A lovely, relaxing, leisurely start to Boxing day. We had a late traditional champagne breakfast, on the Verandah deck overlooking Santa Cruz, Tenerife, a very pretty harbour with mountains in the near distance and many small and larger ships in the port. We were tied up in the cruise ship terminal, with two other cruise ships, one German and one Italian.
There was a wait to board a shuttle bus into the port, as a large number of passengers had also decided to go ashore independently, and quite a queue built up. Margaret and I resisted the temptation to pay one of the cab drivers who were lined up touting for business, we boarded a shuttle bus for a five minute drive to the town. When we arrived we were immediately bombarded with offers to tour the island by cab with a variety of price tags ranging from fifty to seventy dollars. We resisted all, and after some discussion we decided to take a tour of the city on an open-top bus.
- The city tour was one hour long from start to finish, Margaret and I remained on the bus after the tour was completed to return to visit some interesting gardens, set in Parque Garcia Sanabria, a lovely park, we had noticed on the way. This was wonderful, the pretty park was full of flowers, statuary, fountains with many local people just strolling in the brilliant sunshine. A series of arches ran through the park entwined with red and orange bougainvillea, many succulent cacti and palm trees were happily growing in the rich fertile soil. We spent some time enjoying this feast of beauty before taking the rest of the tour on the open top bus back to the port to rejoin our ship.
We returned to our cabin to find an invitation to dine with the Captain, Phillip Rentell tomorrow evening at the Captains table. A perfect end to another memorable day.