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An eighteenth-century defensive tower standing over the bay of Caleta de Fuste, in the municipality of Antigua, built to guard one of the three main harbours of Fuerteventura. It has a circular plan, two levels and walls of dark volcanic stone that were thickened to almost six metres after an attack. It has been listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural since 1949 and is now enclosed by a resort complex.
At the Peña de Tajaste, in the geographical centre of Lanzarote, stands Fecundidad, the sculpture designed by César Manrique and built by Jesús Soto in 1968. Its fifteen metres are assembled from the water tanks of old ships, welded together and painted white against black volcanic ground. It is a tribute to the island farmer and to the water that made his agriculture possible. The Casa Museo del Campesino stands beside it.
PERMANENTLY CLOSED. Former ethnographic museum on a 19th-century farming estate in Tiagua (Teguise), Lanzarote.
Interpretation centre and cultural park in south-western El Hierro, focused on the Bimbache rock engravings. It offers guided walking and vehicle excursions across the site.
A salt museum set within the only active saltworks on Fuerteventura, by the sea in Antigua. It shows traditional salt-making and lets you be a salt maker for a day.
Volcano and astronomical viewpoint in Fuencaliente, with a walk along the crater rim, a visitor centre and protected skies for stargazing.
Balcony over the Orotava Valley with views of the banana plantations, coast and Teide, where the naturalist Humboldt paused.
Cliff-top viewpoint in Tijarafe overlooking the Aridane valley, the Las Angustias ravine and Tazacorte harbour.
Black volcanic-sand beach beside the Janubio salt flats, with strong Atlantic surf better suited to walks than to swimming.
Dark-sand beach with calm water in San Agustín, holding the Blue Flag and lifeguard service.
Wide golden-sand beach beside the Maspalomas Dunes and lighthouse, at the southern tip of Gran Canaria.
Protected volcanic islet north of Corralejo, with trails, crystal-clear lagoons and a lighthouse, reached by ferry from Fuerteventura.
Long white-sand beaches beside the Corralejo dunes, with turquoise water ideal for swimming and wind sports.
Lava cliffs on the Yaiza coast where the Atlantic surges through sea caves and blowholes carved into the volcanic rock.
The Gran Telescopio Canarias, one of the largest optical telescopes in the world, on the summit of La Palma.
A world-class observatory at 2,400 m on the summit of La Palma, one of the cleanest skies on the planet.
One of the world's largest solar observatories, at 2,400 m in Izaña, with guided day and night visits.
15th-century fortress in central San Sebastián, now a hall with historical maps of the island.
Ochre volcanic cone with views in southwestern La Graciosa.
Nine kilometres of pale sand and a turquoise tidal lagoon between Costa Calma and Morro Jable: the world sanctuary of windsurfing and kitesurfing in southern Fuerteventura.
Viewpoint designed by César Manrique above Valle Gran Rey.
Protected natural area of the Chinijo archipelago, with La Graciosa as the main island.
Forest of twisted juniper trees, a natural monument of El Hierro.
Viewpoint over the Fataga ravine, in southern Gran Canaria.
A circular route of about 4 km that starts in the hamlet of Taborno, in the Anaga Rural Park, and loops around the Roque de Taborno, the great rock spire of around 700 metres that some call the Matterhorn of Tenerife. It offers views over the Afur and Tamadite ravines and the Anaga rocks, with narrow, exposed sections that are not for anyone with vertigo.
A lookout over the bay of San Sebastián de La Gomera, in the island capital, with parking, public transport and places to eat in the surroundings. The calm of the bay spread out below is deceptive: in the past, and far too often, the people of the town had to learn to watch the sea with fear, because that was the direction the raids of pirates and corsairs came from. The same bay is where the ships of Christopher Columbus put in.
Los Patos, also known as playa de Martínez Alonso, is a 900-metre strip of black sand at the foot of a protected cliff, between El Bollullo and El Ancón. Nothing breaks the swell here: the tides shift the sand and build a bank that breaks hard. You walk down from the end of the TF-176, there are no services and no lifeguards, and the town hall has closed the access for repair works.
