Though largely given over to the tourist industry, LAS GALLETAS still has the feel of a small coastal town with a handful of shops, bars and restaurants scattered along the seafront and inland along its main pedestrian street. Beside Las Galletas the large COSTA DEL SILENCIO resort now forms a couple of miles of almost uninterrupted development containing numerous expat businesses - mostly restaurants and bars. In the absence of any real beach, growth here is spurred on by the success of the complex-oriented holiday, as begun at Ten-Bel in the 1960s, and an apparently boundless demand for holiday and retirement apartments in southern Tenerife.
Certainly, it's not the peace along this stretch that encourages tourism, its name - meaning "Coast of Silence" - something of a misnomer since the opening of the nearby international airport in 1978. Yet it's only at peak flying times that you notice the planes - for the most part it is the continual din of pneumatic drills and cement mixers on the numerous building sites that is most likely to disturb the peace. For this reason alone, it is worth avoiding the eastern end of town on most weekdays. Just beyond the noise of these building sites, however, is the small protected area around Montaña Amarilla , which provides a respite from development as does the undeveloped rocky outcrop containing some spectacular cacti just beyond. While to the west of Las Galletas, Rasca Nature Reserve offers a similar arid landscape and is a good location for hikes west to Montaña Guaza , centre of another nature reserve.
The town and resort
A pleasant enough Canarian coastal town in its own right, Las Galletas mainly attracts visitors to its large adjoining resort area, the Costa del Silencio . As the nearest urban centre to this resort, the town has a small collection of modest shops, restaurants and cafés - many of which line the promenade that adjoins a small harbour area , itself a pleasant place for a short stroll. The main shopping area, however, is further inland, along the pedestrianized, Calle Central , one of a number of narrow streets lined with the nondescript modern buildings that make up the town centre. From here it's a short walk south to another, more pleasant, but considerably less lively pedestrianized area, the tree-lined avenue La Rambla that hems in buildings along the seafront. Here you'll find a small selection of restaurants overlooking a slender promenade and a narrow pebble beach, where the waves crashing along the rocky shoreline attract local surfers and body-boarders. The beach continues well west of town, though its length is interrupted by a large concrete sea defence, built to shelter fishing boats in the tiny harbour. The murky waters of the small man-made bay are home to a number of small fishing boats as well as vessels belonging to the town's numerous diving schools, all are watched over by the handful of sunbathers that regularly lie on the surrounding pebble beach.
The focal point of Costa del Silencio is east of Las Galletas along Avenida Tavio Alfonso, the main road through the resort. The main centres of activity along this stretch are three charmless commercial centres: CC trebol and CC El Chaparral , opposite each other and beside Ten-Bel at the western end of the road, and CC Coralmar Square , at the eastern end. Each mall contains a similar collection of shops and services, from small supermarkets and travel agents to restaurants and bars.
While the teeming nightlife associated with nearby Playa Las Américas is conspicuously absent in Las Galletas and the Costa del Silencio, a wide variety of bars serve drinks well into the small hours every night. Locals tend to congregate in the bars of Las Galletas to watch sport on TV and eat tapas. Bar Paropo , C/La Arena, is the pick of the bunch, here - small, smoky and atmospheric, its walls are covered in beer mats and diverse memorabilia and, unusually in town, the option of drinking at outside tables too.
Theme pubs predominate in the commercial centres of Costa del Silencio . If watching sport on widescreen TVs is your thing, then you'll find plenty of bars to choose from in CC trebol. For something a little more stylish, try the Peanut Disco Bar in CC El Chapparal, one of a handful of bars, many of which quickly come and go, in the same centre. The area's single, low-key, disco, Disco Lord (closed Tues & Wed), also in CC El Chapparal, is nothing special, pumping out the usual array of chart music and hosting 60s and 70s nights. At the newer, eastern end of the resort, CC Coralmar Square is home to around a dozen, mostly British, bars that sometimes club together to provide live entertainment (such as mediocre cabaret) in a central courtyard.
