Tenerife: La Orotava (3/8)

I'm continuing my tales from Tenerife with a little bit about the town of La Orotava.

I remember getting back to my Uncle’s place after a long day of exploring and waxing lyrical about this town. There was something distinctive and prestigious about the feel of this town that seemed to permeate my time there.

Perhaps it was something to do with the history of writers and artists that have set up shop in La Orotava to create and explore their art in this island haven.

Perhaps it was the clash of this cultural epicentre with Tenerife’s extreme natural beauty.

Perhaps I just happened to be in a good mood due to a good night's sleep or having some food drugged by a friendly spiker…

Perhaps the town just emanates prestige… Who knows?

The big sights in this small town are the church, the main square, and some historic buildings. They were all beautiful in their own right and it was a welcome change to see some man-made beauty after already exploring Teide National Park and the mountainous region around Masca.

The architecture was fantastic to marvel at, especially against the backdrop of the non-man-made, natural beauty of Tenerife! I especially enjoyed my encounters with Dragon trees, which are huge and plentiful in this town.

If you’re close by, I’d take a few hours to check La Orotava out and explore the quaint streets.

As night fell on this town, I realised I was several hours from where I was staying and already worn out from a day of exploring. It was one of those realisations that makes you wonder why you ever leave your house… Or why they haven’t got round to inventing teleportation yet?

I kept myself awake by listening to obscene podcasts with fresh air blowing in my face while concentrating on the curvy mountain roads that made this such a driving challenge. It was a tough slog and I took refuge in the wise words of the many motivational speakers that I listen to on YouTube. This encouragement got me through, despite arriving back in a manic and unintelligible state.

Perhaps it was this mental state that had me singing La Orotava’s praises from the hilltops. The joy of being alive had transferred to the joy of seeing La Orotava.

Well that makes a bit more sense…

So enjoy the photos of the town and don’t forget to watch our 360 VR experience as well, to fully immerse yourself in this town. Ciao for now!

  

Ruta De Los Calderones - Chulilla

As we mentioned in our last post about the San Juan festival in Valencia, my cousin Anya and her friend Charlotte came to stay after their A-Level exams. We had an absolutely raucous time celebrating with them, doing all sorts of wild things like going for hikes and lying on the beach. Boy, do we know how to party! 

I feel as thirty-year-olds, the burning fire of crazy youth has dwindled to smouldering embers that require a lot of work to stoke back to that level of youthful craziness. 

Although it wasn't too crazy, we did have a really nice time (and hopefully they did too!) One of the days we rented a car to explore some of the countryside around the city. Our first stop was a town called Chulilla, which had been recommended to me by a colleague as a good place for a nice walk. And it was! We parked up, picked a direction and started walking. Pretty early into the walk we got a lovely view of a ravine, and spotted some little deer down at the bottom!

The day was hot and there was no shade on the hike, so we took it easy and the girls were very vigilant with their sun cream. After a while we came to a suspension bridge, which Anya and I were a little nervous about crossing. But we did it! And then tried not to think too much about having to do it again on the way back…

After an hour, we came across a lovely little clearing with a bridge across the stream, where Dave and Charlotte had a paddle to cool off. Then we turned around and made our way back, as our water supplies were running low and we forgot to nominate a hydration captain for the day! After the near-death-by-dehydration experience on a hike earlier this year, we've decided a hydration captain is essential whenever we're out of the house.

Back at the car we rehydrated and enjoyed our packed lunches before heading into the town of Chulilla. We attempted to make our way to the castle but were thwarted by the insanely narrow roads and maze-like one-way system. This has become a reoccurring problem when driving through small towns with castles on hilltops. The roads were designed for little horses, not rental cars with little horsepower and large excesses.

After agreeing that returning the rental car un-ruined was more important that seeing the castle ruins, we left Chulilla (which is very quaint) and headed further west. We enjoyed the views as we drove around the hills and sandy, dry fields. Then we came across an incredible reservoir and dam in a place called Benagéber. The views were pretty impressive and we stopped for a while to take it all in.

Once we’d had our fill of the vista we headed back towards Valencia, stopping briefly in Chelva. We thought there might be a nice walk to be had around the Ruta del Agua area, but either we were in the wrong place, or it just didn’t seem impressive enough to our tired eyes. Regardless, we found a picnic bench and enjoyed the excuse to stop and have an ice lolly.

It was a lovely day and, while the landscape around Valencia isn’t my favourite, I’m definitely growing accustomed to the less lush, less green nature and learning to appreciate it for what it is. And it’s not half bad.

The dam and reservoir in Benagéber

Ruta de los Aguas in Chelva

Transfagaras

Romania continues with a drive from Sibiu to Pitesti along the part of the trip we were most excited about because it involved driving along the Transfagaran Highway, which Jeremy Clarkson describes as "the best road in the world”.

The road is fully drivable during the summer, but until the beginning of June the northern and highest part of the road is usually still closed. We were driving it on 1st June and couldn't get any definitive information as to whether or not this top part was open. I wanted to risk it and approach from the north, as this was the much more logical way to do it, but Katie talked me down and we decided to approach from the south. This turned out to be very wise, as the road was, in fact, blocked higher up by a rather dramatic ice wall. It was like something out of Game of Thrones (but with less incest).

Before we hit the ice wall, however, we first needed to reach the road itself. This took longer than planned, partly because of a few stop-offs along the way - this country is just too beautiful! We saw a lovely lake and some ancient Roman ruins from 138AD.

We passed some beautiful scenery on our way to the Transfagaran highway, until we hit some back roads that turned out to be more like rubble paths. We vibrated and nearly weed ourselves for an hour or two on these awful roads. We stopped once as we were surrounded by a herd of sheep, and again for a comfort break in a bush where we were intimidated by this knife carrying young man. It was like being back in London.

Then we finally arrived on the highway and were greeted by mountain views and flowing rivers that took our breath away. It was fantastic. We passed a huge dam as well, which was gorgeous. The photos don’t really do the views justice; they were absolutely phenomenal.

We climbed and climbed in the crappy VW Polo and started to see snow on the hilltops. The temperature dropped from 25 to about 5 degrees. It was stunning. 

The roads themselves were a joy to drive on, as they carved a smooth path up the mountain. Until we hit the ice wall!

We turned around and headed back down the valley with full views of these gorgeous scenes. It was one of those experiences that photos and words just can't do justice to. The empty, peaceful roads coupled with the dramatic landscapes are something to remember for a long time. What a day!

The views on the way to the road were so stunning, we didn't really think it could get any better

The road leading to the "best road in the world" was pretty darn awesome too!

The aforementioned Roman ruins are on the left of this photo

What a scummy dam...

It was actually pretty impressive

Our car snacks were very much on theme!

As we drove higher, the snow eventually started to encroach on the road

And then we reached the impassable bit

So we headed back down!

Could you ever actually get bored of looking at that?

It was a bit of a shock arriving in built-up Pitesti after all of that natural wonderment