Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Santa Cruz is the working heart of Tenerife, a port city on the north-east coast where cruise liners, container ships and ferries have docked for centuries. While the south of the island built itself around sun loungers and resorts, the capital grew up around trade, and it shows. Colonial façades sit next to bold modern design, and almost everything worth seeing is close enough to reach on foot.

It began in 1494, when the Castilian conqueror Alonso Fernández de Lugo came ashore and planted a silver cross on the beach. That cross gave the place its name, Santa Cruz, the holy cross. For a long time it was only a landing stage serving the real capital inland, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, up in the cooler hills.

Everything changed in 1706. A volcanic eruption swallowed the harbour of Garachico, until then the island’s busiest port, and the sea traffic moved south to Santa Cruz almost overnight. By 1723 it was the island’s leading town, and in 1833 it was named capital of the whole Canary archipelago, a title it held alone until it began to share the honour with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1927.

The city also earned a strange footnote in British naval history. In 1797 Admiral Horatio Nelson led an assault on the port and failed badly, losing his right arm to a cannon shot in the process. Santa Cruz still marks the victory every year, and the defence of the city remains a point of local pride. For a lighter kind of fame, its February Carnival is one of the largest on earth, rivalled only by Rio de Janeiro.

Start at Plaza de España, the vast seafront square with its circular lake, and remember the sixteenth-century castle of San Cristóbal lies beneath your feet. A short walk away, the Auditorio de Tenerife rises like a frozen wave, the work of architect Santiago Calatrava and now a symbol of the island itself.

For green and quiet, Parque García Sanabria is the largest city park in the Canaries, full of sculpture, exotic planting and a famous floral clock. History lovers should find the MUNA museum, where the mummies of the Guanches, the island’s indigenous people, are kept, while the TEA arts centre handles the contemporary side. End at the Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África for local food, or drive out to Playa de Las Teresitas when you want the beach.

The capital is warm and subtropical all year. For comfortable walking with little rain, aim for March to May or September to November. If you want the spectacle, come for Carnival in February, though the streets are packed and rooms sell out months ahead.