Christopher Somerville

Walking in Tenerife

At the time of year when late winter is lingering over north-west Europe, everyone gasps for a half-term break with a smidgeon of sun and a smattering of fresh air. In the Canary Islands the clouds and the sun arrange things pretty comfortably between themselves – particularly among the steep little volcanic ranges in the northern half of the ‘capital island’, Tenerife. North Tenerife is green, it’s lush, it’s heavily forested, and it’s mostly temperate – that’s to say, cool cloudy mornings and warm sunny afternoons. What could be better for family walking? You can get in your 3 or 4 hours after breakfast and be by the pool or on the beach shortly after lunch. Late strolls in the cool of the evening are delicious, too.

One of our best family holidays, back when the children were little, had been spent walking the coasts and hills of northern Tenerife. Now, though, as we headed back to Tenerife after an absence of several years, our family dynamic had altered. Mary, the daughter that we had first taken to the island as a child of ten, had become a young woman of independent mind, while Ruth had metamorphosed from a university student who wouldn’t stir further than the nearest club into someone whose great weekend pleasure was exploring the hills and woods around London on foot. Bribery and cajolement, threats and promises were no longer part of the ‘let’s go for a walk’ scenario. It was going to be quite a change.

If you want to explore the green heart of Tenerife on foot, you can hardly do better than sign up with Gaiatours. It was their guide Pedro Mederos Fumero who introduced us to a couple of walks that stayed in the mind long after the holiday was over. Dark-haired and intense, Pedro turned out to be a mentor in a thousand – not only capable of reeling off the names of flowers and birds, but knowledgeable about every inch of his home ground, and as full as a shanachie of folklore, tall tales, traditional cures and general island enchantments.

We headed out for the Anaga peninsula at the north-east tip of Tenerife, a wild region of knife-edge ridges and canyons plunging to the sea, all clothed in the pungent and beautiful native greenery called laurisilva. ‘There’s not much laurisilva left in Tenerife,’ Pedro told us as we drove the corkscrew ‘dancing road’ out to Chamorga. ‘Laurels, shrubs, herbs – it’s something special, and Anaga is the best placed for it on the island.’

The lonely hamlet of Chamorga sat out at the end of the peninsula, its red pantiled roofs held down against the wind with large stones. Ruth and Mary were soon two dots on the distant mountainside as they strode out along the stony path. Pedro walked at a more sedate pace with Jane and me, pointing out the early spring flowers that spattered the rocks among the omnipresent prickly pear and yellow flowering genista. Wormwood grew there in tall jagged clumps. ‘The old people,’ said Pedro, ‘when they feel a bad spirit in the house, they make a fire with that and the smoke drives away the devils. Now you see this little plant? It is lengua de gato, the cat’s tongue.’ We let the fat round leaves slip between our fingers and felt their caress, as rough and dry as the lick of a cat.

Volcanic dykes formed banded stairways for us to climb. Out at the end of the peninsula we skittered along a high ridge and stood looking down on the Faro de Anaga, a stumpy, salt-rusted lighthouse like a toy far below on the edge of the sea. For two pins Ruth would have run down there and back, but with the afternoon leaching away it was time to head back through the terraces and laurisilva thickets to Chamorga.

Over the next couple of days we struck out on some walks by ourselves, trusting to the Sunflower guidebook and our own five senses. A memorable outing was to the Parque Nacional del Teide, the extraordinarily baked and contorted landscape around the snow-covered cone of Tenerife’s majestic 12,199-ft volcano, Mt. Teide. The Roques de Garcia route around the bed of the volcano’s original crater is a thoroughly popular and well-known tourist attraction, and we found it a stunningly impressive piece of natural theatre as we wound under cave-pocked cliffs and across slopes wrinkled like rhinoceros hide, passing lumps, bumps and stumps of dramatically coloured and shaped volcanic extrusions.

Our favourite walk of the lot, however, was the descent of the barranco or gorge of Masca, another expedition in the company of Pedro Mederos Fumero. Masca, a crowded little village perched on a precarious saddle in the mountains, was soon left behind, and for three hours we dropped slowly down the barranco beside a stream under tremendous rock faces, with Tenerife’s sister island of La Gomera caught in the blue vee of the sea ahead. The barranco has its own microclimate; the north coast had been cold, grey and rainy when we left it that morning, but here in the cleft of the mountainside we were warm and dry under a blue chink of sky.

