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La Orotava - interesting Tenerife town |
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Written by Steve Andrews
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 La Orotava is a town in the mountains above Puerto de la Cruz in the north of Tenerife and, although it is easy to reach by bus or car, in many ways it is like stepping back in time because of the historic architecture and old cobblestone streets, its ivy-clad walls and sheltered exotic ornamental gardens.
La Orotava is famous for its Casa de los Balcones, (House of Balconies), which is located on the west side of the town in Calle San Francisco. Casa de los Balcones has an inner courtyard in which tall palms grow and staghorn ferns hang in baskets, while up above the ornate Canarian style balconies look down on it all. Local foods, wine, arts and crafts, clothing and textiles are on sale and Casa de los Balcones is very popular with Tenerife tourists.
 There are several other historic buildings on the street of Calle San Francisco, which connects the squares of Plaza Casañas and Plaza San Francisco. Across the road you will find the Casa del Turista and the Museo de las Alfombras. The Casa del Turista is even older than the House of Balconies, dating from circa 1590 but in the same style, and it has a craft shop. The Museo de las Alfombras is a museum, which only costs one Euro to enter and has an exhibition of how the incredible floral carpets are made for the Tenerife Corpus Christi celebrations. A huge carpet is designed and laid out on a square of La Orotava at the time of this important Catholic religious festival.
Also on Calle San Francisco is the 17th Century Hospital de la Santísma Trinidad, which used to be a Tenerife convent and where unwanted babies were often left for the nuns to look after.
 Other museums in La Orotava, of interest to local people and visitors to Tenerife, are the Museo de Artesanía Iberoamericana, located in Calle Tomás Zerolo, and which celebrates the links between Spain and the Canary Islands and Latin America, as well as the Casa Torrehermosa, also in the same street, and which showcases the best of Tenerife’s arts and crafts.
 A must-see Tenerife church in La Orotava is the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in Plaza Casañas. This church with its incredible Baroque towers and dome is a landmark in the town of La Orotava.
La Orotava has a very attractive and unusual fountain on the road into it from Puerto de la Cruz. The fountain, surrounded by flowerbeds and a lawn, has a statue of Princesa Dácil who is surrounded by replicas of Guanche (original Tenerife inhabitants) artefacts and symbols and looks down over the valley. The story goes that Princess Dácil was the daughter of Bencomo, the Guanche Mencey (King) of Taoro who was a bitter enemy of the Spanish invaders of Tenerife at the time. But Dácil fell in love with and married one of the Spanish soldiers by name of Captain Fernán García del Castillo.
La Orotava is served by many regular buses including the 107 from Santa Cruz to Buenavista and the 350, 352 and 353 to Puerto de la Cruz. On the wall by the La Orotava bus station are some murals depicting life in the time when the Guanche people lived on Tenerife before the Spanish invasion, and other similar style paintings can be seen elsewhere in the town.
La Orotava is a place you will never forget and is definitely recommended as a place to visit on the island of Tenerife.
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Tenerife Island