It is a cliché that Tenerife is all about mass tourism, with all the cultural complications that entails. Certainly the high-rise resorts of Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas on the south coast attract us by the planeload (2.3 million British tourists arrived on the island last year). Still, a visit doesn’t have to be about baking your own puce or drinking yourself unconscious in the nearest Irish bar, unless you’re particularly keen on that.
Try the boutique hotels and volcanic pools of Garachico on the north coast, or wander the streets of elegant San Cristóbal de La Laguna, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Or explore the epic volcanic mass of Teide, Spain’s highest mountain, topped by a Martian landscape of wild red rocks. The teeming hordes rarely venture here.
In fact, next to Tenerife there is a small speck in the ocean called La Gomera. And La Gomera is something very special indeed: the antithesis of everything you may have heard about its bigger, heartier sibling. It is the third smallest of the eight Canary Islands (only bigger than the little-visited El Hierro and the really nice La Graciosa, which was only upgraded from islet to island in 2018) and although it has an airstrip, there are no direct flights from the UK.
Getting here means changing trains at Tenerife or Gran Canaria, or transferring from Tenerife South Airport to Los Cristianos port and taking the ferry for an hour’s journey west.
The moment you board the ferry you will realize that you are embarking on a very different kind of holiday than the one on the busy beach behind you. For starters, there’s no sense of being ‘packed in’. Instead, the sparsely staffed ship will suddenly appear to contain only people who are either (A) local or (B) carefully applying sunscreen, dressed in hiking gear, and over 45 years old.
Where we go, there are no Irish bars. And not a water park in sight. (The largest ‘seaside resort’ is the low-rise Valle Gran Rey in the south-west, a far less hectic spot than its Tenerife equivalents.) Instead, La Gomera lures its visitors by offering extraordinary walking routes through gloriously crenellated landscapes, all wrapped in a knot-shaped island with a diameter of only 24 kilometers and with only 22,000 inhabitants. In short, if you’re looking for the perfect Canary Island for empty-nest midlifers – at least those of us with still functioning knee joints – this is it, my twice-blessed friends.
Alejandro, who drove us north from the capital San Sebastián – little more than a port on the east coast with a few parallels of well-maintained streets behind it – said it best: “In La Gomera you go up, you go down – and there are a lot of zigzags.” This is how our walking week would unfold.
My wife and I, now completely empty of nest, had pre-booked with Inntravel, which specializes in ‘slow holidays’, and had all our accommodation arranged, plus transport of our bags between hotels, so we could walk relatively unencumbered. It also provided us with route information (both in printed and digital form, for mobile use). I must admit that some of the elevation profiles mentioned herein looked a little daunting.
But first things first: we explored the town of Vallehermoso in the north of the island, which – like almost all the small towns we would eventually pass through – is formed from a pool of brightly colored houses that gently wash down the sides of the island. the barranco (valley) floor, before dissolving just before a black sand coastline. In La Gomera, buildings always seem to be at the mercy of the topography: cafes perch on the edges of cliffs, houses hide in ravines.
Hotel Añaterve, our base for the first few nights, actually looked more like a cozy B&B. It was situated high on a small hill, overlooking the city towards the sea, with the riverbed below bordered by bright green bamboo canes and banana leaves. From the back of the property a narrow path led into town, through a dusty garden full of frangipani, pomegranate trees and monstrous agave plants.
We ate delicious tuna fillet and pan with almogrote (bread with a fiery paste made from hard cheese and peppers) at the friendly Restaurante Agana, which turned out to be the only restaurant open. Later that evening we were lulled to sleep by the bleating of a goat further down the valley. Amala, one of the hotel’s co-owners, didn’t like the goat; she thought it was too loud. “I wish it was a donkey,” she told me the next morning as she waved us goodbye.
