Costa Adeje

Costa Adeje is the smart end of the southern coast and the newest of it. Where Playa de las Americas was built in the 1960s and 1970s, Costa Adeje went up large…Costa Adeje is the smart end of the southern coast and the newest of it. Where Playa de las Americas was built in the 1960s and 1970s, Costa Adeje went up largely from the 1990s onwards, which is why the hotels are bigger, the promenade is wider and the prices are higher.

It runs north from the boundary with Playa de las Americas through Torviscas and Fanabe to Playa del Duque, which is the beach the resort is built around: pale imported sand, a colonnade of beach bars behind it and calm water inside the breakwater. A continuous seafront promenade links the whole strip, so you can walk from one end to the other in about an hour without leaving the coast.

Puerto Colon, the marina in the middle of it, is where most of the whale and dolphin boats leave from, along with the jet skis, the parasailing and the fishing charters. Behind the resort the ground rises quickly into hillside urbanisations full of villas, and behind those the road climbs to the paragliding launches and eventually to Teide.

The practical case for staying here is the beaches and the reliability of the weather. The case against is that it is entirely purpose-built: the town of Adeje proper, with its church and its ravine walk, is a separate place several kilometres inland and worth the trip.