There are two sides to every story. When people think of Tenerife, they often picture the island’s south coast — home to a warm, dry and eternally summery climate and resort towns strung along the shore. The north coast of the largest of the Canary Islands, however, is a different beast: buffeted by bracing trade winds and blessed by Atlantic rain showers, it reveals a greener, wilder and less familiar side of the Canaries — an area where visitors can burrow into the island’s fascinating past.
Here, you’ll find historic, mustard-hued towns and shadowy caves that echo with the legacy of the Indigenous Guanches people. It’s a place where you can swiftly strike into remote and otherworldly landscapes: head north east on ear-popping mountain roads to reach basalt cliffs teetering over a blue sea. In the far north west, meanwhile, the mistshrouded spine of the Anaga Mountains loom, where mighty rock buttresses preside over on silent beaches.
Of course, beaches have long been the primary draw for visitors to the Canary Islands, and the north has them for all occasions, be it blustery beaches for surfers or serene coves for sunbathers — all