set on a day the director forgot to call the cast. Shutters stay down, the bakery is dark, even the dogs yawn. Come Monday and the place re-animates: the little Spar-equivalent opens at eight, the craft shop opposite unloads new batches of almendrados (almond biscuits so brittle they shatter if you breathe on them), and the bar next to the church serves coffee so strong it could revive basalt. Most visitors drop in for an hour on a round-island coach tour; they photograph the plaza and leave before the biscuits cool. Stay for lunch and you’ll notice the soundtrack change—English gives way to Canario Spanish, and German hikers are outnumbered by local teachers gossiping over escaldón de gofio, a thick maize porridge topped with raw onion and mojo. It costs €6.50 including a glass of house red that tastes more honest than anything sold by the magnum on the seafront.

Practicalities: Global bus 18 runs from Maspalomas six times on weekdays, three at weekends; the last return is 17:30, so a day trip is feasible but not leisurely. Car hire starts at €28 a day in low season; petrol is cheaper than the UK, and parking in Tunte is free but tight—arrive before eleven or circle the plaza like a vulture. Cash is still king; several bars reject cards under €10 and the village cash machine sometimes runs dry on Friday afternoon. If you need overnight digs, the seven-room Hotelito el Campo occupies a converted manor house on the edge of town; doubles are €70 with breakfast, the pool is unheated but the view stretches clear to the sea.

Evenings bring the clearest reminder that you are no longer on the coast. Swifts replace gulls, the air smells of pine resin rather than suncream, and when the church bell strikes nine the temperature has usually fallen low enough to justify the jumper you almost left in the suitcase. Sit on the plaza bench long enough and someone will ask whether you have tried the honey rum made by the beekeeper in Santa Lucía. Accept the offer; the measure comes in a shot glass small enough to reassure the driver, the flavour tastes like liquid Christmas pudding, and the conversation that follows is the closest thing Tunte has to an entry fee. You will not find this liqueur in duty-free on the way home—another small mercy that keeps the village just beyond the reach of the coastal souvenir conveyor belt.