Visit Gran Canaria

Gran Canaria is, like the other Canary Islands, blessed with almost guaranteed good weather year-round, and this is the key factor that continues to attract holidaymakers to its shores. Winter and spring are the most popular time for visitors, with pleasant daytime temperatures for sunbathing and swimming but without the searing heat experienced later in the year. It's also in the early months of the year that trees bloom and hillsides are at their greenest, making it especially enticing.

The major resorts of Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles are much like other Spanish resorts catering to mass tourism, but beyond the concrete and the all-day-English breakfasts is a delightful island waiting to be explored. Rural tourism in self-catering cottages and boutique hotels, and golf retreats are a recent addition to the tried-and-tested sun and sea package formula.

Gran Canaria is almost circular and hiring a car or joining a jeep safari and driving around the island is a good way to see the sights. There are cave dwellings and golf courses, pretty colonial towns as well as a picturesque mountainous interior popular with hikers and cyclists.

The capital, Las Palmas, is another popular stop-off on Gran Canaria tours, noted for its museums and monuments and lively annual Carnival. Also worth visiting are the undulating dunes of Maspalomas, Gran Canaria's own mini version of the Sahara, just beyond the town, a vivid reminder that the Canaries are closer to North Africa than Iberia.