We arrived in Gran Canaria on March 16 and our first impressions weren’t good. It was very windy (even by Canarian standards) with a damp drizzle in the air. Our ground floor apartment was comfortable but the only window had opaque glass so we had to have lights on all the time, There was no outside space except for a small roof terrace that was a wind tunnel with fake grass and no sun. We had picked the apartment in Playa Burrero on the east coast because it was near the beach in a little seaside town -we didn’t want to stay in the a big holiday resort. The price was reasonable and we had booked it for a week – so unlike our usual nomadic approach where we move on every couple of days.

We strolled around Playa Burrero in the dusky damp that first evening. The beach was rough, stony and deserted, the seafront was a row of dilapidated buildings with peeling paint and boarded up windows. There were no seaside cafes, no bars, no shops -there was a Spar up the street where the alcohol and chocolate were kept behind the counter and our backpack also had to be handed in behind the counter before we were allowed into the shop. Just when we thought that things couldn’t get worse, there was this deafening noise from the sky, a roaring that had my heart thudding. We were near the airport but this was something entirely different. We looked upwards and couldn’t see anything but we could smell and even taste jet fuel in the air. It was petrifying – I had never heard anything like it. Our landlady told us later that they were fighter jets from the nearby Spanish airbase on manoeuvres in preparation for possible escalation of the war in Ukraine – which brought the war very close indeed and gave us a little taste of what it might be like if the jets over our heads had sinister intent. These manoeuvres with their ferocious ‘surround-sound’ became a regular feature of our stay at Playa Burrero.

There wasn’t a shamrock to the found in Playa Burrero so we got a bus to Las Palmas, the capital city of Gran Canaria. The bus service in Gran Canaria, like all the other Canary islands that we have visited, was excellent, efficient and cheap. Though the bus windows, we noticed that there was a weird haze over both the mountains and the sea. This was due to calima, a layer of Saharan dust that sometimes blows in affecting visibility and air quality.

The beauty of Las Palmas took us by surprise. its a gorgeous city and far bigger than we expected – it’s the largest city in the archipelago and has an air of wealth and history. It was ‘founded’ in 1478 by the Spanish conquistadors (after they had wiped out the native Guanche) We made our way to a pub called the Irish Corner, thinking that was a good place to start, given the day that was in it. The pub was closed with a dusty, sun-wizened sign saying that it would open at 7pm (on Paddy’s Day!) We eventually found a bar decorated with shamrocks and staffed by young guys wearing leprechaun hats where a can of Guinness was €5. After that we decided it was better (and cheaper) to drown the shamrock with local wine or beer. The old district (Vegueta) was charming and perfect for wandering with its narrow cobbled streets, decorated balconies and fine architecture. There was Casa Colon (yes, Christopher Columbus was here as well) and the imposing Santa Ana Cathedral. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day meandering around, having wine and tapas in one place, coffee and sweets in another, beer and almonds in another. Getting on the bus for home, we had some difficulty pronouncing our destination, El Burrero (no, we were NOT slurring our words). The bus driver gave us lessons on the correct pronunciation so the whole bus knew where we were going and several passengers shouted El Burrero to make sure we got off at the right stop😁

