Parque Rural de Anaga
4,8 en Google · 15.318 opiniones · ver en Google Maps
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The Anaga massif is the oldest corner of Tenerife: seven million years of erosion have turned a volcano into a maze of knife-edge ridges, ravines dropping straight into the sea, and a laurel forest kept damp all year by the fog. It has been a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2015, and you walk it on paths that have been in use for centuries.
What Anaga is
Anaga occupies the north-eastern tip of Tenerife, between Santa Cruz and the ocean. It is the island’s oldest ground, and it shows: where the rest of Tenerife has long slopes, here the relief is broken into sharp crests and deep ravines that fall to black-sand coves. That topography is exactly what saved the forest, because it made farming impossible.
What survives up top is monteverde — laurel forest and tree-heath — a woodland type that once covered southern Europe and now remains only in Macaronesia. It lives off fog rather than rain: the trade winds push a sea of clouds that snags on the ridges, and the leaves comb it out and drip it to the ground. That rain that never falls is called horizontal precipitation, and it is why the soil is wet in August.
UNESCO listed it as a Biosphere Reserve in 2015 for two reasons at once: the concentration of species found nowhere else, and the fact that people still live in the hamlets, work the mid-altitude terraces and keep the paths open. Anaga is not an empty park; it is an inhabited landscape.
What to see
Cruz del Carmen is the natural gateway: it has the visitor centre, a viewpoint over the La Laguna valley, and the start of the Sendero de los Sentidos — three short, combinable trails through the deep forest, the first of them on a boardwalk accessible by wheelchair and pushchair.
The ridge road strings together viewpoints — Pico del Inglés, Jardina, El Bailadero — which on a clear day show both sides of the island at once and on a cloudy one show the sea of clouds from above, which is arguably better. To the north lies Taganana and its coast: Roque de las Bodegas, Benijo and Almáciga beach, with the sea stacks cut out against the Atlantic.
And then the hamlets, which are the other half of Anaga: Chamorga, Afur, Taborno, El Batán. You reach them on narrow, slow roads, and several are still linked to each other only on foot, along the paths that remain the massif’s real transport network.
Before you go
- Access is free: Anaga is a rural park, with no ticket office. Individual trails can be regulated, and that is checked on the Tenerife Cabildo website.
- Fog is part of the place, not bad weather. It can be sunny in Santa Cruz and completely clouded in the forest twenty minutes away.
- Closed shoes with grip: the forest paths are almost always damp and the stones are slippery.
- Roads are narrow and full of bends, and the car parks at Cruz del Carmen and the northern beaches are small and fill up early at weekends.
- Buses run from Santa Cruz and La Laguna to much of the massif, and in high season they are often easier than driving.
Where it is
Monte de Las Mercedes, TF-12, Km 6, 38294 La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
San Cristóbal de La Laguna · 38294
Opening hours
- lunes, Abierto 24 horas
- martes, Abierto 24 horas
- miércoles, Abierto 24 horas
- jueves, Abierto 24 horas
- viernes, Abierto 24 horas
- sábado, Abierto 24 horas
- domingo, Abierto 24 horas
According to Google Maps on 30 de agosto de 2026. It may have changed.
Classification
Hiking · «reserva natural»
Deducida de la etiqueta de Google.