Gran Canaria

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Gran Canaria, nicknamed the "continent in miniature", packs in a startling geographical range: the dunes of Maspalomas in the south, laurel forest in the north, mountains inland and the city beach of Las Canteras. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the largest city in the Canary Islands.

A continent in miniature

Gran Canaria is a near-circular volcanic island of 1,560 km², and its nickname — the continent in miniature — is earned rather than marketed. The south is a desert coast with the Maspalomas dunes running down to the sea; the north is green and wet under the trade-wind cloud, with laurel forest and banana terraces; the centre rises to almost 2,000 metres at Pico de las Nieves, a high country of pine, ravines and the great basalt monolith of Roque Nublo. You can cross all of it in an hour and a half by car.

Las Palmas, in the north-east, is the largest city in the Canaries — around 380,000 people — and a real city rather than a resort: the old quarter of Vegueta, founded in 1478, the Columbus house-museum, and the three-kilometre city beach of Las Canteras, sheltered by a natural reef, which locals swim in all year. It is also one of the best places in Europe to live through a winter.

The interior is where the island's pre-Hispanic past survives: the Risco Caído cave sanctuary and the sacred mountains of the Tejeda caldera were listed by UNESCO in 2019, and the painted cave at Gáldar and the cliff-side granaries at Guayadeque record a people the Spanish conquest all but erased.

All year, but mind the two weathers

Gran Canaria is a year-round destination: 20–24 °C in winter on the coast, 26–29 °C in summer, and the sea never below 19 °C. The island has two climates at once — the south can be cloudless while Las Palmas sits under the panza de burro, the trade-wind cloud that covers the north through summer. Winter is high season, with north-European visitors from November to March. The carnival in Las Palmas, February to March, is among the biggest in Spain; the Almond Blossom festivals in the hill villages come in late January and February.

Hire a car, and go up

The airport is on the east coast, twenty minutes from Las Palmas and half an hour from the southern resorts; Gran Canaria is Spain and the EU — no formality for EU citizens, euro, and the Canaries keep their own lower indirect tax regime, which shows in shop prices. The bus network is good along the coast and into the city, but the interior needs a car: the mountain roads to Tejeda, Artenara and Roque Nublo are the best thing on the island and the reason to leave the beach.

Eat papas arrugadas with mojo, the grilled fish of the coast, and the cheeses of the hills — the queso de flor of Guía, curdled with thistle flower, has its own appellation. The rum of Arehucas and the coffee of the Agaete valley, the only coffee grown in Europe, are both local.

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