Most tourists arrive in Gran Canaria and go south to the big resorts. Gran Canaria gets a lot of visitors, well over 4 million people visited in 2019, the last ‘normal’ year. So when we hired a car for a few days, mainly to get out of Playa Burrero, we first headed south for a look. We had no problem with car hire here unlike our exploits in La Gomera and La Palma and we hired from Auto Reisen, €30 a day. A motorway runs most of the way along the coast (excluding the western part) but the countryside near the motorway is not pretty – its very rocky, flat and barren with distant mountains but lacking the ‘wow’ factor of the other islands. Maspalomas in the south is a huge sprawl of holiday complexes, the largest purpose built resort in all of Spain and can accommodate more than 300,000 visitors at a time, according to DK Canary Island Guide As soon as we parked the car, we heard ‘Its a long way to Tipperary’ being belted out from one of the beachside cafes. The afternoon was cloudy, the sangria was flowing, the cafes and bars were bustling, the waiters were hustling for business, the stall owners were touting for sales. It was such a contrast to where we were staying in Playa Burrero or anything we had experienced so far, that we were a little overwhelmed….we could have been on a different planet. But what profitable use of barren land that was unsuitable for growing anything else but tourists. A blustery cool wind ensured that the beach was nearly empty and there was only a couple of hardy souls in the water. The famous dunes of Maspalomas were really beautiful, golden sand undulating for miles and miles….a fantastic amenity so close to the resort and a place to escape. We drove on to Puerta de Mogan, a small sheltered cove at the end of a green fertile valley. With protection from the wind, the beach was packed with sun worshipers with lots of people swimming and a much less frantic atmosphere than Masapolomas. We also got a parking ticket despite having searched for signs about parking violations when we parked- the parking warden had a bonanza as a string of cars all got fines. The wind that can be the enemy of beach goers is a blessing for the renewable energy sector. In Gran Canaria, there are windmills everywhere, in the sea, on the mountains, near towns and villages – we even saw one in the forecourt of a petrol station. The island is well on its way to overturning its dependence on imported fossil fuels.

When we ventured into the interior of the island, we discovered that it was spectacular with mountains, deep canyons, craters and calderas It had a varied landscape with pine forests, terraced mountain sides, lush valleys cultivated with fields of bananas, papayas and avocados and all interspersed with incredible rock formations. It was also extremely busy with tour buses and lots of cyclists on narrow roads that wound around the mountains. The ‘must-see’ spots, such as the mirador at Pico de las Nieves, the highest point on the island was basically a parking lot. On a clear day, the views are reputed to be stunning but when we visited, clouds were drifting across and the main entertainment was watching the manoeuvring of tour buses, campers, cars and motorbikes as they tried to do U turns in tight spots. The impressive Roque Nublo, a volcanic rock about 80 metres high, is considered one of the largest natural crags in the world and was a place of worship and sacred to the Guanche people. Now it is the National Monument of Gran Canaria and a beacon for tourists and hikers.

There are some gorgeous charming towns in Gran Canaria. We loved Aguimes with its cobbled streets, old houses, shady church square where an art exhibition was going on. A whole population of sculptures decorated the streets and parks. Camels may no longer walk the streets here but there was a fine specimen lying down in one of the alleys. It is said that life is art in Aguimes. In the north of the island, colourful Galdar lies at the base of a perfect conical hill. It was once the centre of Guanche civilisation but there is no trace left of the ancient court of their ruler, Guanarteme. It was razed to make way for the construction of the church of Santiago de los Cabelleros. Churches are at the centre of most towns and and one of the most spectacular is the neo Gothic structure in Arucas, sculped by local craftsmen. Firgas is famous for its spring water and its main tourist attraction is a water feature where water cascades down steps in an entire street.

The city of Las Palmas captivated us so much that we returned and stayed for four days in the Santa Catalina district near the beach. It is a city on a narrow peninsula in the north-eastern corner of the island and so is almost surrounded by water. It has everything – a nice climate, a large marina, busy port, historical districts, fabulous architecture, good shopping(duty-free) and to top it all, gorgeous palm fringed beaches. The most famous of the beaches is Playa de las Canteras, a long stretch (3 kms) of golden sand with crystal clear waters teeming with fish, which has won global awards for the best city beach. And then there is the long promenade by the beach, lined with cafes and restaurants perfect for strolling, people watching or just watching the sun go down.

We visited the Aquarium called Poema del Mar in Las Palmas. The entrance fee was €25 each which we thought was a bit steep but it turned out to be a remarkable experience. The highlight was the darkened auditorium where chairs and benches were arranged in front of an enormous fish tank made of the biggest curved acrylic glass in the world (almost 8 metres high and 36 metres wide.) It was like being underwater, watching a mesmerising ballet of the deep sea. Classical music played in the background and a huge array of exotic species swam in front of our eyes. It was both exhilarating and soothing. There was the slow sweep of the manta rays, the languid floating of the medusa jellyfish, the prowling of the sharks, the shoals and the loners. In a separate tank, there was the frenzied dance of the piranhas and the bobbing of sea horses and so much more. Poema del Mar translates as the poem of the sea and it was truly poetic. But there were also ominous signs and disturbing facts about the effects of our plastic culture on marine life and habitats. The truth is that if we don’t reduce our use of plastics, a more apt name in the near future may be the lament of the sea.

