An Island-By-Island Primer to the Canary Islands

[Velimira Velikova]

The Canaries are a delightful adventure of the best activities, beaches, culture and cuisine.

It is highly likely that once you’ve been on a holiday to the Canaries, you may be tempted just to set up permanent camp at one of the amazing beach resorts. Do so, but, but make sure you don’t miss to roll around the vast dunes of Gran Canaria‘s Maspalomas, enjoy the waterfalls of the delightful Los Tiles bioreserve on La Palma.

It’s all too easy to land in the Canary Islands and, taken by the feeling of the sun on your face and the breeze in your hair, hurry straight into an idyllic beach resort or quiet rural retreat, not to be heard from again until the morning of your flight out. Yet while we’re sunbathing, swimming, sailing, snorkelling and strolling, the ‘real’ Canaries are just in the background.

These seven islands were long some of the poorest regions of Spain, and only decades ago this territory was practically an afterthought to the mainland. The archipelago consists of five main islands - La Palma, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote – and the two, small untrampled islands of Hierro and Gomera. The islands are the peaks of a vast volcanic mountain range lying beneath the Atlantic Ocean.

The volcanic crater of Mount Teide is the major landmark of Tenerife. Teide is the third tallest volcano in the world and its 3,718m peak is the highest in the whole of Spain.

Lanzarote’s Timanfaya Park was declared a national reserve in 1974 and the island as a whole, which has one of the most extraordinary volcanic landscapes on the planet and is globally-protected by UNESCO biosphere.

Tenerife and Gran Canaria, at the heart of the archipelago, are the liveliest tourist resorts. Both offer frantic beach activity and an all-night party scene but get away from the most popular package holiday centres and you’ll be able to enjoy the islands’ wealth of natural beauty far from the madding crowds.

Gran Canaria is like a giant horticultural centre where thousands of exotic fruits, trees and crops flourish. There are banana and coffee plantations, fields of sugar cane and tobacco, date palm forests and orange groves. It stretches just 40 kilometres from north to south but offers dramatic volcanic mountains, tropical forests, desert areas and golden beaches.

Fuerteventura is the oldest of the islands and has the longest beaches in the archipelago. It’s not the place for all-night ravers but the island is a perfect holiday destination for families, couples and nature lovers seeking a relaxed winter sun holiday.