A viewpoint at around 620 metres above San Sebastián de La Gomera, on the road that leaves the capital towards the south of the island. From the platform you look over much of the town and its harbour, the ravine dropping to the sea and, on the horizon, the outline of Teide on Tenerife. There is parking and a recreation area at the viewpoint itself. The clearest panoramas come on days without calima haze.
A semi-urban beach in the municipality of Telde, on the eastern coast of Gran Canaria, with some 450 metres of fine golden sand mixed with pebbles and a moderate swell. Houses of the old fishing quarter come almost down to the water and a short seafront promenade runs along it. This is the closest beach to Gran Canaria airport, so aircraft pass low over the bay on their way in and out.
The Ruta de Los Almendros crosses the uplands of Santiago del Teide between almond groves and volcanic lava flows, and is walked from late January to March, when the almond trees are in blossom. The classic line starts at the church square of Santiago del Teide, passes through Las Manchas and ends in Arguayo, covering some nine kilometres of moderate difficulty in three to four hours. A shorter variant sets off from the Calvario de los Baldíos.
Hoya del Pino is a forest recreation area in the north of La Frontera, on El Hierro, set in dense laurel forest at a little over a thousand metres. It is reached by the HI-1 summit road and has tables, benches, barbecue stands, a playground, toilets, drinking water, parking and footpaths leaving from the site itself. At this altitude the trade wind mist rolls in often and temperatures stay well below those on the coast.
The Caldera de Gayria, also written Gairía, is a volcanic cone in the interior of Fuerteventura, between the municipalities of Antigua and Tuineje and just east of the village of Tiscamanita. It rises some 170 metres above the plain and reaches 461 metres above sea level, keeping a well preserved crater that can be picked out from across the central part of the island. The climb is short but awkward, over loose lapilli and with no shade at all.
Boca del Paso is a natural balcony in the uplands of Adeje, at a little over 930 metres, looking straight into the head of the Barranco de las Torres. It is reached on foot along the waymarked PR-TF 71 trail, the Camino de Teresme, with the usual starting points at the hamlet of La Quinta, the old town of Adeje and Ifonche. The ground is stony and very exposed to the sun, with almost no shade along the way.
A cove on the southern coast of El Hierro, in the municipality of El Pinar, beside the road running down to La Restinga. It is a run of lava inlets, dark volcanic sand and natural rock pools inside the Mar de las Calmas marine reserve, the most sheltered stretch of sea in the archipelago. There is little sand and a lot of rock, with steps down into the water, and a barbecue area beside the car park.
The Mirador de Morro Jable looks out from the cliff edge of the old town, in the municipality of Pájara in southern Fuerteventura. From the railing you take in the old houses below, the seafront and the long Jandía shoreline, with Playa del Matorral, the protected saltmarsh and the lighthouse further along. It sits on Calle los Guanches, beside the church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, and is reached on foot from the town itself.
A roadside viewpoint fitted out by the island council in the upper part of Santiago del Teide, in north west Tenerife, with a small parking area beside it. It looks out over the badlands left by the eruption of the Boca Cangrejo volcano, with Teide rising behind and the Atlantic away to the west. A short spur of path links it to the routes towards Boca Cangrejo and the Chinyero special nature reserve.
A roadside viewpoint at kilometre 19 of the TF-21, the road climbing from La Orotava towards Teide, at about 1,248 metres above sea level. It stands inside the Corona Forestal nature park among Canary pines, fayas, tree heath, rockrose and strawberry trees. The view takes in the whole Orotava valley, from El Rincón in Puerto de la Cruz across to the Tigaiga slope above Los Realejos. There is parking and there are interpretation panels.
Charco La Vaca is a natural pool set into the volcanic rock of the Punta Negra shoreline, in Santiago del Teide, between Playa de la Arena and Puerto de Santiago. It is not a sandy beach but a hollow among dark lava flows that the sea fills and empties with the tide. You reach it on foot from Calle Acacia, through a narrow alley between houses and a short descent whose final stretch runs over bare rock.
A long distance path that crosses Fuerteventura from north to south, waymarked as the GR 131 and part of the Spanish network of nature trails. It runs for roughly one hundred and sixty kilometres in nine stages, from the islet of Lobos and Corralejo down to Pájara and Punta de Jandía. This point marks the section at Vega de Río Palmas, among the eroded inland hills of Betancuria.