In many ways, Gran Canaria has been our least favourite island so far. The weather was incredibly windy everywhere – good for the windmills – and rain bookended our stay with a damp arrival and a wet departure. Our choice of places of stay for the first week was unfortunate and the island was far more crowded than the other islands especially El Hierro, La Gomera and La Palma. But we fell in love with the capital city of Las Palmas, the city that has everything 😍

Onwards to Fuerteventura on the Fred Olsen ferry this evening to see what we will find there.

Thanks for reading

La Palma in the Canaries is known as Isla Bonita – the Beautiful Island – and as soon as we stepped off the ferry from La Gomera into Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital and principal town, we were inclined to agree. There was a pleasant breeze carrying the smell of orange blossom and fried fish, flowers cascaded over the wooden balconies of the seafront houses, the palm trees swayed and the guy in the Tourist Information kiosk at the port was really helpful. We were clattering our suitcases (10kg pull-along) through the cobbled streets of the old town towards our apartment when we saw a street sign – Calle O’Daly (O’Daly Street)

I’m sure that we are not the only Irish people who had never heard of Dennis O’Daly. He was a poor boy from West Cork who became so revered in La Palma that they named a street after him in their capital city, thousands of miles from Ireland. In 1755, he settled in Santa Cruz which was then one of the largest ports in the Spanish Empire, trading in wine, sugar and bananas. He got involved with growing and exporting bananas… and became wealthy. He was appalled that the power on the island was in the hands of a few corrupt rich families and he was determined to empower ordinary people to govern themselves. It was largely due to his efforts that La Palma became the first area in the vast Spanish Empire to enfranchise ordinary men – a whole century before working class men were given the vote in Ireland. A fascinating character and virtually unknown in Ireland (or at least to us)

La Palma has another claim to fame – it was the scene of a recent volcanic eruption in Sept 2021 that lasted until December 2021. The Cumbre Vieje volcano unleashed fury on the western part of the island for three months, ash rained from the sky and rivers of lava consumed at least three thousands buildings. Banana and avocado plantations were razed and the earth tremored with minor earthquakes every day. But almost three months later, on the 50 minute bus journey across the island from Santa Cruz in the east to Los Llanes in the west, the predominant colour was green, green from the pines trees scaling the rugged heavily forested mountain slopes.

But as we walked to our casa rural (again dragging the suitcases for about 1.5 kms 😁uphill) , we noticed a fine coating of black dust everywhere – on the roadside verges, footpaths, stone walls and on garden furniture. Our landlady told us that no matter how much they sweep, the lava dust still comes, The wind blows it into every crevice and then tosses it out again. Looking to the mountains, there were long black streaks which looked at first like cloud shadows but were the recent lava flows. There was wisps of smoke on the mountain tops from still-smouldering lava. But when we got closer to the solidified lava flows, we were sobered by the sheer volume of volcanic material and the scale of the destruction. The relentless flow left some properties intact and neighbouring ones buried under a mountain of rock. It was disturbing and eerie looking at the aftermath of such recent devastation.

Although volcanoes destruct, they also simultaneously construct. The recent volcano has increased the size of the island creating two new peninsulas – the lava flows down and solidifies in the sea. There is also the problem of what to do with the vast quantities of lava and ash that has been ejected from the centre of the earth – some can be used for building and for fertiliser but there is an awful lot of it as you can see from photos.

