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Puerto de la Cruz occupies the northern coast of Tenerife with a confidence that the island's sunnier, more resort-heavy south has never quite managed to replicate. Where the south was largely built for tourism from the ground up, Puerto de la Cruz grew around an older identity: a working port town that became one of the first places in the Canary Islands to welcome European travellers, long before package holidays existed. That layered history gives the town a texture that is genuinely its own, from the black volcanic sand of Playa Jardín, shaped by the same geological forces that built Mount Teide inland, to the colonial architecture of the old quarter around Plaza del Charco.

The Plaza del Charco itself is the natural centre of gravity for anyone arriving for the first time. Fishing boats still operate from the nearby harbour, and the square's terrace cafes fill with a mix of locals and visitors in a way that feels unrehearsed. A short walk brings you to the Lago Martiánez, the celebrated seawater lido complex designed by the Lanzarote artist César Manrique in the early 1970s, which remains one of the most architecturally distinctive public bathing spaces in Spain. Manrique's influence, so strongly associated with neighbouring Lanzarote, left a clear mark here too, and the complex is as worth seeing for its design as for a swim.