[ Dec.2018 ] We spent our holiday over Christmas and New Year in Tenerife, one of the Canary islands in Spain.
Tenerife is a popular destination for British, German and northern European people seeking the sun and it has a public image of a place where young people from those countries come to party, similar to Costa del Sol.
So, my expectations were not very high because I was jumping to conclusions but we had a great time there, enjoying the weather and the view without coming across any drunk people.
The fine weather with a warm temperature was more than I had expected and it was as if we had travelled to the southern hemisphere.
We went there on Christmas Eve.
The flight from Gatwick Airport in London took about 4 and a half hours and, for some reason, most of the time the aeroplane suffered turbulence.
I was expecting to see the blue sea when we were nearer to Tenerife, but although the weather forecast said sunny, outside of the window was just white and we could not see anything.
From the airport, we wanted to take a bus to La Laguna, where our hotel was, because our guidebook says that they have extensive bus routes on the island.
The information office was not in the airport, but it was just outside in a separate small building.
We learned about how to get there by bus as well as getting a Ten+ card, a prepaid card for bus rides.
Apparently, it is 30% cheaper if you use this card than paying the fare to the driver each time.
The card itself costs €2, but two of us could use one card together.
The only problem was that they do not pay you back, so you have to use up the money on the card.
Within the airport, you can buy the card at a mobile phone shop called Lycamobile.
We bought the Ten+ there and got on the No.111 bus, which was just about to leave.
This bus went to Santa Cruz, the capital of the island, which took about one hour.
During the journey, we could see how dry this island was.
The views of dry land with round shrubs and tall straight cactus went on and on.
We saw numerous wind turbines, too.
We changed bus at the Santa Cruz bus station to the No.108 bus and this journey was very short.
The La Laguna bus station seemed to be on the outskirts of the town, so we took a taxi to the hotel.
The 
name of the hotel was La Laguna Gran Hotel, which was lovely.
When we entered the hotel, the first thing we saw was the indoor courtyard, which reminded me of hotels in Andalucia and Cuba.
Our room was spacious enough.
We knew that most of the restaurants in the town closed very early on the day, because it was Christmas Eve, so we decided to have dinner at the hotel.
They only had the special Christmas menu that cost €50 each, which was not cheap, but both the food and atmosphere were much better than I had expected.
Most of the people who came to the special hall for dinner were local families who wanted to have their Christmas dinner at the hotel.
About 120 people came, all dressed up nicely.
On the wall, they were projecting a scene of a window looking out over a snowing view.
I suppose they never see real snow here.
The menu
had various foods including a prawn dish and sirloin beef and they served wine endlessly.
The 5-6 waiters were real professionals, moving among the tables quickly and they never forgot any of our small requests, such as topping up the bread basket.
We were very happy, enjoying the Christmas mood here which we had not expected.