The walls closed in until we were threading the gorge like ants in a corkscrew. Squirming under a great boulder that blocked the route, we slid into a cold pool and went on down through drifts of sowthistle and spurge towards the beach and our ferry boat. Pedro pressed his hand to his heart as he glanced up the towering walls to the sky. ‘I really love this gorge – the quiet, the flowers and the little sound of the water. It’s like all the best of Tenerife put into one place.’

Walking practicalities

Guided walks:

Gaiatours (tel 922-35-52-72; mobile 656-94-63-70; gaiatours@teleline.es; www.gaiatours.es ) offer guided walks in all parts of Tenerife.

Pedro Mederos Fumero (c/Dr Gonzalez 36, 38410 Los Realejos, Tenerife; tel 656-94-63-69) is an excellent, knowledgeable guide, very strong on local flora and folklore. He charges about £90 a day (i.e. about £22.50 per person for a party of 4).

Ranger-led tours, generally free, are available in the Parque Nacional de Teide (telephone for details: 922-29-01-29), and also in the Anaga peninsula (tel 922-63-35-76 or 25-93-29)

Independent walking:

Landscapes of Tenerife by Noel Rochford (Sunflower Books) contains 30 detailed walks in the north of Tenerife, as well as many car tours and picnic suggestions.

35 Tenerife Walks by David and Ros Brawn (Discovery Walking Guides) is another reliable guide.

NB – both books’ estimated timings for their walks are for tough, quick walkers – most mortals on holiday should allow much longer!

5 suggested walks

Chamorga to Faro de Anaga

(From Santa Cruz by car – road nos.TF11, TF12, TF123; bus 247)

Bear right on track up behind café, along spine of promontory, to viewpoint over lighthouse. Allow 2 hours there and back; 3-3½ hours if you want to reach the lighthouse, a steep descent/ascent.

Roques de Garcia, Parque Nacional de Teide

(From Puerto de la Cruz by car – coast highway TF5 to Jct 32, then TF21; bus 348)

A well waymarked circuit from Parador de la Cañadas. Hot, dry, rubbly underfoot – take water, hat, suncream. Allow 2-3 hours.

See Landscapes of Tenerife, Walk 11

Masca Gorge

(From Puerto de la Cruz by car – TF5, TF42 to Icod de los Vinos and Santiago del Teide, TF436 to Masca; bus 325 to Santiago del Teide, 355 to Masca)

Paved path, then stepped, then bouldery and rubbly gorge path, downhill all the way. Only for the sure-footed. Water, hat, suncream; walking stick/poles are helpful. Allow 3-4 hours.

From Masca beach, ferries to Los Gigantes (tel 922-86-19-18 or 922-86-07-26; www.losgigantes.com/nashira.htm); frequent bus returns to Masca, or taxi (£10 approx.)

Puerto de la Cruz, Bollullo Beach, and Café Vista Paraiso in Cuesta de la Villa

Lovely coast walk, ending with steep climb up rubbly hillside; best in afternoon/evening with sun behind you. Allow 2½-3 hours; or you can walk back from Bollullo Beach.

From Cuesta de la Villa, bus 101 returns to Puerto de la Cruz.

See Landscapes of Tenerife, Walk 1

La Caldera walks

(From Puerto de la Cruz by car – TF5, TF21 via Orotava, forest road to La Caldera signed on left just after Aguamansa; bus 345)

Many circular walks through the forests are waymarked from this popular picnic place which boasts a bar-restaurant, barbecue ovens, a children’s playground, toilets and picnic tables.

See Landscapes of Tenerife, Walks 3, 5, 6, 7 for more strenuous suggestions.

Fact File

Tour Company:

Thomson (tel 0870-165-0079; www.thomson.co.uk) offer a week at the very friendly and comfortable Riu Garoé Hotel in Puerto de la Cruz, handily placed for the best walking.

