El Portillo Visitor Centre and botanical garden

It is the northern gateway to the National Park and the first building you meet if you climb from La Laguna by the La Esperanza road or from La Orotava: it is at km 32.1 of the TF-21, beside the El Portillo junction, where the two roads meet. It is run by the Park itself and is open Monday to Sunday from 9:00 to 16:15; it closes only on 25 December and on 1 and 6 January. It has parking and toilets, and there is a restaurant next door. To ask before you go, the Park's phone is 922 922 371.

If it is your first day in Las Cañadas, stop here before continuing to the cable car and the Roques: in an hour you understand what you are going to be looking at for the rest of the day.

How the caldera was made, told in one room

The exhibition runs through the geological history of the park, how its landscapes formed, the high-mountain climate and how plants and animals have adapted to it. The 74-seat screening room shows a continuous audiovisual about the Park, and a second video room gathers information on almost all the national parks in the Spanish network. With children, the screening works best: in a few minutes it tells them what they will later see through the car window.

The Wolfredo Wildpret garden: summit flora with names

Attached to the centre is the botanical garden, which the Park dedicates to the botanist Wolfredo Wildpret: two hectares with labelled plants, many endemic to Tenerife, raised in a nursery and planted among the vegetation already there. The inner path measures 1,075 m and about 500 m of it are adapted for people with reduced mobility, so half a circuit can be done with a wheelchair or pushchair.

At its two ends there are viewpoints: the northern one looks out over the sea of clouds and the western one looks at the Teide, Montaña Blanca and Pico Cabra. It is the place to put names to what you will later see on the trails without noticing it, such as the retama (broom), the codeso or the rosalillo de cumbre. The garden has the same hours as the centre.

La Fortaleza and Arenas Negras, on foot from the door

Two Park trails of low difficulty and free access, with no booking, start from the centre:

• PNT 01, La Fortaleza. 5.46 km each way, an hour and three quarters to the Cuesta de La Fortaleza, with 276 m of accumulated ascent. It crosses the Cañada de los Guancheros between mounds of pumice from the Montaña Blanca eruptions and ends at the foot of the reddish cliffs of La Fortaleza. It is linear: the return is the same way, so allow double.
• PNT 02, Arenas Negras. A 6 km circuit, three hours and 329 m of ascent. It skirts the Montaña del Cerrillar among broom; from the top you can see the sea of clouds over the La Orotava valley, La Palma and the Izaña observatories. It descends beside the picón cones of Arenas Negras, with sections of up to 60% gradient, and returns to the centre by the Siete Cañadas trail.

Where it fits in the day

If you climb from the north, El Portillo is the first stop; from here the TF-21 continues to the cable car and the Roques de García. If you come via La Esperanza, the visit to the Teide Observatory, at Izaña, comes just before and combines well with this stop. Without a car, the 348 bus from Puerto de la Cruz stops at El Portillo on the way up, and the return one passes here at 16:30.