Volcanoes are nothing new in this part of the world – all the Canary Islands have been made and built up by a series of volcanic eruptions over millions of years, layer upon layer, from the depths of the ocean. La Palma has a line of volcanoes, running down the central spine to the southern tip at Fuencaliente. A hiking trail called Ruta de la Volcanes (the Volcano Trail) winds along this central spine but a large part of the trail was closed for obvious reasons. But we trekked the southern part to the sea over the lava flows of two previous eruptions – Teneguia eruption (1971) and the San Antonia eruption(1669). The black volcanic ash is perfect for growing malvasia grapes – these grow on creeper vines very low to the ground. There’s a saying on some of the tourist promotion boards ‘He who comes to Fuencaliente and doesn’t taste the wine, comes for nothing.’ We didn’t need much persuasion but even if you don’t drink wine, there’s a fantastic visitors centre with good information on geology and particularly on the volcanic eruptions in the area. At the very tip of the island are the salt plains of Fuencaliente – producing high quality Atlantic salt – which remained intact during the 1971 eruption although lava flowed down on both sides of the plain. The soil is fertile and most people cultivate small gardens in the villages- potatoes are very popular.

All the Canary Islands that we have visited have boasted of clear skies but La Palma has been designated a Starlight Zone and has a plethora of observatories on the high slopes of Roque de la Muchachos (2426m), a starkly beautiful area, high above the clouds. If you go to La Palma, make sure you visit this amazing area where science, physics, natural beauty and the quest for knowledge all work together to give a totally mind-blowing combination. The observatories are in the National Park (Parque Nacional de la Caldara de Taburiente) called after a massive crater that was formed by several powerful volcanic eruptions and glacial erosion and has lots of hiking trails. La Palma also has about 15 astronomical viewpoints dotted around the island which are designated as good spots for star gazing and have big noticeboards explaining the night sky. So if you want your head above the clouds and stars in your eyes, La Palma is the place for you🤣

The bus service in La Palma is fantastic. The buses are called guaguas (pronounced wagwah) and travel all around the island. There’s even an app and website(www.tilp.es) but they don’t go into the National Park or to the Observatory so we decided to hire a car which proved easier said than done. The car rental companies laughed at us for expecting to hire a car without a reservation. We persisted and eventually found a great bargain, so good that we decided to hire it for a week at €85 for 7 days. We were on the way to get a bus to take us to the airport to pick it up when we double-checked the details. The car that we had booked online was in Palma Airport (in Mallorca!!!!!!) and we were on the island of La Palma. Names can be confusing in the Canaries – there’s also Las Palmas which is the capital of Gran Canaria. Sometimes, a bargain is just too good to be true ……but there’s cheap car-hire in Mallorca if anyone is going in that direction.

We spent our last night in Parador de La Palma in more luxury than we are accustomed to, thanks to a win in the monthly draw in our local GAA club, Passage East. The parador sits on the hills outside Santa Crux with sea-views and an amazing sloped garden, planted with native plants. The wind blew a gale, courtesy of Storm Celia – and the temperatures dropped – so it was good to be inside. Our waiter who was in his twenties with good English (English is not generally widely spoken) told us that the recent eruption was his first, his father has witnessed two and his grandfather had seen three eruptions in his lifetime.

Our next island hop is to Gran Canaria so in the meantime……Happy St Patricks Day☘☘☘☘

La Gomera is certainly the place to visit if you like hiking – its a walkers paradise. It is very easy to get there from Tenerife – there are at least 5 ferries a day from Los Cristianos in Tenerife and the short crossing takes less than an hour but is expensive at €50 for a one-way trip- but costs far less if are a resident of the Canaries. There were no direct ferries from El Hierro to La Gomera so we had to first get a ferry from El Hierro to Tenerife and then get a second ferry to La Gomera. It was a bright sunny Sunday in El Hierro but VERY blustery. As soon as we got onto the ferryboat, the stewards handed out sick bags….which were needed by many but thankfully not by us (we had eaten some olives with anchovies (the Canarian remedy) and swallowed a sea -sickness tablet as well, just to be sure).

