Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Här kommer en text på engelska, lånad från www.theguardian.com som beskriver Santa Cruz på Teneriffa som den femte bästa staden i världen att bo i. Varför då undrar ni? Läs The Guardians text här nedanför:
.jpg)
What's going for it? Yes, Tenerife. But not that Tenerife. As if. No, this is The Other Tenerife. The capital bears no relation to the island more familiar to Brits. Turn a few corners on the coast road and it's like, well, Spain. Santa Cruz is magnificently, sexily exotic. Its neighbourhoods mostly date from the 1890s to the 1930s, all pastels and gin slings, though the long-lost recent economic boom has left its mark, too, with a new art gallery and public square by architects Herzog & De Meuron, and the obligatory "thing" (Is it a bird? Is it a plane?) by Santiago Calatrava. The tourist-free city is big enough not to be dull, small enough to be manageable – about the size of Leicester, only, alas, without its charms, although Santa Cruz does have bright placitas filled with orange trees and dark, drowsy coffee bars full of old men playing dominos, as well as a brilliant food market, Nuestra Señora de Africa. And when it all gets too much, there's a series of great beaches (the Las Teresitas being perhaps the best), a great coastline for swooning driving, and mountains for hiking.
The case against People might actually think you've moved to Tenerife. As if. It can be our secret.
Well connected? You'd walk, wouldn't you, with weather like this? Otherwise, a car is vital.
Hang out at… Café Numancia for a fresh-pressed naranja watching the parklife. Then Café del Principe for an ice-cold coffee. Then maybeEl Contemporáneo bar for a sundowner. Then to Calle Antonio Dominguez Alfonso in Noria for nightcaps. Oops, a day gone.
Property Noria, downtown, might be the first stop: its once dilapidatedhomes are being slowly restored, and the place has great life. Las Mimosas for the swankier. Small (50m2-plus) apartments in the centre or larger ones farther out, £110,000-£170,000; large apartments in the centre (100m2-plus), £170,000-£350,000; huge apartments or sprawling detacheds, £350,000-£500,000.
Bargain of the week Very large, 216m2 apartment in the centre, needing updating, £400,000, with barrespropertytrading.com.
• This article was amended on 25 January 2012. The original said: "Ooh, when the wind whistles in from the Baltic..." In fact any nippy whistling comes from the North Sea, the source of the prevailing winds. This has been corrected.
