Tenerife Historical landmarks

Tenerife's built history is Spanish colonial and it is concentrated in the north, because that is where the island was governed from and where the water was. La Laguna's grid of sixteenth-century streets is UNESCO-listed and was copied across Spanish America. La Orotava has the grandest of the balconied merchant houses, built on sugar and then on wine.

The coast carries the defensive half of the story: the castles and batteries built against the English and Dutch raids, and Garachico, the island's main port until the 1706 eruption buried it in lava. The lava field is still there and the rock pools in it are now the town's swimming.