Trip around the Canary Islands in March 2019. Highlights
So, one day we decided to make our winter life a bit less dull and travel somewhere not exactly close to home. But since we made that decision only in early February, we had to figure out quickly where to go, somewhere not cold and maybe even swimmable. We settled on the Canary Islands. In winter they are not cold, though not exactly hot either. There should also be fewer tourists than in summer or autumn. The Canary Islands are probably the warmest winter-spring destination in Europe, so we decided to bring summer forward by a couple of months and spend some time there while back home there were snowdrifts and frost. We quickly collected the documents and on my birthday, February 5, drove to the Spanish visa center to submit them. As always, everything went smoothly, and as always they warned us that we had no bookings for the entire stay. I showed the letter I usually prepare for such cases. In fact, we did have bookings. We had made them in advance, but decided not to use them and canceled them after visiting the visa center. The documents were processed quite fast, and a few days later they were delivered back to Dubna by courier, after which we started preparing much more actively because only four weeks were left. Our trip was from March 8 to March 17, 9 nights. We had planned to visit several islands, but then decided we would only manage El Hierro and Tenerife, with maybe a chance to squeeze in La Gomera. As usual, the map of selected points is attached at the bottom of this page.
For the flight we chose Aeroflot. They have a direct flight to Tenerife, which is very convenient: seven hours and you are there.
Over the whole trip we drove about 1200 km.
Accommodation
Nothing complicated here, Booking was enough. Since it was off season, we booked hotels for one or two nights a day before or even in the morning of the same day. All the places were decent. We started with a cabin on the south coast of Tenerife. But we did not really like it: there was too little light inside, and the car had to be parked far away, so this format somehow did not work for us on the Canaries.
At another point we rented some kind of shack with a hole in the ceiling through which people could basically look in.
And then we rented a whole two-story house for 4100 RUB per night.
We even asked the owner whether the whole house was ours or only part of it. Quite often hotel or house owners spoke Russian. The owner of this house was a Pole named Boris, and he spoke a little Russian.
Visa
I have already partially described this above. It was simple. We went to the Spanish visa center, there were few lines in February, quickly got everything done, arranged courier delivery of the passports back to Dubna, and drove home. We received the visa in about a week or a week and a half. It was issued for a year. I had read that a first visa is usually given for half a year, but they probably saw that our passports already had many Schengen visas. I had four, Sveta had two, and that is only counting Schengen ones. So if we apply with them again, they will probably give us a two-year visa.
Transport
I had checked in advance how much a rental car would cost. It turned out to be almost nothing compared with Iceland. Ten days with a Volkswagen Golf class car, not a Polo, cost us 237 euro, about 17000 RUB, and that included full insurance. I spent a lot of time reading where it was better to rent cars, especially so they would allow them on ferries, and in the end chose cicar.com. You do not have to pay anything in advance on their website. You simply book the car, then on arrival pay for it right at the airport, get the keys, and drive off. The pickup area is directly opposite the airport, and you can get there with an airport baggage trolley. We did not get the exact car I had booked, an Opel Astra, but a Seat Leon instead. At first I was upset because I did not even know what kind of Seat it was. But after driving it for a while I got used to it, and jumping ahead, on our next trip to the Canaries I booked this exact car right away.
As for swimming, the ocean water is still cool, so it is not that easy to swim in it. But on the Canaries there are natural or semi-natural pools where the water has time to warm up. In practice these are rocky hollows right at the shore into which ocean water splashes. I did not dare to swim there, but Sveta did swim a little.
Money
Euro. We took about 1000 euro in cash with us, and the rest was on bank cards. In the end we spent only a small amount of cash.
Climate
While we were driving around, in general it was neither cold nor hot, at least down by the coast and not in the mountains. Sometimes a sweater was enough. But in the mountains you really had to dress warmly because it was very cold there. Sometimes we would leave a valley in shorts while it was hot, and an hour later we would already be on a mountain, step out of the car, and freeze immediately. On Teide itself we were wearing full gear. Good thing we had come straight from winter and already had warm clothes with us.
Internet and mobile service
The Canaries are Spain, so mobile service is not expensive there. I decided that only my DrimSim would be enough. I had bought it long ago and had not topped it up for a long time. And it really was enough, around 3.5 euro for everything. Of course, we saved data and did not use it when we had Wi-Fi in hotels and houses.
Danger
The Canaries are islands, and islands often do not have too many nasty creatures. That was true here as well. I had read that mosquitoes carrying yellow fever can occasionally arrive there, and that there can also be an issue with large but harmless insects called cucarachas, but we did not see any. There are supposedly spiders too. We saw webs, but no spiders themselves. So overall everything was fine.
Trip cost
- 50 300 airfare
- 30 580 hotel
- 18 000 car rental
- 16 640 ferry
- 9 350 visa
- 6 760 fuel
- 5 700 supermarket
- 4 100 entertainment
- 3 000 food
- 2 200 insurance
- 2 600 other
- 1 000 parking
- 710 mobile service
- 260 internet
Total: 151,200 RUB.