Tenerife bus travel: TITSA bus company (tel 922-53-13-00; www.titsa.com)

Local information: Puerto de la Cruz TIC, Plaza de Europa (tel 922-38-60-00; http://www.abouttenerife.com/tenerife/towns-puerto.asp)

Spanish Tourist Office: 2nd Floor, 79 New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6XB (tel 0207-486-8077; www.tourspain.es)

‘When we see the mountains pouring water like this,’ sighed Ennio Rizzotti, ‘we know it is special rain.’ He gestured elegantly out of the rain-spattered, steamed-up car window at the spectacular waterfalls that were leaping out of every crack and canyon of the Carnic Alps. ‘I called the meteorological office in Udini last night to ask about the weather for today, and their reply was: "Ennio, what do you think?" And I think … we will be a little wet today!’

It had been raining fantastically for 24 hours, and showed no sign of letting up. The Carnic Alps, up in the north-east corner of Italy, were shrouded in thick shawls of mist and rain, every view insubstantial, smoky and dream-like. On higher ground it was turning to snow, as occasional glimpse of whitened peaks confirmed.

Not the ideal day to be setting out for a walk in the mountains, maybe. But there was a perverse, gritted-teeth pleasure in the prospect of experiencing the Carnic Alps in one of their equinoctial bad moods. And with Ennio Rizzotti – mountain guide, rescue leader and Himalayan adventurer – as my companion through the shadowed valleys, I knew I need fear no evil.

The road to Sauris snaked up through countless bends and tunnels. The mountain village had been completely isolated until the road was built after the Second World War to connect it to the outside world. We passed the turquoise-coloured Sauris reservoir, then wriggled through Sauris di Sotto (Lower Sauris). The dark wooden chalet houses sported hay-drying rails on their balconies and stacks of firewood piled for the winter against their walls.

On the edge of Sauris di Sopra (Upper Sauris) Ennio and I pulled on rain gear, snapped open an umbrella apiece and set off up a steep track through woods of beech, larch and pine. Ennio’s sharp eyes were soon zeroing in on edible fungi under the trees. ‘Many Sauris people come to pick them at this season. You should try this one.’ He pointed to an alarming-looking blob of orange jelly in the beech leaf carpet. ‘This is very good – chanterelle. Delicious!’ and he formed an appreciative circle with thumb and forefinger.

I was content to snack on wild raspberries as we climbed on through the dripping woods. We were making for the high pasture belonging to the Malga Pieltinis, one of the seasonal alpine ‘malghi’ or farms whose short summer occupancy produces milk, butter and cheese with a flavour that’s out of this world. The cattle had been up in the pastures since mid-June, Ennio told me, and were now ready to descend for the long winter to their parent villages in the valley below.

‘See these stones?’ Ennio pointed out a chute of pebbles and boulders across which the path threaded its way. ‘Avalanche path. If there comes an avalanche in winter, it will fall down here.’ Looking over the mountain slopes I could see dozens of similar destruction trails smashed by runaway tumbling snow. Ennio, himself twice buried by avalanches, shrugged fatalistically as the rain pinged off his umbrella and pearled in his eyebrows. ‘A little snow, a little rain … but you should expect such events if you go among the mountains, no?’

The path was sloping steeply now, climbing up the forest banks in slippery steps formed by the knotty roots of pine and larch. We passed a flock of lop-eared sheep being marshalled hither and yon by a pair of furiously yapping dogs while their shepherd looked on, a fag wedged in the corner of his mouth. Then the track steepened still further, with glimpses down to the vivid blue-green eye of Sauris reservoir opening in the dark face of the forest two thousand feet below.

The wind strengthened as the path climbed above the tree line, giving the pair of us a rough shove as we came out onto the level ground of the Pieltinis pasture. It was a striking sight – a pair of peaks sprinkled with fresh snow rising over an undulating green plain, on the far side of which the high pasture farm lay streaming smoke from its chimneys.

By the time we reached the buildings we were pretty cold and wet. A convoy of dogs came out to bark us in under the covered verandah, where a group of men gazed silently as we walked by. In the farmhouse kitchen Signora Adami stood at a wood-fired stove, stirring a big bowl of fresh polenta with a wooden paddle. Various girls and young women were warming themselves by a big open hearth while a couple of boys helped set a long table for what looked like lunch for an army. On the walls hung huge cow-bells, holy pictures and the snarling head of what must have been the father of all wild boars.

