The catch at Hotel San Roque

Garachico faces north-west, into the trade winds, which is why it is green. The nearest station with published AEMET climate normals is Tenerife North airport at La Laguna, 632 metres up and 47 minutes away by road on the same face of the island. Its 1981 to 2010 averages give 520 mm of rain a year over 64 days, and the shape matters more than the total: December averages 82 mm over 8.8 wet days with 137 hours of sun, November 81 mm over 8.3 days, January 80 mm over 7.7, February 70 mm over 7.4. August averages 5 mm over 1.1 days with 269 hours of sun.

Garachico sits at sea level, so it is warmer and drier than a hillside airport, but the pattern holds: a winter week here is a coin toss on cloud, and the only shared sun terrace is the roof solarium. The pool is heated to between 25 and 27 degrees all year, which is the hotel's answer, and a fair one.

The pool was excavated through the volcanic rock under a courtyard during the 1992 to 1996 restoration, and the hotel publishes no dimensions for it, which tells you enough. Guests report a pool for dipping, not swimming, and the hotel's own copy calls it a tranquil space.

The rooms are the second half. The Double Collection runs from 24 to 32 square metres on the hotel's own page, and which end you get is luck. Two of the six categories, the Dúplex and the Dúplex Suite, put the bedroom on an upper level; the Dúplex page calls its bedrooms attic-style and the rooms overview says they sit beneath sloped ceilings. The Double Superior page sells itself as ideal for guests who prefer stays without stairs or level changes, and the building page says that differences in floor level, interior staircases and wooden corridors are part of moving through the house. Guests rate cleanliness and service highest and value lowest.

The hotel is photographed from its roof, with the Atlantic and the rooftops of Garachico below. That view belongs to the solarium, which every guest can use, and to one room: the 55 square metre Suite La Torre, on three levels with a private terrace at the top, which the rooms page calls the only room in the hotel with direct access to the mirador. It is the only category whose page mentions the sea, and the one category with a maximum of two adults; everything else takes a third.

Where the hotel states an outlook for the other five categories, it is inwards or across the street. The Dúplex Suite has large windows onto the main courtyard; the Dúplex rooms split two onto the pool courtyard and five onto the main one; the Double Collection faces either the main courtyard or the San Agustín convent opposite. Terraces exist on some rooms only; the FAQ says to check availability when you reserve. It is a house built to keep the sun out, and its rooms behave like it: thick walls, galleries, light from a patio.

By road from the hotel door, Playa del Duque in Costa Adeje is 54 minutes, Tenerife South airport 64 and Tenerife North 47; the hotel's own site says 45 minutes from the north airport and an hour and twenty from the south. Garachico has buses, but the reasons to come here, the Teno cliffs, Masca and the coast road west, want a car.

The hotel has no car park. Its FAQ describes a parking area for arrivals in front of the hotel, then, after check-in, the same street or the free public car park about 30 metres away at the old football field. Calle Esteban de Ponte is narrow and cobbled, and guests report that finding a space is a hunt in high season. Add the small print: adults only from fourteen, no pets, check-in from 14:00, check-out by 12:00, and dinner at Anturium at 49 or 69 euros a head with wine excluded and a last reservation at 21:30, in a town guests describe as quiet after dark.