Farmers' markets in Tenerife: which day each one opens
The hardest thing to find out about a market is not where it is. It's which day it opens.
Any map gives you the address. The day itself tends to live on a town-hall poster, in a three-year-old news item, or nowhere at all. And that's the detail that decides whether Saturday morning brings you a hundred stalls or an empty car park.
This article puts that detail in one place for Tenerife.
One warning first, because it affects this weekend: the Ravelo market in El Sauzal normally opens Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but from 4 July to 7 September it only opens on Sundays, 8:00 to 14:00. It's published on the town hall website and almost nowhere else. Turn up on a Saturday in August and you'll find it closed.
A farmers' market and a flea market are not the same thing
The words get used interchangeably. They shouldn't be.
At a mercadillo del agricultor, the person selling is the person who grew it. Fruit, vegetables, eggs, cheese, honey, wine, baking, and often local craft work. The stalls are run by farmers and smallholders from that town or that district, and that's the condition for having a pitch. It's why the produce shifts through the year, and why no two markets feel alike.
A rastro is a flea market: clothes, tools, records, second-hand things, sometimes craft. The best known in the Canaries are the Las Palmas flea market, the Guaza flea market in southern Tenerife and the Argual flea market on La Palma. If you came for island food, this isn't your stop.
There's a third thing that also gets confused with both: the municipal market, a permanent building with fixed stalls, open most of the week. The Mercado de Nuestra Señora de África in Santa Cruz and the Mercado del Puerto in Las Palmas work that way.
Which market opens on which day in Tenerife
The times below come from the register kept by the Cabildo de Tenerife's agriculture and rural development service. Each market's listing has the exact address, phone number and map.
Monday
Guía de Isora, Alcalá — 8:00 to 13:00, opposite Plaza del Llano
Tuesday
La Laguna — 6:00 to 14:00. The earliest opening on the island
Wednesday
Candelaria — 8:00 to 14:00
San Miguel de Abona — 8:00 to 14:00
Guía de Isora, Playa de San Juan — 8:00 to 13:00
Thursday
La Laguna — 6:00 to 14:00
Arafo — 7:30 to 12:00. A short window: by midday it's packed away
Güímar, Puertito — 16:00 to 20:00 on Avenida de Los Pescadores. The only afternoon market on the island
Friday
Ravelo, El Sauzal — 8:00 to 15:00, except from 4 July to 7 September
Arona, Valle San Lorenzo — 8:00 to 14:00
El Rosario, Mercadillo Agrícola — 9:00 to 14:00
Saturday
The big day. Among others:
Tacoronte — over a hundred stalls, running since 1981
La Matanza de Acentejo — 8:00 to 15:00, with wine and craft alongside
Santa Úrsula — 8:00 to 14:00
La Orotava — 8:00 to 13:30
Granadilla de Abona — 7:00 to 14:30, the widest window on the island
Adeje — 8:00 to 13:30
La Guancha, Fasnia and Buenavista del Norte (that one 8:30 to 14:00)
Sunday
Most of Saturday's markets run again, joined by the ones that open on this day only:
Garachico, Mercado del Sector Primario — 8:00 to 14:00 on Plaza de la Libertad, in the old town
Arico de Abona — 7:00 to 13:00
Güímar, Plaza de San Pedro — 7:00 to 13:30
El Palmar, Buenavista del Norte — 9:30 to 13:30
Los Silos — 8:00 to 14:00
Ravelo — 8:00 to 14:00, in summer too
The full list, with a listing for each of the 58 markets across the islands, is in markets in the Canary Islands and in the Tenerife markets index.
Two calendar traps
Güímar has two markets and they are not the same one. Puertito is an afternoon market, Thursdays, on Avenida de Los Pescadores. Plaza de San Pedro is a morning market, Sundays, up in the town. Same district, two days, two places.
Guía de Isora is the same story. Alcalá on Mondays, Playa de San Juan on Wednesdays. Search for "Guía de Isora market", pick the wrong day, and you'll find the town open and the market gone.
What to buy
What separates a farmers' market from a supermarket isn't the price. It's that the produce hasn't travelled.
Island potatoes, in varieties you won't meet anywhere else. Tomatoes, avocado, local bananas. Goat's cheese, fresh or cured, often from the very district you're standing in. Honey, depending on what's in flower. House wine in the wine-growing north, around Tacoronte and La Matanza. Home baking and gofio.
Figs and grapes turn up in summer. But the best guide isn't a list: it's asking at the stall what came in this week. They'll tell you, and that's half the reason to go.
If island food is your thing, carry on here: what to eat in Tenerife, home cooking on each island and guachinches of Tenerife by area. And if you want to see where the produce comes from, ecotourism in the Canaries takes you to the farms and wineries you can visit.
How to go and get it right
Cash. Plenty of stalls take cards, but not all of them, and the one that doesn't is usually the small producer you came for. Small notes.
Early. Not a figure of speech. At the markets that open at six or seven, the good and the scarce is gone within two hours. Mid-morning there's still a market, just not the same one.
Bring your own bag. Saves plastic, and saves you juggling five thin ones.
Parking is the bottleneck. At the big markets on a Saturday at ten, circling costs you more time than the shopping does. Arriving earlier solves it by itself.
Check the day before you set off. Times change: for summer, for the town's fiestas, for building work. Each listing carries the phone number and the website where one exists. A minute on the phone beats a wasted drive north.
On the other islands
Tenerife has the densest network, but not the only one. There are listings for the markets of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma, with names that make an outing in themselves: Teror on Sundays, Vega de San Mateo, Haría or Villa de Mazo.
Going to a farmers' market at eight on a Saturday isn't doing the shopping. It's the quickest way to understand what grows where you are, who grows it, and what people here actually eat. The bag you carry home is the least of it.
Cover photo: Jose Mesa, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
