The route down from Viso towards La Aldea takes you through a lunar-like lava field, where the ground you tread is pockmarked with vivid patches of red, orange and green, telling the volcanic story of this island. You’re rewarded with the sight of the craggy sun-baked mountain ranges of the centre of Gran Canaria, as well as views over Aldea de San Nicolás (known as La Aldea), nestling in the valley below. At the summit of Viso is a pine-speckled plateau where you can stop and catch your breath. Follow the signpost for the Montaña del Viso it’s a fairly strenuous but beautiful climb up, framed by ever more dramatic views of stark peaks across a valley dappled in sunlight. Get off at the Cruce de Tasartico bus stop on Degollada de La Aldea, a stretch of road that winds up into the mountains through barren terrain. This route starts and finishes on the route of bus 38 between Puerto de Mogán and Aldea de San Nicolás, so if you're using public transport you could base yourself anywhere between these two towns. For flight-minimising travellers who want to mix-and-match their Canary Islands, the ferry from Puerto de la Estaca in the north of the island sails to Tenerife in under three hours.Cacti and farmland on the approach to La Aldea © Gran Canaria Natural and Active This untamed, traditional yet ecologically progressive island appeals to intrepid adventurers as well as solitude-seekers, while the 47-room Parador hotel is an oasis of low-key luxury and culinary sophistication among the more homespun guesthouses and restaurants around the island. Criminally overlooked, El Hierro is romantic, remote and a haven for hikers, kayakers, snorkellers and surfers.Īs a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, more than half of the island is pristine wilderness, and forward-thinking regulations prohibit the construction of buildings higher than two floors. The least developed, second-smallest and most southwestern of the eight main Canary Islands, El Hierro is beloved by responsibly minded travellers for its small-scale, largely family-run enterprises, undulating hillsides dotted with wildflowers and for being entirely self-sufficient with renewable energy. Whether you’re a dedicated road cyclist keen on discovering remote corners of Gran Canaria, an architecture buff obsessed with César Manrique’s structures across Lanzarote or a nature-lover seeking out new species of wildflowers in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of tiny El Hierro, there is a Canary Island for every traveller. Travellers can bed down in stylish beach hotels, agriturismo Airbnbs, remote bohemian yurts and cliff-hugging private villas. Permanent good weather, historic towns, a calendar of unusual festivals and superlative cuisine and local wine mean there is really no bad time to visit. The varied scenery of the islands is spellbinding: Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and their neighbours have otherworldly volcanic landscapes, lush pine forests, secret rocky coves and swathes of sand dunes. But travellers who look past these dated assumptions are rewarded with an idyllic cluster of wildly diverse islands waiting to be rediscovered. The irresistible combination of Moroccan and Spanish flavours, plus year-round sunshine and a wildly varied topography primed the Canary Islands for over-tourism throughout the 1990s, and they’ve struggled to shake off their bad rep as package-holiday destination ever since. This Spanish archipelago lies off the north-west coast of Morocco, on the exposed tips of a vast volcanic mountain range beneath the Atlantic Ocean.
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