Canary Islands - the fortunate islands
The archipelago of the Canary Islands is made up of seven islands – Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Tenerife, La Palma, Gomera and Hierro, as well as a number of tiny islands. They are a thousand kilometres from the Peninsula and only 115 from Africa.
Being volcanic in origin, their landscapes are pretty different to European or African landscapes many of us are used to. But that makes them no less beautiful or impressive.
The Canaries have been named as the Fortunate Islands – because of the weather – it is spring all year round, with an average temperature of 22ºC. It has more than eight million visitors per year – mainly German and British – 50% of which return for the second time. The water temperature along its 1.500 kilometres coast, though, is not as warm as could be expected because of the Golf current that flows from north to south.