La Orotava

The morning cloud sits low over the valley like a wool blanket, and for a moment La Orotava disappears entirely. Then, almost on cue, it lifts—first revealing the tower of Iglesia de la Concepción, then the black-lava roofs, then the banana terraces that spill downhill towards Puerto de la Cruz and the Atlantic beyond. That daily vanishing act, known locally as panza de burro (donkey’s belly), is the town’s most reliable free show; arrive before 11 a.m. and you can watch it from the Humboldt viewpoint while the cruise crowds are still finishing breakfast on the coast.

At 230 metres above sea level, La Orotava has the altitude to command the view without surrendering to the mid-summer heat that fries the southern resorts. The trade-off is gradient: every street seems to be either a 1-in-4 ascent or descent, and the cobbles are the genuine 16th-century article—decorative but unforgiving to anything flatter than a walking boot. Park beneath Plaza de la Constitución (first hour free, then €1 per hour) and climb on foot; drivers who insist on “just popping up” to the old quarter usually meet a resident coming the other way on a lane barely wider than a bath mat.

Mansions, Mud and Flower Carpets

Start with Calle San Francisco, the photographer’s favourite. Here the famous wooden balconies—balcones de tea, carved from dark Canary pine—project so far that neighbours can almost shake hands across the street. The most opulent belong to Casa de los Balcones, a 1632 mansion turned living museum where admission (€5) includes a self-guided shuffle through courtyards dripping with bougainvillea and a demonstration of the island’s bobbin-lace tradition. English-speaking staff hover discreetly, but the captions are Spanish-only; download a translation app or simply enjoy the shade and the smell of waxed timber.

Next door, the church of La Concepción charges no entry fee and keeps its doors open even during siesta. Inside, the silver altar vessels gleam like pirate treasure, and the ceiling is a riot of painted palms and gilded cherubs that would feel Baroque anywhere else but here feels simply Canarian. A two-minute detour up the side aisle leads to a small balcony with a vertiginous view over the valley—perfect if the outdoor viewpoints are still wrapped in cloud.

Time your visit for June and you’ll see the town at its most surreal. Corpus Christi brings the alfombras—carpets of volcanic sand dyed ochre, cobalt and rust, laid overnight on the very cobbles you’ve been stumbling over. By noon the procession has trampled them into abstract art, so photographers need to be early. Hotels in Puerto de la Cruz jack up prices that week, but La Orotava itself remains stubbornly residential; book a rural house on the northern fringe and you’ll pay half the coastal rate.

Lunch Where the Waiters Still Wear Waistcoats

When the church bell strikes two, follow the stream of locals uphill to Calle Tomás Zerolo. Bar Los Castillos occupies a corner with no sea view, no English menu in the window and no intention of changing. Inside, the house speciality is croquetas de choco—cuttlefish croquettes with a jet-black interior that tastes of the Atlantic in winter. A plate of three costs €4.50, and the house wine (Listán negro from the valley’s own terraces) is poured from a plain white jug at €2.20 a glass. Vegetarians survive on papas arrugadas—wrinkled potatoes lifted from the volcanic soil that same morning—and the local goat cheese drizzled with palm honey. Lunch for two, including the complimentary shot of honey rum, rarely breaks €25.

If you prefer linen napkins, Hotel Rural Victoria’s courtyard offers a three-course menú del día for €18 under 200-year-old dragon trees. The food is competent rather than memorable, but the garden delivers the town’s most civilised coffee stop: British-style cafetières, home-made sponge and a view straight down the banana terraces to the coast.

From Vineyards to Lava Flows

La Orotava’s other life is agricultural. The valley floor was once the granary of Tenerife; today the terraces grow vines at 400 m and potatoes at 1,200 m. A 15-minute drive up the TF-21 brings you to the turn-off for Pinolere, a hamlet that hosts an ethnographic museum and a Sunday craft market where you can buy a hand-carved salto de mata—the wooden yoke farmers once used to manoeuvre mules between terraces. The road narrows to a single lane after the village; carry on and you reach the pine forest of La Caldera, where a 5-km circular trail threads through lava flows cooled to the texture of melted toffee. Morning is best: by afternoon the cloud can drop again, turning the path into a damp tunnel of moss and muffled coughs.

Serious walkers use the town as a staging post for Teide National Park. The cable-car base station is only 35 km away, but the gain in altitude (from 230 m to 3,555 m) is best tackled after a night’s acclimatisation in La Orotava rather than in a beach hotel at sea level. Winter visitors should pack a fleece even if the coast is 24 °C; snow frequently blocks the upper road between December and March, and the park service insists on tyre chains or 4×4.

When the Sun Doesn’t Shine

Weather is the town’s weak spot. Between November and April the north coast can record three times the rainfall of the south, and La Orotava’s streets become shiny streams. The antidote is mansion-hopping: Casa Lercaro (€2) displays 18th-century furniture in near-silence, while the Convento de San José has a tiny cloister where the only sound is the fountain and the occasional German tourist whispering “Entschuldigung”. Both close 14:00-16:00, so time your cultural sprint for late morning and emerge when the bars reopen.

Fridays bring the outdoor market to Calle Calvario—cheap avocados, dubious sunglasses and a queue for the churro van that stretches back to the 17th-century hospital. Go early if you want photos without elbows; by 11 a.m. the street is a slow-moving river of shopping trolleys and the scent of fried dough drifts halfway to the sea.

Getting There, Getting Out

Titsa bus 103 from Puerto de la Cruz takes 15 minutes and costs €1.25—quicker than hunting for a parking space. From Santa Cruz the 348 service runs hourly, 50 minutes, €4.50. A €10 Bono day pass covers unlimited hops, handy if you decide to continue up to the national park after lunch. Drivers should note that most accommodation inland is accessed by lanes steeper than anything in the Lake District; if your hire car is the size of a shoebox, you’ll still fold the mirrors in.

Evening options are limited. The town folds early: shutters clatter down at 22:00 and the nightlife consists of elderly men arguing over dominoes in Plaza de la Constitución. Walkers content with an early night will sleep well; party animals are better off catching the late bus back to Puerto de la Cruz where the bars stay open until the small hours.

La Orotava offers no beach, no all-day English breakfast and no water park. What it does offer is a living, working town where the monuments are still somebody’s home and the wine arrives in unlabelled bottles that taste of volcano and Atlantic salt. Come for the balconies, stay for the cloud lift, and leave before the cobbles claim another pair of flip-flops.