[ Dec.2018 ] During our winter holiday in Tenerife in Spain, one day, we went to Tacoronte in the north of the island from La Laguna, by bus.
According to the health application on our mobile phones, we walked more than 20,000 steps on that day.
One of the reasons was that we walked to the bus station in La Laguna, which is outside of the old town and that took quite some time because we lost the way a bit.
In the end, we went across the historic La Laguna University site to reach the bus station.
We found that the bus number 57 goes to Tacoronte and it comes every half an hour.
According to the information board, this 57 bus leaves from bus stop number 11, but when we went to the No.11 stop, it said that only the number 105 bus leaves from here.
We thought that was strange, so we walked around the bus station and found that bus stop No.20 had the sign for the 57 bus.
We felt No.20 was the correct one, so we waited there, but the bus did not appear at the correct time.
We got a bit worried, but eventually, the 57 bus arrived late at the No.20 stop.
I think it is unforgivable for the information board to make this kind of mistake at the bus station that many foreign tourists use.
Anyway, we arrived in Tacoronte without any other problems and went to the tourist information office.
The staff member here explained how to walk in Tacoronte in the way that she had done many times before.
We found that a couple of churches to see did not open until afternoon, so we decided to go the wine museum called Casa del Vino in the next town, El Sauzal, first.
The woman in the tourist office said “It is easy to get there on foot. It’s only about 2km away”, but when we started walking, we found that it was quite a long way.
We walked on and on, looking at the sea far down on our right.
The sunlight was very strong on the day and it was more than warm.
It was really hot, like in summer.
Around the time that we started worrying that we must have passed it, we found the museum.
The entrance fee was €3 per person.
Apparently, the Spanish started producing wine as soon as they had finished conquering the island.
There
were exhibits regarding its history, variety of vines, and so on but I was more attracted to the 17th century building itself.
A member of staff there took us to a room which used to be a family chapel and explained that the ceiling was in Mudejar style.
Mudejar is the architecture and design style which is a mixture of Moorish and Christian architectures and we saw a lot of them in Andalucia in Spain.
The museum building had a lovely courtyard and according to our guidebook, they have classical music concerts in July and August here.
We went out to the terrace of the attached restaurant to see the wonderful view with the El Teide mountain.
Our guidebook says that this restaurant has good reviews, though we did not get a chance to try it.
Next to the wine museum, there is the honey museum, too.
Thanks to the endemic plants on this islands, they can produce various unique honeys, apparently.
After learning these things, it was the time for wine tasting.
They charge for wine tasting here.
We tried red wines, one was €2.80 and the other was €2.90 with some local cheese.
They said they were full-bodied, but for us they were rather light.
Later, someone told us that in Tenerife, white wines have a good reputation.
