Life Overseas

It does seem odd that the reasons many islands become the tourists destinations they are, suddenly become polarised once they reach a certain popularity. Once the prime areas of development have become established, usually around a coastal area with a fine beach and space for new construction to take place, all the other parts of the island that contributed to its original allure start to drift into the background and slowly become forgotten.

You can look at many of the primary island resorts of southern Europe and see a very similar pattern. On the island of Mallorca in the Balearics, the vast beach resorts that straddle the capital Palma soak up much of the tourist volume that comes to the island and the location of the airport nearby serves to encourage this. The other popular spot is almost directly north of Palma on a coastal area on the opposite side of the island. Alcudia is linked to Palma by a fast road network now and the scale of new construction around Alcudia is huge. There are other tourist resorts on the island but they are much smaller in scale and the other original attractions of the island, like the Tramuntana mountain range in the North East, the various monasteries, many of which lie in beautiful locations and the charming, inland towns, many with wonderful central squares, are slowly being left behind. That’s good for the islanders themselves and great news for travellers willing to venture out from the traditional beach areas.

A similar situation exists on the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Gran Canaria has seen its central focus of attraction shift from the northern towns many years ago, to the beach resorts in the south. The capital of the island, Las Palmas, is still in the north and although it will remain, it is likely to return to a more traditional commercial area as visitors to the islands migrate to the southern resorts of San Agustin, Playa del Ingles and Puerta Rico. The town of Puerta Rico has now been developed so much that barely any space remains for further expansion and with the demand for sandy beach areas it is possible that the local authorities will look at new areas that can help spread developments more thinly, although that may involve the construction of artificial beaches. Beach manipulation is not uncommon on the island with some using sand shipped in from the Sahara to replace the native dark volcanic sand found locally in many areas. In the inland areas many of the best parts of Gran Canaria remain remarkably quite now and that is a treasure that remains for those tourists willing to make the effort to visit them.

About as far away as you can get from the tourist hot spot of the south east is the Anden Verde or the Green Ledge. This winding road carved into the cliff face of the North West of Gran Canaria is route that provides some of the most spectacular views on the island.

The town of San Nicolas, sitting in a natural gorge that leads from the East of the island to its western coast, marks the start of the route that rises to a spectacular viewpoint looking over the Atlantic before turning north along a stunning coastal road. It’s not quite Highway 101 in California or the twisting Italian mountain roads around the Amalfi coast, scene of so many film scenes featuring car chases, but it is very pleasant and the stopping points along the way are a perfect reminder of what makes the island of Gran Canaria so wonderful. Another gem on the island that many visitors pass by, serves as a reminder of the island’s remarkable history as an ancient civilisation. Thousands of years before the Romans took their social infrastructure across Europe, the islanders on the Canaries were developing one of their own. It is thought that the original Gaunche settlers came across the sea from the African Continent and lived a simple existence in caves, wearing animal skins and without anything as sophisticated as boats even. The Cenobio de Valeron is an ancient network of over 300 caves crafted into the volcanic rocks near to the town of Santa Maria de Guia in the North of the island. The caves are ideally located to provide an easily defended site and were used by the aborigines for storing precious grain that would have been highly desirable to invaders from other, less fertile, parts of the island.

In the south west of the island, where the road finally gives up its push along the coast and turns inland, lies Puerte de Mogan, a small port, with a marina development and no high rise buildings to spoil the ambience. It has seen some development, but only in a well controlled manner and now provides an example to the rest of the island of combining the needs of the tourist industry without violating the natural character of an area.