The big city of Santa Cruz has so much to offer that we make a separate blog post out of it. It belongs in its own way in the series about Tenerife (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and yet is independent. In this post we report on all our experiences in Santa Cruz, located on the northeast coast of Tenerife.

Santa Cruz is the vibrant big city on Tenerife. It is located directly on the coast and stretches up the adjacent slopes. There is always a slope, especially in the outer quarters. Fortunately, the city center itself is mostly flat, which makes our exploration on foot easier. In Santa Cruz there are several sights we would like to visit. An African market, an art museum, a church, the coastline with the auditorium, the Palmetum and in general the city center with various parks. And as a surprise spectacle, several times we are in the middle of the Carnival of Santa Cruz!

Carnival – Santa Cruz, Tenerife

Towards the end of February 2023, various news reaches us from home, the Fasnacht – that is, the Swiss Carnival – begins without us. We as Lucerners are of course Fasnacht fans and mostly every year present at the festivities. Well, it would be nice to be there, but our travel plans are at least as great. And in the end, we don’t have to start the spring without carnival at all. To our surprise, the big carnival takes place in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, exactly at the time of our visit. We experience the opening parade, over 4h various carriages, rhythm and dance groups pass by us. Now that’s a carnival opening!
But the carnival in Santa Cruz is far from over. Now it really just beginns. About the coming four weeks whole Santa Cruz is celebrating and dancing.
In addition to the carnival, there are open air bars and large stages for concerts throughout the city and countless roller coasters and other amusement attractions are built between the city and the port.
In addition to the opening parade, we experience other great festivities of the carnival in the following weeks. Before we go on the ferry back to the Spanish mainland, we pass again in Santa Cruz. At this point we had already forgotten about the carnival. Only when we drive to the large RV parking lot of Santa Cruz, we realize that we are again in the city exactly at the second Daytime Carnival. And so it comes that we wanted to go to Santa Cruz to only have comfortably dinner and instead we landed in the middle of the party turmoil. The whole city vibrates, celebrates and dances exuberantly until the morning hours. We return to the van a bit earlier than the last festival attendees. At this time, we were not in the city because of the carnival. But we have also no chance of leaving Santa Cruz in the night since in the meantime the whole parking lot and each tiniest gap was parked all over. So, we stay for a carnival night in Santa Cruz anyways, only the next morning around noon we can slowly start to think of leaving the parking area. Fortunately, our ferry does not leave just the next day!

Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África

The African market is an integral part of Santa Cruz. It is open Tuesdays to Sundays daily from 9:00-14:30 and has many different stores on two floors. You can of course say there are market stalls, but the market is set up rather fixed that they are actually already real stores. They are nevertheless typically arranged for a market in such a way that the most beautiful goods are presented directly at the aisle with the customers. Especially the fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood and meat products are partly sold openly in an original way. There the market feeling comes really into the foreground.
It turns out that the name of the market: Nuestra Señora de África, probably comes strongly from history. Africa is only a few hundred nautical miles away from the Canary Islands. Accordingly, trade with Africa was certainly strong in the past and partly is still today, depending on the products. On the market itself today at least as many regional products from the Canary Islands as from all over the world are sold.
Another special feature is that there are several food stalls and restaurants on the market. Partly the fish are offered directly as a dish to be eaten on the spot. It can’t get any fresher than this, except directly at the harbor!

TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes

The art museum TEA was co-designed and realized by the Swiss architects Herzog and De Meuron. Accordingly, Mimi in particular is drawn to this building. The fact that it also houses an art museum and the library of Santa Cruz becomes almost a minor matter. The architecture is the main focus of our visit. Both the museum and the library are freely accessible and so we stroll through the building and let the building work on us.

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción

The Catholic church Nuestra Señora de la Concepción was built in the 15th century and since then it has been constantly expanded and rebuilt. It is a neat church, already from the appearance from the outside. We try twice to visit the church. Unfortunately, it does not work both times, because of the carnival the entrance area is closed off extensively. Only for church services the church is open during the carnival, however, a visit during the service is somewhat inappropriate from our point of view.
Accordingly, we have to leave this church in Santa Cruz without visiting it. Too bad!

Auditorium of Tenerife

Right next to the big harbor area at the sea is the Auditorium of Tenerife. It is an artistic building with curved roofs. It is almost reminiscent of the world-famous Sydney Opera House – in a much smaller version, of course.
The auditorium with its striking shape is the landmark of Santa Cruz and can be found on countless postcards. By the way, the building was designed by the Spanish-Swiss architect Santiago Calatrava.
Because of the special shape of the building, we take a look at it from all sides. Also, a small break fits our visit. In the restaurant of the auditorium we can recover a little from our city walk with a beautiful sea view before we continue on foot.

Palmetum

The Palmetum Tenerife is a special kind of botanical garden. Moreover, the underlying ecological aspect is great. The garden was created on an old garbage dump, so that the area is gradually re-naturalized. In addition, it can thus serve as a recreational area for the population as well as tourists, where previously there was a fallow area within walking distance of the city center. The name also reveals a little about the orientation of the botanical garden. Countless palm species from all over the world are planted and cultivated in the Palmetum. Different sections mimic the different regions of the world with their different palm trees. From the top of the small hill, we enjoy the magnificent view from a bench, under palm trees, looking at the grand expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

Park García Sanabria

The most beautiful park of Tenerife, or at least that’s how it is advertised, is García Sanabria Park. And indeed, already when entering the park, we notice how tidy it is. The wide, as well as the small winding paths are tiptop tidy, no leaf lies on the gravel of the footpath. The plantings are beautifully maintained, large trees provide shade and after every few hundred meters we catch sight of a work of art, a sculpture or a bench. This park is wonderfully arranged. This invites us to stay longer. So, we also stay some moments in the park to take in the green impressions.

City center of Santa Cruz

In Santa Cruz there are several smaller agglomerations within the actual city. There is a considerable shopping mile in the center of the city. There is no lack of anything in the stores, in this city we could almost forget that we are on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. The houses here are mostly modern, the cityscape as well.
In the southeastern part of Santa Cruz, the houses are a bit older and cozier. Here are some of the good restaurants and nightlife of Tenerife. Towards the northeast, the spirit of the port city really comes alive. On one side of the main four-lane highway are still townhouses, directly on the other are large port buildings, warehouses and other industry.
Last but not least, the cozy corners in Santa Cruz are all located towards the top of town. Further up the hillside are many residential neighborhoods and accordingly many green spaces, sports facilities and cozy cafes are located to the northwest from the center of Santa Cruz.
We were allowed to experience many parts of Santa Cruz, in the end we spent a few days in this city and started to feel really at home. But as it often happens, when you travel you move on when it is most beautiful.

Ferry back to the mainland of Spain

The last night on Tenerife we also spend in Santa Cruz. We booked the return trip by RoRo ferry in the middle of the night. Thus, we park at 23.00 o’clock in the evening at the embarking waiting area with the planned 01.30 o’clock departure of the ferry. As it can happen with ship journeys our ferry has considerable delay. It arrives only shortly before 01.00 o’clock. Accordingly, first everything is unloaded and so the departure is delayed by several hours. Until we can finally drive onto the ferry it is almost 04.00 o’clock. Fortunately, we always have our bed with us – Mimi treats herself to a little sleep during the waiting time before we can finally park our van Ben safely on the ferry and move into a cozy lounge space for the return trip.