La Casa del Queso de Guía

The centre sits at Montaña Alta, in the midlands above Santa María de Guía, and is devoted to Flor de Guía cheese, one of the marks of identity of northern Gran Canaria. This cheese is curdled with the flower of the cardoon rather than animal rennet, an unusual plant-based method that gives it a creamy texture and a faintly bitter finish, and it is made mainly from the milk of Canarian sheep. A visit makes the process easy to follow at first hand: there is a room where the making is shown, two museum rooms with the tools and the history of the trade, a tasting area and a cheese workshop, alongside the reception shop.

The setting adds to it. Next to the building are the car park and the Montaña Alta viewpoint, from which the view opens over the northern midlands, the terraced fields and the coast of Guía and Gáldar. La Casa del Queso is one of the stops on the Ruta de los Quesos of Gran Canaria, which links the cheese-making districts of the island, and it fits well into a day in the north together with the old quarter of Santa María de Guía.