Puerto de la Cruz
A self-guided GPS audio walk through the town that invented Canary tourism. A fishing harbour turned Victorian health resort, a seawater lido shaped by an artist and a royal botanical garden, told in your ear right where they sit above the Atlantic.
Puerto de la Cruz, more than its beaches
Not the sun-lounger shots. The stories behind the harbour, the gardens and the old hotels, whispered in your ear on the exact spot they belong to. Here are three. Many more wait inside the tour.
A king ordered this garden built so that plants carried from the far side of the world could be taught to survive in Europe. More than two centuries later they are still here, including a fig tree the size of a house.
Full story unlocks in the tour
These sculpted seawater pools are not just a swim. They are the work of one of Spain’s most famous artists, built from black volcanic rock on the very spot where natural tide pools once lay.
Full story unlocks in the tour
The grand hotel on the hill drew Europe’s invalids and aristocrats when Tenerife tourism was brand new, and in 1927 it took in a very famous guest who had just reappeared after vanishing from England.
Full story unlocks in the tour
City Pass
Puerto de la Cruz: self-guided audio tour
Code valid 1 year · 12h once activated · offline
€12
€12 / code
Instant email delivery · activation code generated on purchase
Point your phone, follow the arrow, never get lost
The tour carries an augmented-reality guide. Lift your phone and the camera shows the street ahead with a glowing arrow laid over the real view, always pointing to your next stop. No map to decode, no wrong turns, and like everything here it runs completely offline once you have downloaded it.
- Start any time, any day. No fixed slot, no guide to meet, no queue.
- Native-voice narration in your language, one story unlocking at each stop.
- Download it once and it works fully offline, no roaming, no dead zones.
- A GPS route plus an augmented-reality arrow so you never take a wrong turn.
The story of Puerto de la Cruz
Puerto de la Cruz is where tourism on Tenerife began. A compact town on the green north coast, it wraps a working fishing harbour in gardens, promenades and old hotels, with the slopes of the Orotava valley rising behind and the Atlantic breaking in front. It is flat, walkable and far older in spirit than the resort strips of the south.
It grew up as the port of inland La Orotava, and when the eruption of 1706 destroyed the harbour of Garachico along the coast, Puerto de la Cruz rose to become the island’s most important port, shipping out sugar and wine. In the nineteenth century a new kind of visitor arrived, northern Europeans seeking the mild winter climate, making this one of the first holiday resorts in the Canary Islands.
The first resort in the islands
By the late nineteenth century the town had its grand hotels, among them the Taoro up in its park, built with British money and opened in 1890, while old mansions in the centre became the first guesthouses. A British community put down roots here, leaving behind an Anglican church and the oldest Anglican cemetery in the Canaries. The mass tourism of sun and sea came later, in the 1950s.
Gardens, pools and an artist’s hand
In 1788 King Carlos III ordered a botanical garden here, the Jardín de Aclimatación, to acclimatise tropical plants brought from Spain’s colonies before sending them on to the mainland. It is often called the second-oldest botanical garden in Spain. On the seafront, the Lago Martiánez lido, a complex of seawater pools in black volcanic stone, was designed by the Lanzarote artist César Manrique and finished in the 1970s.
What to look out for
Wander the old fishing quarter around Plaza del Charco, the small Castillo de San Felipe that once guarded the coast against pirates, and the black sand of Playa Jardín at the western end. The harbour itself still lands fish, and the lanes of La Ranilla behind it have become the town’s most characterful corner.
When to go
The north coast is milder and greener than the south, and often a little cloudier, which is exactly what first drew winter visitors. It is a year-round town, busiest with northern Europeans in the winter and with Spanish holidaymakers in August. Carnival, in late winter, is the wildest week to be here.
Where is Puerto de la Cruz?
Puerto de la Cruz sits on the north coast of Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, just below the town of La Orotava and about half an hour west of the capital, Santa Cruz. It faces the open Atlantic, with the green Orotava valley climbing behind it toward Teide.
Three things most visitors never learn
- A garden built to tame the tropics. The town’s botanical garden was founded in 1788 on the orders of a Spanish king, as a halfway house where tropical plants from the Americas and Asia could be coaxed into the Canary climate before being sent on to the royal gardens of the mainland.
- Pools designed by an artist. The Lago Martiánez bathing complex on the seafront was shaped by César Manrique, the Lanzarote artist, who turned a stretch of coast into a landscape of seawater lakes and black volcanic rock rather than an ordinary swimming pool.
- A herd of goats in the sea. Every year on the eve of San Juan, hundreds of goats are driven down to the harbour and walked into the Atlantic in a bathing ritual whose roots are traced back to the island’s Guanche past.
Puerto de la Cruz in your language, all 32
Korean, Chinese, Hebrew and 29 more, every stop narrated by a native speaker. One of the widest language choices of any self-guided audio tour.
Get the key to Puerto de la Cruz
Pick your stops, start walking, and let the voice reveal what everyone else walks straight past.
City Pass
Puerto de la Cruz: self-guided audio tour
Code valid 1 year · 12h once activated · offline
€12
€12 / code
Instant email delivery · activation code generated on purchase