Article by Michael Portillo for Medlife magazine on Tenerife, Summer 2005.

There is no escaping the evil mountain. Wherever you go in Tenerife, the volcano towers above you. On winter and spring nights its snow-covered summit looms from the darkness like a ghost. You can forgive the Guanches (the island’s earliest inhabitants) for naming it Teide, meaning malevolent. It had a malicious habit of spewing lava. Even after the Spanish had landed in 1493 to colonise Tenerife, bubbling magma tore a gash in Teide’s side and once more transformed the island’s contours.

Today a huge area around the volcano is national park. In this vast temple to the destructive power of nature, the moonscape is relieved only by few red jets of flower. The weird tajinaste rojo (a variety of echium) somehow grows on the wastes of lava to a height of seven feet, blooming like flame during the early summer months.

The nights are so clear and dark in this awesome desert that astrophysicists have established an important star-gazing facility in the park. If you want to see the Milky Way as never before, stay at the Parador hotel, which keeps a supply of astronomical telescopes. By day you can snack or lunch there with magnificent views up towards Teide or over the bizarre rock formations of the Roques de García. Fitness aficionados apply to the park authorities for a hiking permit, stay at a mountainside refuge, and start to climb before dawn so as to see the sun rise over the volcano.

For the more faint-hearted a cable car runs to the mountain’s summit, which at 3718metres is the highest in Spain, or you can walk 17 kilometres on the flat from the Parador to the visitor centre at El Portillo (good name).

Tenerife is an island of two halves. Satellite photographs reveal the contrast. The north is green. As the Atlantic trade winds strike the mountain, cloud is formed. The south, however, is dry, and its warmer climate has attracted the sun worshippers to resorts like Playa de las Américas. If you wake up to an overcast day in Tenerife, go for a drive. The chances are that a few miles away, or two thousand metres up, the sun will be shining.

A town like La Laguna, former capital of Tenerife, looks more like Latin America than Spain because the conquerors built in the colonial style. Its streets of convents and palaces are wonderfully preserved. Ornate balconies made from local pine jut from the upper storeys. They provided an ideal vantage point for the richest families to watch the hooded penitents file past during the Holy Week ceremonies. The processions’ solemnity remains impressive today.

In another historic town, La Orotava, the most spectacular festival is Corpus Christi when artists carpet the main square with huge religious pictures made from brightly coloured powdered minerals. In the Casa de los Balcones you can admire the woodwork of one of the island’s most gracious houses. The house also displays embroidery. The island produces stunning regional costumes and also delicate table cloths and napkins.

Tenerife’s present capital is Santa Cruz, which is an increasingly popular calling point for cruise ships. Stroll between tulip trees and jacarandas along the seafront and up the wide Las Ramblas avenue, or enjoy a drink in the tranquil garden of the Sheraton Mencey Hotel. Jutting out to sea is the city’s astonishing concert hall, designed by Santiago Calatrava. Surmounted by a massive crashing wave built in concrete faced with white ceramic, the building’s architectural audacity matches the Sydney opera house or Bilbao’s Guggenheim museum.

In the town squares around Tenerife you find dragon trees, a special arboreal variety found only in the Canaries and the other nearby island groups. The oldest in the world, a truly noble specimen, stands in a botanical garden at Icod de los Vinos.

Tenerife produces mangoes, papayas and avocado pears, and the islanders are fanatical about their many varieties of potato. Traditional foods are basic fare such as a stew, mainly of vegetables, called puchero, and a spicy dip, mojo picón, that enlivens fish or meat. Rabbit comes in an oregano sauce known as salmorejo. But restaurants like Lucas Maes near Puerto Cruz have also developed a sophisticated modern island cuisine.

On the north coast stands Garachico. Its main square, flanked by two churches, is a perfect spot to imbibe the Tenerife that few tourists visit. I stayed at La Roque, a beautiful house built around an open courtyard, now converted into a hotel and decorated with modern sculptures. Garachico used to be an important port until in 1706 a volcanic eruption filled the harbour with lava.

In those days viniculture provided the island’s main seaborne trade. Shakespeare had paid tribute to “Canary, a marvellously penetrating wine that perfumes the blood”. Tenerife’s production of Malmsey was eventually outclassed by Madeira, and only recently has Tenerife’s vineyards re-established an international reputation. To discover more, spend time at the Casa del Vino at El Sauzal. The phylloxera disease that devastated most European vines in the nineteenth century left Tenerife unaffected, so today it produces old varieties such as Negramoll that cannot be found elsewhere. The island has won prizes for an exceptional sweet red wine called Humbolt.

For a magnificent red to accompany a special dinner, treat yourself to a bottle of the appositely named Crater. A volcano that has supplied a name for this fine libation surely cannot be as wicked as the Guanches believed.