Car Hire

We used CICA, who were very relaxed and easy to deal with on a personal level.  They allow pick up at one entry point  (so airport or ferry port) and drop off at another,  which makes life very easy.  The website was slightly tricky as it seemed to consider subsequent bookings on different islands as modifications to the initial booking, so it got a bit unstuck on La Palma and we ended up with a larger car than we needed.  But all-in-all a good experience and can recommend them.

Hotels

Tenerife: 

El Patio, near Garachico on the north coast: faded grandeur,  great location (although in the middle of nowhere so be prepared to drive).  Lovely outdoor spaces and good breakfasts and dinner but if the weather is inclement, there aren’t many places to sit.  Very comfortable beds!

La Laguna Gran Hotel – La Laguna, east:  medium sized, well located.  Staff slightly harassed and gently superior.   Fabulous building, corporate rooms, so comfortable with no sense of individuality.  Lovely seating area in the covered patio, nice bar (expensive), good breakfast and comfortable beds.

La Palma

Hotel San Telmo: small (eight rooms), personal, super friendly,  well located (out of the noise but close enough).  Everything about this place was great. Breakfasts were narrow in terms of choice but the quality was incredible (the cheese looked amazing) and it provided the best hotel coffee on the trip. Strongly recommend!

La Gomera:

The Parador was amazing.  Beautiful spaces,  super friendly staff who were incredibly welcoming, comfortable.  The bar was great and breakfasts were the standard Parador breakfast – huge range and good-ish, with some great choices.

Los Telares:  La Hermigua.  Oh dear.  It WAS clean and had nice outside space which we couldn’t use as it was cold.  Very uncomfortable bed, well equipped kitchen, just a bit cold and damp (not one window or door fit in its frame, which made for some stiff breezes inside).  All the woodwork (including the wooden balcony) looked a bit dodgy.  Breakfast was definitely not worth the money  however nice it was to have it delivered.

Food

La Palma

Best food overall was on La Palma at El Jardin de Sal.  Wonderful location, friendly staff (slightly relaxed service but not heinous), fresh fish, great food.  The prawns were outstanding.  We ate here twice.

Another great place on La Palma was Los Olivos, in the northwest corner of the island: an unassuming, small roadside place,  with a strong  South American influence.  The food was incredible and everyone was stupendously nice.  Again, strongly recommend!

We also ate in a ‘top rated’ (both Google and TripAdvisor) place in Santa Cruz – La Placeta – which was fine but absolutely nothing special whatsoever and undeserving of its strong reviews.

Another place that did not live up to its rating was Lucy, in the marina – Italian without revealing this online.  Again fine, but not worth its rating.

La Gomera

The Parador lunch was well above average (some Parador restaurants are fantastic, others less so), with very nicely cooked local fish and a wonderful location.

The supper at Los Telares restaurant  (linked to the ‘hotel’) was indifferent.

Tenerife

In Garachico we ate at two different restaurants,  the best one twice.  Ca’n Aya was well worth it, with good service, good beer, great food.  The roadside location left a bit to be desired but at least we could see the sea.

La Laguna had loads of highly rated eateries,  many of which were expensive.  The best meal we had was at Tasca de los Patos, which had precious little indoor space and not much more outdoor space.  Everything was good, Roger said his Iberian pig cheeks were incredible.

I couldn’t find a bank anywhere that didn’t charge for use of its ATM, so be warned about this!