Tenerife
I find myself staying in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife in slightly peculiar circumstances – this should have been a holiday with my parents, who due to an unplanned operation were unable to make the trip. Tenerife had never really appealed to me … I enjoyed the architecture of Lanzarote which I visited in the 90s with L, more recently I appreciated the relative peace of Corralejo, north Fuerteventura, I ’experienced’ Gran Canaria twice which was once more than enough. Now I am here and wondering how to make the best of it.
That’s not quite the full picture – the ’inspiration’ for my parents trip came from their neighbours J&D who have a time-share apartment here and love the island. My parents, not really ’resort tourists’, decided to see if they had been missing out all these years so booked ten days in a nice hotel here. While talking about this on one of our Sunday afternoon Skype fikas (Swedish for a coffee morning/afternoon tea) the idea came up that I should join them for a week … the idea was only tempting because it had been so long since we took a holiday together – about 30 years by our less than scientific calculations. Anyway things unfortunately did not work out as planned … so I will now meet J&D for coffee or lunch or something without my parents …
In addition U (and her two children) are living in south Tenerife for a year. U is the friend with whom I lived when I moved to Sweden, and whose children, A&C, I took care of. They are coming up to Puerto de la Cruz at the weekend. We’ll hire a car and do some sightseeing including the (hopefully) extinct volcano at the island’s heart — which will be good fun … and a novelty to see them elsewhere than at their home or at their summer house on that amazing island in the archipelago.
So in reality I only have a few days to myself … which makes it somehow odder. I arrived late yesterday evening after a long day (a 3.00am start), this morning I walked along the seafront … I was going to write ’coast’ but that makes it sound natural and possibly even rugged when the reality was far from that. I will return to the closed ironmongers and possibly to the recently opened ’creative space’ run by a nice man who wants to do more than offer a printing service. And I will go to the curious sounding Museum of Contemporary Art on the floor above the Tourist Information office in one of the harbour’s historic buildings. There is a freshwater(?) swimming pool complex designed by Cesare Manrique (the Lanzarote architect) that sounds interesting and worth a visit. Which leaves me with probably a day and a half (or two) … and the evenings … always the evenings!
Recently some friends and I have been lamenting the decline of the gay scene – that is to say gay bars and clubs – in Stockholm and London. Uppsala doesn’t seem to have ever even had a gay bar, club, or café. There are a number of gay bars here including one with a drag show – which my mother wanted to visit … it is handily on the street between the different hotels where we are/should be staying. A part of me fancies some nights out … and a part of me wonders why I would do such a thing!
The artist as tourist … how does that work? That’s something to ponder while I pour myself a gin and tonic and make myself some kind of risotto … before perhaps heading out and around to the corner to the very local gay bar …
