Canary Islands Update and Q&A with TenTravel (DMC)

The Canary Islands – 10th March 2021 @ 2pm

Let us introduce you to some interesting facts you might not be aware of on the Canary Islands….there are officially eight islands and not seven as many think…idyllic La Graciosa lies off the northern coast of Lanzarote.

As well as attracting millions of guests every year, the Canary Islands have a particularly interesting history, geography, and a myriad of interesting facts. A small selection of these:

El Hierro is a model for sustainable development and close to being energy self-sufficient. The smallest of the islands obtains most its power from wind, sun, and water.

The island of La Gomera developed a form of language in order to communicate across the wide valleys. Whistling or so called ‘Silbo Gomero’.

At 3,718 metres Mount Teide is higher than any of the mountains on the mainland including the Pyrenees.

The islands are 90 kilometres from the African continent but they are 1,800 kilometres from the Spanish mainland.

They were home to now-extinct giant species of lizards.

As many as 12 million visitors arrive every year.

Tenerife is well known for the quality of its wines and even wooed William Shakespeare with them.

Christopher Columbus used the islands as a stopover on his way to the Americas.

The Islands are famous in Hollywood. Thanks to their dramatic and varying landscapes, movies as far back as One Million Years BC (1966) to the likes of The Land That Time Forgot (1975), Clash of the Titans (2010), and most recently Fast & Furious 6 (2013) have been filmed on various islands.

The canary bird was named after the islands; and not the other way round. The islands were named from the Latin word for dog – canaria (probably).