A roadside viewpoint on one of the wide bends of the GM-1, between the Yorima and Arure tunnels, on the descent into Valle Gran Rey. The semicircular platform is shaped like a round cheese, which is where the name comes from. From the railing the whole valley opens up: terraced fields, palm groves and the road zigzagging down to La Calera and the shore. It sits roughly 550 metres above the sea.
El Agujero is a mountain route in the municipality of Santiago del Teide that climbs to the ridge crowning the Los Gigantes cliffs, on the west coast of Tenerife. The name refers to a natural opening in the rock that can be seen from several points along the way. Most walkers set off from the village of Tamaimo and link dirt tracks with stony paths up to the crest. The walk covers close to nine kilometres and gains over five hundred metres.
A waterfall inside the Caldera de Taburiente National Park, in the municipality of El Paso on La Palma. The rust, ochre and green streaks on the wall come from iron carried by the water draining out of the Caldera, laid down over decades on a small dam built in the 1960s. Reaching it means walking up the bed of the Barranco de las Angustias and fording the stream several times along the way.
The Ventana del Nublo is a natural rock formation shaped like a window opened in the stone, in the central massif of Gran Canaria. Its interest lies in what it frames: through it you see the Roque Nublo and, on clear days, Mount Teide across the sea. It sits inside the Parque Rural del Nublo, and the usual route to reach it starts from the Los Llanos de la Pez recreation area, in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana.
The Cofete viewpoint looks out over one of the most isolated scenes in Fuerteventura: Cofete beach, fourteen kilometres of fine white sand protected by the bulk of the Jandía mountains. It lies in the municipality of Pájara, inside a protected natural area covering almost the whole Jandía peninsula, formed by the island's oldest volcanic massif. Access is by unpaved track, a journey of roughly an hour and a half.
The Narices del Teide viewpoint looks out over the eruptive vents of the last eruption recorded inside the National Park, that of the Chahorra volcano in 1798, which lasted ninety-nine days and was the last the islands saw until well into the following century. From here you see the black flow that ran down the flank of Pico Viejo, a crater eight hundred metres wide, and the contrast between that recent lava and the rest of Las Cañadas.
The Sámara viewpoint sits on the Boca Tauce road, the TF-38, at kilometre 7.5, and marks the western entrance to Teide National Park. Facing it rises Montaña de Samara, a volcanic cone with a striking profile whose crater is open to visitors. The PNT 13 trail starts here, a loop over dark layers of tephra that is largely flat with a few gentle slopes. Parking spaces at the viewpoint are limited.
The Erjos ponds are one of the few wetlands on Tenerife, occupying former earth and aggregate pits worked in the 1970s and 1980s between the municipalities of El Tanque, Los Silos and Buenavista del Norte. Once they began to fill in the rainy season they became a key spot for birds, which use them to feed, rest and breed. The circular trail that runs past them crosses laurel forest and opens views towards Mount Teide.
The Ayagaures dam holds back the ravine of the same name in the interior of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, inside the Gran Canaria Biosphere Reserve. The place name is of indigenous origin and means the place between two mountains, which is exactly what you see on arrival: a sheet of water wedged between two pine-covered slopes. You can drive up, although walking in from the hamlet is the better approach, and several hiking routes set off from the reservoir itself.
Free roadside viewpoint over the Veneguera ravine on the GC-200 between Mogán and La Aldea; it is often very windy.
Viewpoint at almost 600 metres over Famara beach, the Chinijo islands and La Graciosa, set in a replanted pine wood.
Free 24 hour viewpoint over the volcanic amphitheatre and black shore of El Golfo, inside Los Volcanes nature park.
An Aboriginal communal granary with more than 300 silos carved into the rock in Santa María de Guía, in use until the European conquest of the 15th century.
Open-air ethnographic museum in Hermigua with the island's largest private collection, an ecological farm and a closing tasting of local Gomeran products.
A villa-museum carved into a former volcanic quarry, with lava caves, tunnels, secret passages and a lagoon, conceived by César Manrique and Jesús Soto.
An urban cove of black volcanic sand in Puerto de Santiago, next to the cliffs of Los Gigantes, with a steep shore and waves to watch.
An urban dark-sand beach in Costa Adeje, with waters sheltered by breakwaters, full services, adapted accessibility and a Blue Flag.
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