Europe > Spain > Canary Islands > Gran Canaria > Articles > Canaria Class

Gran Canaria has a reputation for holidays of the sun, sand, sea and sex variety. It is a popular destination for German and English package holidaymakers seeking winter sun and also hosts many gay visitors. ‘Class’ and ‘taste’ are not words associated with tourism to this Spanish island off the coast of West Africa; as the fake rocks and dubious doorways of the spa at the Gran Hotel Costa Meloneras testify. The words ‘fun’ and ‘sun’ however, are as fitting as the tight, animal-print outfits worn by large, bronzed Germans.

At just four hours’ flight from London (and in the same time zone as the UK), the archipelago of the Canary Islands offers the only real winter warmth in ‘Europe’. Temperatures reach the high twenties, the sea is bracing but easily swimmable and, in the south of Gran Canaria, the sun shines 350 days a year. The droves of package holiday-makers shouldn’t put you off. There is an upmarket niche here too and, while sunbathing at the foot of sculptural sand dunes is enough of a long weekend holiday for many, those who want more can enjoy other activities. There’s hiking in the lush mountains and valleys of the north of the island, cycling in an ancient and rugged landscape reminiscent of Arizona; a renowned local opera company; historic towns and shopping for bargains. (The high 13% goods tax of the mainland is replaced here with a low 4%.)

On a long weekend to the island, with a group of friends, I wandered around the old town of the capital, Las Palmas: a maze of pastel coloured Spanish Art Nouveau and seventeenth century Italian-style buildings, palm-tree lined squares, pavement cafes and troupes of school children visiting an exhibition of religious art in the grey basalt Santa Ana cathedral. Statues of the large dogs (canis in Latin) from which the island group takes its name, stand on the steps of Plaza de Santa Ana, outside the bishop’s residence with its ornate, carved wooden balconies. It was easy to see why the old town, known as Vegueta, has been used as a double for Havana in feature films. The main tourist attraction in Vegueta is a large, courtyard house with an impressive carved, green basalt portico. This was the Governor’s House but is known as ‘Columbus’s House’ as the explorer visited three times on his way from the mainland to the Americas. It is now a museum with exhibits about the migrations of families from the Canaries to South and Central America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although the island is only 100km from the coast of Morocco, to this day, people look towards the Americas more than to Africa. A South American-style carnival is celebrated each Lent, with carnival queens in Rio-style, towering, feathery outfits shimmying to samba while locals and tourists in fancy-dress, drink, flirt and dance the nights away.

The close association with the Americas has even changed the landscape. Prickly pear cacti and large agave succulents, introduced from Mexico, grow everywhere in the north of the island. The cacti were brought over as food for cochineal beetles: extraction of the pink dye took over from sugar production once the Caribbean, with its slave labour, became a cheaper place to grow cane.

We hiked at 800 metres, in green and breezy pine-clad hills, with steep valleys and views over the south of the island, where the drier landscape is craggy and prehistoric, with deep ravines, high mesas and strange pinnacles.

Hungry from our walk, we ate a meal of new potatoes in a tasty coriander, garlic and chilli ‘mojo’, local cheeses and a peasant-style broth, full of vegetables and thickened with toasted maize flour, all washed down with local wine. The waiter served a typical drink with our coffees – rum, distilled from local sugar-cane and blended with honey. Canarian food is healthy and fresh: vegetables, fish and fruits. Agriculture and fishing are still big industries. Tomatoes, bananas, tropical fruits and tuna are all important exports.

The next day, we joined a guided cycling tour through the jagged southern landscape, free-wheeling down smooth and windy tarmacked roads, a breeze on our faces, the sun high in the sky. The dry earth is embroidered with strange succulents all in the same shade of pale pea-green.

Away from the history of the north and the island’s natural beauty, the fibreglass rocks of the Meloneras spa couldn’t be taken seriously. In the softly-lit ‘Womb Room’, we muffled our cynical derision as we wobbled on red, velvety waterbeds. We showered in a simulated tropical downpour, complete with ‘thunder and lightening’, had saunas and steams; cooled off in a grotto where the walls are solid ice; and bobbed about in a warm, salty, flotation pool in a faux cavern. The outdoor pools and Jacuzzi were a more grown-up affair where we whiled away a sunny few hours before a late lunch of langoustines while over-looking the sparkling Atlantic and an empty horizon which curves away, unbroken, to the Antarctic.

That evening, as the sun was setting, we boarded a 30-metre yacht for a two hour sail along the coast. The cliffs were hazy in the evening light, hotels twinkled from the shore and a large cement works looked like a metropolis from another planet. Two hours later, we reached Puerto Mogan, which has the ambience of a harbour-side fishing village complete with a range of waterside restaurants.

We downed after-dinner rum and strong black coffee, fortifying ourselves for a night of salsa at the concrete complex of bars, shops and night-clubs that is the Yumbo Centre of Playa del Ingles. And we decided that there is some class and taste in Gran Canaria after all; but even more sun and fun.

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