Mesa del Mar Natural Pool

When a big set comes in, the sea spills over the rocks and pours into the pool, and the whole surface lifts and churns before it settles again. The water comes straight from the Atlantic, and getting in is easy.

Wooden platforms around the edge give you somewhere flat to lie out between swims. Above them rise the apartment blocks of Mesa del Mar, built in the first wave of tourism on the north of the island in the 1960s and 1970s, and the place still carries that era in its concrete and its layout.

Next to the pool, a tunnel runs through to a dark-sand beach, wilder and open to the surf. From there you can walk along the coast to El Pris, a fishing village with natural pools of its own.

• The road down to Mesa del Mar is very steep, and the last stretch above the pool is the steepest part.
• At weekends the car park fills and finding a space gets hard.
• Mobile signal is weak or absent down by the pool.
• Public toilets stand about 50 m from the pool. There is no drinking water nearby, so bring your own.

Mesa del Mar sits at the foot of the cliffs below Tacoronte, and every approach ends with the same steep descent to the shore.

Drivers leave the car in one of two asphalt car parks, about 70 m and 110 m from the pool. Buses come all the way down: the nearest stop, Playa Mesa del Mar, is about 140 m away, and a second, Mesas del Mar 153, about 160 m.

Mesa del Mar also makes a bike trip from Puerto de la Cruz. The end of the road to the pool is very steep; on an electric bike it is manageable.

Best: a calm day midweek, when the waves spill in without swamping the pool and the car park has room.

Avoid: rough seas, and weekends if you are driving.

The north coast takes the open Atlantic swell, which runs heaviest in winter, and weekend traffic fills the parking.