Where to go in the Canary Islands

Teide National Park

Teide National Park is situated at the center of Tenerife Island.

Dominating the land area of the national park is Mount Teide, a stratovolcano, the highest peak in the Spanish region.

With its area of 18,990 hectares and founding date of 1954, this national park is considered as the largest and oldest national park in the Canary Islands.

The park’s huge land area offers a home for diverse species of flora and fauna in the region.

Aside from Mt. Teide, which is the main attraction of the park, Teide National Park also features volcanic landscapes, which make the park a center for international researches in geology and geomorphology.

In 2007, Teide National Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

Playa de las Americas

Playa de las Americas is the nightlife capital of Tenerife. It is a holiday resort located at the south of Tenerife, at the northern part of Arona and just near Adeje.

This holiday resort was built during the 1960s. Today it offers a lot of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants to choose from.

Playa de las Americas also offers an 18-hole golf course for golf enthusiasts who want to try the green areas and the twisting lakes of the golf landscape at Golf Las Americas, found at the heart of the resort.

There are also water activities such as jet-skiing, scuba diving, and wind surfing that tourists and locals alike can enjoy.

 

Timanfaya National Park

The Timanfaya National Park is well-known for being home to numerous volcanoes, which are collectively known as the Montañas del Fuego, or Fire Mountains. These “fire mountains” were formed during the early 1700s; at that time, up to a hundred volcanoes came up, devastating huge parts of Lanzarote Island.

Today, the area is no longer as fiercely volcanic as it used to be – on the surface, anyway. Underground is quite another story. Just a few meters below the ground, the temperatures can reach up to 600°C (1112°F). It’s so hot that if you pour water into a bore hole, it creates a geyser-like steam eruption in just a matter of second. Throw a dry branch into the hole in the ground and it bursts into flames.

A nearby restaurant called the El Diablo uses this geothermal heat to cook some of the food it serves. Because of the area’s hazards, you will not be allowed to wander freely around the park. Howeer, there is a coach tour that is included in your entrance fee.

Or, in lieu of the coach tour, you can take a camel trip – but you’ll have to pay extra for that.

Guided walking trips are also available, but those will have to be booked at least two days in advance.

 

Caldera de Taburiente National Park

The Caldera de Taburiente National Park is the home of one of the world’s largest craters; it measures eight kilometers across.

Geologically, the Caldera is believed to have been formed by a massive erosion of the volcano’s original crater. The highest peak of Caldera is the Roque de los Muchachos in the northern part; it has an altitude of 2,426 meters.

The Caldera de Taburiente National Park features a huge number of flora and fauna. You will find here almost a hundred species of plants, including pine trees, houseleeks, Canary cum, and the birdsfoot trefoil. The fauna population, on the other hand, is comprised mainly of birds (one of which is the famous red-billed chough) and some mammals.

 

Roque de Bonanza

The Roque de la Bonanza is a wonderful rock formation found 15 meters from the east coast of El Hierro. It emerges 200 meters from the ocean floor and was shaped by the same processes that formed the El Hierro Island itself.

Roque de la Bonanza is the most distinctive landmark of the island; it is the area’s most photographed object.

The rock can be seen not just from the shore but also from the beautiful nearby sites of Mirador de Isora and Mirador de las Playas.

 

Roque Nublo

Roque Nublo, also known as the Rock in the Clouds, is the most popular landmark of Gran Canaria. The monolith can be found at the Caldera de Tejada, a crater with a diameter of approximately 20 kilometers. It is all that is left of a once-powerful volcano that stood on the island 3 to 5 million years ago.

The rock was formed by volcanic flow and eventual erosion, all of which happened on the island around 3 million years ago.

The 80-meter-tall rock stands from an 1,813-meter-high surface of the Caldera de Tejada. Most of the tourists who go to Roque Noble are hikers and rock climbers. The weather around the area is good for climbing almost all year round. (It’s been reported that snow falls about two days in the year. If you’re so unlucky as to schedule your hike on one of these two days, you may want to postpone to the other 363.)

 

Corralejo

The Corralejo resort in Fuerteventura is located in what used to be a charming little fishing village. Today, it has turned into a still-charming but much more colorful little town in the north of the island.

On the streets of Corralejo, there are shops, bars, and restaurants, which provide lively sights and sounds for party-goers.

And just beyond the town lie the white sand dunes, which are not just the most attractive features of the island but are also in fact a protected nature reserve.

Because of the site’s popularity among tourists, resort owners have provided a wide variety of activities you can choose to do. In addition to the standard water sports, you can also join island tours, jeep safaris, and glass-bottom boat trips, among many others.

 

Torre del Conde

The Torre del Conde at the La Gomera Island is a special favorite among historians and artifacts lovers.

The tower was built by the island’s governor Hernan Peraza in the mid-15th century. It is one of the very first buildings built in La Gomera and is considered an excellent example of military architecture.

According to the island’s history, it was in this tower where Peraza’s wife, the beautiful Beatriz de Bobadilla, hid herself during a rebellion in the island, until Gran Canaria’s governor Pedro de Vera came to quash the rebellion and rescue her.

After the incident, Beatriz became the governor of La Gomera. (Hernan Peraza died even before the rebellion. Beatriz and a friend killed him after they caught him meeting in a cave with a woman he was having an affair with.)

In 1492, she hosted Christopher Columbus on the island. Columbus stayed on the island much longer than scheduled after that and came back several times for no apparent good reason, that rumors of romance blossoming between the two began to fly around.

At the end, however, Beatriz married Alonso Fernandez de Lugo. Columbus did not return to La Gomera after that.

 

La Graciosa Beach

La Graciosa Island is located at the north of Lanzarote. It is a small, sparsely populated island with beautiful beaches, among which are the Playa de la Cocina, the Playa de las Conchas, the Playa El Salado, Las Piconas, and the Playa Francesca.

At Caleta del Sebo, you will find good restaurants that offer delicious fare for hungry travelers. Café Meson La Tierra is the most famous of them all.

 

Auditorio de Tenerife

Auditorio de Tenerife, located at the Avenue of the Constitution in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, is widely considered the most iconic modern structure in the whole of the Canary Islands and an emblematic sample of Spanish architecture. This unique shell-shaped structure was designed by world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava Valls. It’s construction was completed in 2003. It has been depicted in a six-piece set of Spanish stamps. It is definitely one of Tenerife’s greatest crow drawers. It is also the home of the Tenerife Symphony orchestra.

The auditorium stands on 6,471 square meters of land. Its main hall alone can seat more than 1,600 people. The building also holds a dozen individual dressing rooms, a press room, two terraces with an excellent sea view, a café, and a shop.

Within the auditorium’s immediate vicinity are also two of the tallest buildings in Canary Island and even in the whole of Spain, the 120 meter tall residential complex, the Torres de Santa Cruz.