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Vilaflor – highest mountain village in Tenerife |
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Written by Steve Andrews
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 Vilaflor is a beautiful and unique village located high in the mountains of the south of Tenerife on the road, which ascends up to Mt Teide. Vilaflor is the highest village in Tenerife and the highest municipality in Spain with an average altitude of being 1,160 metres above sea level. Vilaflor has a small population of some 1,5000 inhabitants.
Vilaflor is well worth visiting or at least stopping off in on your way up to Tenerife’s Mt Teide. Vilaflor has a beautiful square adjacent to the Church of San Pedro, which was built in the 17th Century on the site of a former hermitage. Next to the church is the house of Brother Pedro Bethencourt, who was born there in 1626 and who went on to become a well known holy person of Tenerife and who was famed for his travels to Guatemala as an evangelist missionary who founded the Order of Bethlehem. On April 25 the festival of Brother Peter is held in Vilaflor.
 The Montaña de Chasna mountain rises to 3,000 metres looking down on Vilaflor and the original inhabitants of Tenerife, the Guanche people, called the area Chasna. The current Spanish name for the village came about from the words of Captain Pedro de Bracamonte, who legend says once proclaimed “Vi la flor de Chasna,” referring to  his love for a beautiful Guanche maiden who escaped from the captivity he had placed her in.
The words are emblazoned across the Vilaflor coat of arms, which also bears a tiara to represent the power of the church, a representation of the mountain and a stream, making reference to its height and the purity of its Tenerife spring water, a bunch of grapes, to represent the local vineyards and wine, and a pine tree to symbolise the magnificent pine woods all around the village. A very tall and ancient pine known as Pino Gordo is over 60 metres high and something that visitors to Vilaflor enjoy seeing.
 Just outside Vilaflor is the Ermita de San Roque, a small chapel near the Mirador de San Roque, a popular viewing point that looks down to the coastal towns of southern Tenerife below.
The area of Vilaflor is one of the only locations on Tenerife where the strange but beautiful Red Vipers’ Bugloss (Echium wildpretii), or Tajinaste rojo, as it is known in Spanish, grows wild and is also often planted in flower borders where it adds an exotic touch with its tall red spikes of flowers.
Vilaflor is accessible by Tenerife bus on the 342 from Las Americas to Mt Teide, on the 474 Granadilla to La Escalona and the 482 Los Cristianos to Vilaflor. Whatever way you travel to Vilaflor, you will find it an enchanting place to visit.
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Tenerife Island 