I wished it was a donkey too as we walked up from the valley. I could have carried my daypack in it, which was loaded with several liters of water (the temperatures in La Gomera are warm and pleasant for hikers in spring and autumn, but this is still a strenuous activity). The 16 kilometer circuit we had to complete took us about 500 meters above the Barranco de la Era Nueva, northwest of the city. Further on we could see the Roque Cano, which rises above Vallehermoso, a huge fist of rock that is the remains of a volcanic chimney.
There wasn’t much signage on the route (don’t worry – the walking notes are exemplary), but the paths themselves were impressively well maintained. Of the six people we met that morning, four were wearing hi-vis vests and were clearing brush to clear the road. The other two were a couple of German hikers who were concerned about our relative fitness.
“I always check people’s calves to see if they are good walkers,” said one. “I haven’t reviewed the calves of some of the other people in the hotel, but yours look good.”
Suitably encouraged, we marched further into the landscape. Our surroundings were truly extraordinary: walking back at once from laurel forest to black volcanic soil, the drier mountain slopes dotted with cyprus trees and white flowering broom, the narrow valleys lined with date palms in greener greens. Stark, V-shaped views ran erratically across our line of sight as we plodded upward. Then suddenly we charged out of the valley towards the northwest coast, following a ridge high above the coast.
After what turned out to be the most strenuous climb of the week, we reached Chorros de Epina, where seven springs converge in a line of seeping pipes. According to local legend, men must drink from the odd-numbered springs and women from the even-numbered springs to ensure true love.
Perhaps because I was too confident in our relationship, I suggested we skip the pipes and instead eat more pan con almogrote at the Chorros de Epina restaurant, located on a slope. It marked the rugged halfway point of our route, before heading back through a pine forest to Vallehermoso.
Then you understand the essence. Each day starts with a climb and takes you via a circular route or a direct path to your next accommodation. But that doesn’t cover how surprising the individual moments on each course are.
The journey east from Vallehermoso to the town of Hermigua – the longest of the week at 18 kilometers – is etched in my memory for its sheer diversity: the red dust of the path under the Roque Cano; the terraced vineyards and fruit trees above the nearly empty Presa Amalayuigüe reservoir; the otherworldly landscape on our detour to the Mirador de Abrante, where red dunes were shrouded in a mist that also – unfortunately – obscured Tenerife from view; the remains of the abandoned port infrastructure in the beautiful village of Agulo, where the banana trade once flourished.
We spent two nights at the seven-room Hotel Rural Casa los Herrera in Hermigua, which overlooks the town’s church and is a beautiful mixture of dark wood ceilings, neat balconies and crisp white linen. The terrace of Bar Pedro, a little closer to the sea, was the place to be in the evening, as the few walkers we had met along the way seemed to gather there. We toasted each other’s calves with the local Dorada beer.
The journey back to San Sebastian from Hermigua is a thrill and ends with a three-hour descent that crosses the Lomo de las Nieves ridge. We passed prickly pear cactus in opal fruit colors and clumps of Canary Island pines with long needles; crickets chirped and lizards scurried across the path as we made our way to the Parador Nacional de Turismo de la Gomera, high above the city. A modern building built to resemble a Canarian country house, it was on a much grander scale than our two previous hotels, but at this point we were ready for a little pampering. From the outdoor pool, Mount Teide shone blue in the distance, serenely above the clouds – and the crowds.
We ventured out for one last coastal walk – a toddler two hour round trip – this time to a completely empty black sand beach that was perfect for swimming, before heading into town for lunch. And here we found a life-size statue of Christopher Columbus, whose fleet stopped at La Gomera in 1492 to stock up on provisions before sailing to the New World. He was 41 at the time: almost the perfect age. I just hope he remembered his hiking boots.
Essentials
Ben Ross traveled as a guest of Inntravel (01653 617000; inntravel.co.uk), which offers a seven-night walking holiday on La Gomera from £1,100pp on a two-sharing basis, including B&B accommodation, two dinners, two picnics, ferries and transfers, and walking notes and maps. Flights extra. Available until May 31 and from September 1 to January 7, 2025.
Recommended
There is a secret side to Tenerife that most visitors are completely unaware of
read more