Once Ennio had explained what he and I were up to, the blank faces broke into smiles. Dreadlocked and dread-bearded Arduino Adami, the young cheese-maker of Pieltinis, showed us round his dairy where a big copper cheese vat steamed gently. Beyond in the cool dark cheese room, round truckles of formaggio di malga and brown bombs of smoked ricotta filled the shelves. Dry, damp, crumbly, salt, sweet – we nibbled and tasted and tested Arduino’s finest produce until lunch was called from the farmhouse.

Ennio and I were halfway into our wet raingear and preparing to leave the Adami family to its Sunday meal. But neither mother nor father – a heavily moustached man with hands like shovels and a basso profundo rasp of a laugh – would hear of it. Take that coat off right now! Put away your umbrella! Didn’t you hear me say that the polenta was ready? Well, then!

It was a scene such as I thought had vanished from modern Europe – a family sitting down 25 strong, along with the guests that God had sent them, to eat rabbit, chicken and potatoes straight out of the bowl. A great block of yellow polenta, sliced with cheese wires, took pride of place.

As the temperature dropped outside and the rain turned sleety, the firelit kitchen grew to seem the friendliest and most delightful place on earth. We ate and drank till our buttons squeaked. Over a glass of grappa infused with pine cones, two of the burly sons offered to drive Ennio and me back down to the valley. It was just as well. Full to the brim with drowsy contentment, I couldn’t have set out on that rain-sodden homeward path to save my life.

STEPPING OUT

MAP: Carta Topografica Tabacco 1:25,000 Sheet 01 ‘Sappada-S.Stefano Forni Avoltri’

TRAVEL: Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) fly to Trieste. A4, E55 to Trieste, Udine and on to Exit Carnia; SS52 to Tolmezzo and Ampezzo. In Ampezzo, right to Sauris di Sotto (13 km); continue 4 km towards Sauris di Sopra. Just before small bridge, with first houses of Sauris di Sopra visible ahead, dirt track on right (signed ‘2/E’) hairpins up from road. Park just up track.

WALK DIRECTIONS: Climb track through trees, a steep path at first, then easing. In 1½ miles meet a junction of tracks; one descends to right, but keep ahead (waymark ‘3/B, Malghe’) on path, following red, white and red ‘sandwich’ waymarks, numbered 218 on trees and rocks. In 300 yards bear steeply left uphill on path through woods, keeping a sharp eye out for ‘3/B’ signs, red-and-white waymarks and red arrows showing change of direction. In 2/3 mile, watch for the path forking up to the left to top of bank. From here you can see the Malga Pieltinis between its peaks; follow path to reach it.

Return same way; or follow road, keeping careful eye on map, via the malghe of Vinadia Grande, Malins and Festons back to Sauris di Sopra.

LENGTH OF WALK: 7 miles there-and-back, Sauris di Sopra to Malga Pieltinis; , miles there-and-back; 9 miles round trip via all four malghe.

CONDITIONS: Forest tracks and paths, some slippery and steep, some narrow; tricky waymarking.

REFRESHMENTS: Malga Pieltinis (open mid-June to end-Sept) offers lunch of cheese, meats, salad etc, also cheese, butter etc for sale. Other malghe, open for a similar season, offer much the same. NB – family hospitality such as Christopher Somerville enjoyed is at the pleasure of the occupants, and is not generally on offer!

ACOMMODATION: Borgo di S. Lorenzo, 33020 Sauris di Sopra (tel 0433-86221; ilborgodisauris@tin.it; www.carnia.org/alberghi/ilborgo) – self-catering apartments from £28 a night for 2. Eat at the neighbouring Ristorante ‘Pame Stifl’ (tel 0433-866331) and drink their Sauris-brewed beer.

GUIDE: Contact Ennio Rizzotti through Tarvisio tourist office (see below) or privately (Via Segherie 15, 33018 Tarvisio – UD; tel (00-39) 0428-644194/0333-290-1914; enniorizzotti@libero.it). Ennio Rizzotti charges c.£125 a day – i.e. £25 a head for party of 5.

Tourism: Consorzio Servizi Turistici del Tarvisiano, Via Roma 10, 33018 Tarvisio, Italy; tel (00-39) 0428-2392; www.tarvisiano.org.

Also: www.viamalghe.com.

