Tenerife is one of those striking islands that are visited by countless visitors and tourists each year. But once you step beyond tourist attractions and resorts, you will find that the island is incredibly diverse. Here are 18 interesting facts about this island. How many of them do you know? Are you able to add anymore to this list?
1. Tenerife is the biggest out of all the Canary Islands.
2. The flag for Tenerife is the same one that is used by Scotland, as St Andrew happens to be a patron saint for this island.
3. 43% out of the entire population of the Canary Islands reside on this island.
4. The Canary bird happened to be named after these islands, and not the islands named after the bird.
5. Each year this island attracts more than 5 million tourists.
6. The longest of the beaches in Tenerife is El Medano which stretches over 2 kilometres.
7. In Spain and Tenerife, Tuesday the 13th is regarded as unlucky, unlike Friday the 13th as in various other countries across the globe.
8. Tenerife along with the other Canary Islands has different time zones when compared to the remainder of Spain and they use GMT. If you happen to be listening to the Spanish radio when on a holiday, it gives the time as half past 2, it will be an hour less when compared to the Canaries.
9. Most of the beaches in Tenerife are unnatural and are man-made beaches with the sand imported from elsewhere. The natural beaches have a characteristic type of black sand.
10. Tenerife has 2 international airports. The first is Reina Sofia airport based in the southern part of the island, which is nearby the well-known resorts of Los Cristianos and Playa de Las Americas, and the Los Rodeos airport which is in the north of the island closer to the tourist resort known as Puerto de la Cruz.
11. 2 of the largest attractions on the island are Mount Teide, where the top part is over 3,000 metres above-sea-level, and Loro Parque in Puerto de la Cruz.
12. The Teide National Park in Tenerife is a UNESCO World Heritage site and happens to be the 2nd most visited national park in the whole world.
13. Due to its massive size, Mount Teide casts the biggest of sea shadows in the world.
14. The Thai themed Siam Park on the island is the largest water-park in the whole of Europe and provides a water slide that is considered to be one of the very highest worldwide.
15. Siam Park is currently the holder of 7 world records. This is inclusive of the biggest Thai building that falls outside of Asia, the biggest man-made wave across the globe which reaches around 3.3 meters, an increasing diversity in their slides and the TripAdvisor’s 2015 Traveller’s Choice Winner for the best out of the water parks in the world.
16. La Cueva del Viento (The Wind Cave) is the biggest volcanic tube in Europe and measures 18 kilometres in its length. It is considered one of the 10 longest lava tubes in the world and houses a variety of passages underground.
17. William Shakespeare mentioned Canarian wine in 2 different parts of his work. This includes The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV. Each year he was given one barrel of the Tenerife Malmsey wine which formed a portion of the salary that he earned.
18. We were once told that originally there were 3 islands with the mountain ranges known as Anaga, Teno and Valle San Lorenzo. However, with the extensive volcanic activities, at some stage, all these areas merged together and this is what we know as Tenerife today.
Interesting articles about Tenerife are available on Carmen’s Luxury Travel and if you want to go even deeper and get all the current information you need about the island, visit www.tenerifeforum.site and join one of the popular buzzing communities.