The stewards also gave passengers brown bags of ice to hold at the nape of the neck, another remedy for motion sickness. Despite all this, soon the smell of vomit was mixing with the disinfectant spray and perfume and was almost enough to upset the strongest of constitutions🤢. There were also some almighty crashes when a stack of trays fell over and some glasses hit the deck. But thankfully, the Atlantic became calm before we arrived in Tenerife (two and half hour journey) and our second leg to La Gomera was relatively smooth.

San Sebastian, the capital of the island is a small pleasant town arranged around a gorgeous harbour with brightly coloured houses built up the slopes and a lovely central plaza with beautiful Indian laurel trees. It sees a lot of day trippers from Tenerife and there is no shortage of cafes, restaurants and tourist shops. Christopher Columbus (Christobel Colon in Spanish) spent some time here before each of his three voyages to the New World and these visits are still much celebrated. We stayed in a hostel called Hostel Colon where our bedroom was a windowless cell with shared bathrooms and no other communal spaces – usually hostels are great places for meeting people and sharing information but we never bumped into anyone, not even in the bathrooms although the hostel was full!

Having saved money on the hostel, we decided to hire a car – public buses go around the island but a car always gives more flexibility and freedom. La Gomera is very popular with well-organised Germans and hiring a car proved far more difficult than we expected as most were already reserved. But eventually we found one, we were delighted until we sat into it and it wouldn’t start – it had a flat battery which reminded us of the Guzzler on our Greek road trip. But a replacement was found and away we went. The roads were good but corkscrew-twisty. Oncoming traffic – especially public and tour buses – on narrow sections made for some challenging driving conditions (Caoimhin called it ‘exciting’🤣)

La Gomera is a round mountainous island with rocky summits, deep ravines and ancient forests. It has been compared to a giant fruit juicer – imagination required🙃 – the deep ravines are where the juice flows down. Agriculture is very important with small banana plantation running right to the rocky/ black-sanded coast. Many of the fertile valleys are tiered and planted with vines, potatoes and other vegetables. We stayed in Hermigua, a village in a spectacular valley with views over the mountains and banana plantations, close to the sea and many hiking trails. But in reality, there are hiking trails everywhere on the island. Vallehermosa translates as ‘the beautiful valley’ and is another popular base for hikers and has some unusual sculptures in the town playground, which gave us a laugh.

La Gomera is all about the hiking and there are trails to suit everyone from 30 minutes to all-day. At its centre is the beautiful Parque Nacional de Garajonay with its cloud forest of laurel and juniper and a myriad of well marked trails. The weather conditions caused by the constant flow of mist, produced when the cool Atlantic trade winds meet the warm breezes, ensure constant dew and humidity and allows the growth of over 400 different varieties of trees and plants. It also means that it can be a sunny 22C in the valley and a misty 6C in the cloud forest. Unfortunately, a huge forest fire in 2012 destroyed almost 20% of the park which is only slowly recovering. It was an August day when the conditions were perfect for the rapid spread of fire – 30/30/30 – temperatures well in excess of 30⁰ C, humidity well below 30%, winds well in excess of 30km. All it required was an idiot with a match 🔥🔥

La Gomera is full of miradors, viewing points to admire the stunning landscapes, places to take a breather if you are walking or to pull in if you are driving. But the most spectacular -and the most nerve-tingling – is the Abrante mirador, a glass-sided box on a clifftop, high above the sea with the gorgeous seaside village of Agulo spread far below and distant views of Mount Teide, the highest mountain in Tenerife. If you’d like an adrenaline shot, this is the place to go. It would have been more nerve racking if the glass floor was made of clear glass rather than opaque, then it would truly have felt like walking on air.

The Valley of the Great Kings – Valle Gran Rey – on the western side of the island with its beaches and long stunning valley is a popular spot for relaxation and is known for its nightlife…we spent a night in a house up the valley where the nearest bar was full of locals playing chess.

La Gomera was far busier than the island of El Hierro…people laughed when we said it was touristy – but because of it popularity, it required being reasonably well organized with accomodation and car hire. We like the spontaneity and flexibility of booking at the ‘last minute’ but in the busy season, this can limit options. . . especially on a budget. A gorgeous island and well worth a visit.

High on La Gomera