‘Ciao, Giovanni!’

‘Giovanni, buon giorno!’

‘Eh, Giovanni, come stai?’

Everyone in the little hill town of Tolfa knows Giovanni Padroni. The greetings rang out from doorways and on street corners as we prowled the steep cobbled streets under curlicued balconies and sagging lines of washing. Giovanni knows architecture, history, herbs, archaeology, farming and flowers, poetry and plays. He speaks of one subject as lightly and informatively as another. He loves his native town with a passion. I was lucky to have him as a walking companion and guide around Tolfa and its hilly countryside on this cloudy late autumn day.

The Tolfa mountains rise some thirty miles north of Rome, in thickly wooded ridges that climb to peaks a couple of thousand feet high. The ancient Romans built summer villas there to catch the cool breezes; alum miners dug canyons into a few of the hillsides. Other than that, the outside world has tended to pass by, rushing to and from Rome and leaving the Tolfa mountains as a high green world apart.

‘In 1799 Napoleon’s troops destroyed a lot of the town,’ ruminated Giovanni, cigar-holder between his teeth, as we stood breathless in the castle ruins on the peak of La Rocca, contemplating Tolfa’s great fan of pantiled roofs spread out below. ‘We don’t know exactly which part. In fact we don’t know a lot about the town’s history. But it’s full of beautiful old buildings – come, I’ll show you.’

We descended ancient paved laneways, ducked under Renaissance arches, and leaned gossiping in medieval doorways carved from the white volcanic trachite that caps the dark tufa lava-stone of the district. Views from the town’s many belvederes were stunning – fifty or sixty miles from the Apennines to the coast, Tuscany to the hills beyond Rome.

‘As kids in Tolfa just after the war,’ Giovanni reminisced, ‘we didn’t have a lot, but we had fun! Chariot racing along the Via Roma, wearing our school tunics like cloaks; sword-fighting with peeled chestnut switches, climbing La Rocca and the other cliffs.’ He puffed out fragrant blue cheroot smoke, grinning. At the Fontana di Canale laundry tanks below the town we gave good-day to a woman slapping her soapy socks and shifts (‘Ah, Giovanni! Buon giorno!’), and walked on down old cobbled droving tracks into the valleys to the east of Tolfa.

Pink blobs of cyclamen showed in the hedge roots, and the chestnut groves and medlar bushes were heavy with fruit. We sucked the sweetly rotting medlar flesh from the husks and spat out the seeds while Giovanni expatiated on the iniquities of the Allumierasci, the inhabitants of the neighbouring village of Allumiere, Tolfa’s deadly rival since time out of mind. ‘Provocative people,’ declared Giovanni. ‘They can’t get over their inferiority complex. And, let’s face it – we Tolfetani haven’t been able to stand them since the Pope gave one-third of our land to them five hundred years ago.’

We climbed an old track deep in the oak woods and came to the grassy plateau of the Pian Conserva. ‘Wild chicory,’ said Giovanni, digging up a plant with his knife. ‘Boil it, dry it, cook it in a pan with garlic, oil, peperoncino – we call that cicoria ripassata in padella. It tastes … ahhh! …’ He raised his eyes to heaven in silent reverence.

Giovanni and his friends have helped uncover many of the Tolfa mountains’ archaeological sites. Some of the most remarkable are associated with the pre-Roman civilization of the Etruscans. Here on the Pian Conserva, Giovanni showed me a unique section of Etruscan roadway, cut some ten feet down into the soft volcanic tufa. Wheel ruts made 2,500 years ago were still clearly visible in the floor of the cutting. Along the sides of this manmade canyon opened the arched black mouths of Etruscan cave tombs.

The Pian Conserva holds around 150 Etruscan tombs, ranging from simple hollows in the volcanic tufa rock to elaborate ‘houses of the dead’. In these round, domed tombs, silence falls – the silence of cold stone. Bats cling to cracks in the vaulted roofs. We inspected the stone beds on which the dead were laid, their heads resting in special compartments with a raised semi-circular rim. One bed held two of these, side by side, perhaps carved for a mother and her child.

Outside the tombs under a cloudy afternoon sky we idled on the grass, peeling apples and chatting. ‘My school friends from northern Italy couldn’t read Dante,’ mused Giovanni, ‘it was like a foreign language. But for Tuscans and for us here in the Lazio region it was like talking in our own dialect. Language – it’s really something to learn to love. I loved Shakespeare the first moment I read him. That man had a million things to say, and a million ways to say them, don’t you think so?’

At last we heaved ourselves up and went on, descending to the floor of the valley on white dirt roads among ploughed slopes whose mineral-rich volcanic earth shaded from grey through brown to red in the span of a single field. The peak of La Rocca beckoned ahead, a dark shark-tooth of rock against a darkening sky.

We battled down an overgrown green lane and came in the dusk to the hot springs of Il Bagnarello. Two square bathing pools lay cut into the rock, their clear blue water dimpling as the spring stream ran through them.

‘Good for rheumatism and for bad skin,’ said Giovanni as we sat dangling our tired feet in water as hot as a steaming bath. The splash of the spring and sigh of the evening wind were the only sounds. ‘A quiet place,’ Giovanni murmured to himself, dreamily, letting the volcanic water soothe the stone bruises away.

MAP: Tolfa town hall has local maps for sale – CTR at 1:10,000 or IGM at 1:25,000. At Ignazio Padelli’s shop (Via Roma 106, tel 076-692-017), Ignazio will draw out the route for you on the map.

Exclusive Destinations, Wellington Gate, 7-9 Church Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1HT (01892-619650;

info@exclusivedestinations.co.uk; www.exclusivedestinations.co.uk) – flight from London Heathrow or Gatwick, hire car, 3 nights dble B&B at La Posta Vecchia Hotel (06-994-9501; info@lapostavecchia.com; www.lapostavecchia.com): £676 per person. Superbly comfortable former palace, ½ hr from Rome Leonardo da Vinci airport.

Alitalia (0870-544-8259; www.alitalia.co.uk) fly to Rome Leonardo da Vinci.

Avis (0208-268-5482; www.avis.co.uk ) rent cars at the airport.

Driving: from airport, A12 motorway (NB Cerveteri-Ladispoli jct. for La Posta Vecchia) to San Severa junction; Tolfa signposted from here. Park in Piazza Nova, the main square.

WALK DIRECTIONS:

From Piazza Nova keep ahead along Via Roma to Piazza Vecchia. Left downhill past fountain; in 150 yd, right down slope of side road Via Canale, curving downhill past new houses, out of town to pass laundry troughs. In ½ mile pass barn on right; at electricity pole in fork of road just beyond, go left downhill on cobbled way to meet tarmac road. Turn right along road for ¾ mile.

At bottom of long slope, road goes under power lines and makes sharp right bend (3 warning arrows). Left on dirt road here (La Rocca and castle ruin seen over your right shoulder). Continue for ¾ mile to T-junction of track in woods, by electricity pole. Right up sunken track; at crest (150 yd), left over fence (2 blue blobs) into fields with Etruscan tombs (explanatory notice-board). Return to track. Left (downhill) to cross tarmac road by factory. On along flat dirt road on valley floor. In ¾ mile, left to cross Virginese River on concrete bridge. In 250 yd, right off dirt road at crossing of tracks (stone with blue blob on left), aiming for La Rocca dead ahead, to recross river and follow white road uphill.

This country road will take you back to Tolfa (3 miles). To visit Il Bagnarello hot springs – after 1 mile, where road bends sharply right and thicker concrete surfacing starts (beside electricity pole, where stone-walled track joins from left), keep ahead along grassy lane with vineyard on right. Lane descends among bushes to cross river (NB boulder scramble – could be dangerous after heavy rain) and climb, following electricity cables, to T-junction with good dirt road.

Left along dirt road. Cross river (probably dry) by humpback bridge (careful of hole just beyond!); continue to farmyard on corner of another dirt road. Left along road. By grey metal electricity pole and green metal gate, fork left; in 200 yards, left down steps to hot springs.

Return up steps; right along track to green gate; left to road. Right to Tolfa (3 miles), either walking or by request stop Damibus (c. 12.30 p.m., 4.45, 7.25).

LENGTH: c.11 miles.

REFRESHMENTS: None en route – take picnic and water.

READING: The Tolfa Mountains by Kari Austbo (from Padelli’s shop).