Spanish canary islands: Canary Islands | Geography, Facts, & History

Exploring the Canary Islands in Spain

Ibiza and Mallorca often take the lead as Spain’s most popular islands, while the Canary Islands are typically overlooked. But the Canaries — an archipelago of seven mostly volcanic islands off the southwest coast of Morocco — are a great spot to pitch clients looking for a laid-back vacation in Spain. Here are three islands agents should know.

Tenerife
Tenerife is one of the most versatile of the Canary Islands, thanks to its pockets of microclimates. Within an hour’s drive, the landscape shifts from nearly 250 miles of coastline to prehistoric forests and endless fields of volcanic lava.

Not to miss is Teide National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the center of the island. The focal point of the park is Mount Teide, the highest peak in Spain and the third-largest volcano in the world.

Urbanites will enjoy Tenerife’s lively cities, including Santa Cruz and Puerto de la Cruz. Santa Cruz, the capital, packs a punch for culture vultures. The Tenerife Espacio de las Artes houses works of modern art and photography, and the Auditorio de Tenerife Adan Martin is an iconic opera house overlooking the ocean. Puerto de la Cruz is Tenerife’s quintessential beach town and continues to be one of the most popular vacation hot spots for Europeans. Pedestrian streets give way to great shopping, historic architecture and seaside restaurants.

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Be sure to encourage clients to take in Tenerife’s rich gastronomic and wine culture, as well.

Lanzarote
Lanzarote is one of the more unusual islands of the Canaries. Its landscape is bizarrely beautiful, with dramatic volcanic lava fields, black rock peaks and red sand dunes.

In the north, Famara beach is one of the most popular spots for surfers. The small communities that dot the coastline are peppered with beach bars, surf shops and small shopping boutiques.

Lanzarote’s architectural aesthetic was born from the vision of artist Cesar Manrique, an island native who wanted to draw the world’s attention to the beauty of Lanzarote.

Manrique is responsible for many of the attractions that visitors can find on the island today. The Jameos del Agua, for example, is a volcanic tube created from a dried-up riverbed of lava flow that extends all the way to the sea. Inside, Manrique was able to design a natural auditorium in the stone that has perfect acoustics for the many concerts held there.

Gran Canaria
Gran Canaria’s capital, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is one of the most cosmopolitan destinations in the Canary Islands. The historic center, known as Vegueta, is home to some of the most important buildings of the city, but one of the biggest draws is Casa de Colon, or Christopher Columbus House. It holds a museum that shows visitors aspects of Columbus’ trips to America and his stopovers in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on the way to and from the New World.

Beach culture is big in Las Palmas, one of the few capital cities in Spain that has its own stretch of beach. Playa de las Canteras, the main beach, offers some 2 miles of coastline. Along the strip are hotels, restaurants, bars and terraces. This area buzzes at night with locals and tourists enjoying tapas or a glass of wine.

DESTINATION RESOURCES

Getting There
The best way to arrive in the Canary Islands is via Iberia Airlines. Seasonal direct flights from Los Angeles to Madrid operate from the end of March through the end of October. Connecting flights to the Canary Islands operate year-round from Chicago, Miami and New York. From Madrid, Iberia operates flights to Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Santa Cruz de la Palma. To hop between islands, Binter is a convenient local carrier.

www.bintercanarias.com
www.iberia.com

Where to Stay
In Tenerife, Iberostar Gran Hotel Mencey in Santa Cruz de Tenerife is a five-star luxury hotel in the heart of the city. In Lanzarote, book clients at Club La Santa, a family-friendly resort with a large menu of athletic activities that changes daily. In Gran Canaria, Hotel Santa Catalina is a historic, five-star hotel that has hosted the likes of Sir Winston Churchill, Gregory Peck and numerous members of the Spanish royal family. The hotel is in the center of Parque Doramas and is considered a grand dame of the city.

www.clublasanta.com
www.grandhotelmencey.com
www.hotelsantacatalina.com

Where to Eat
Bodegas Monje in El Sauzal has a wonderful restaurant attached to its vineyard, where visitors can try the wines grown on-site while enjoying traditional Tenerife cuisine. A truly unique dining experience on Lanzarote is at the restaurant inside the Jameos del Agua. Be sure to stick around after dinner for a live music performance in the cave. In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Restaurante La Terraza at the Hotel Santa Catalina is helmed by Chef Jose Rojano, who serves elegant Basque cuisine.

www.bodegasmonje.com
www.centrosturisticos.com

Tourist Office of Spain
www.spain.info

Holidays in Spain, Canaries, Costa Brava, Costa Dorada. Prices, reviews, weather.

Do you dream of a carefree pastime on the sunny coast, diluted with rich excursions, and accompanied by high-class service? We offer to book tours to the best Spanish resorts. Reviews and posted photos of tourists resting there do not allow you to doubt the perfect vacation.

The travel agency Other Places organizes year-round flights to the Spanish Canary Islands from Poland. If you choose the islands of Mallorca, Ibiza for your vacation, then convenient flights there from Gdansk and Warsaw are available from April to October. A good connection to Spain is always possible from Moscow. And in the summer you can fly to the Costa Brava and Costa Dorada directly from Kaliningrad.

In this country you will not be bored for a minute. There is something to do here for extreme skiers and lovers of art, architecture, history. For shopaholics, local markets and shops will be a real challenge and a pleasant opportunity to enjoy your favorite pastime of acquiring beautiful or necessary items.

A lot of colorful photos against the backdrop of local attractions and masterpieces are brought from Spanish resorts by vacationers. Great excursions are conducted here, which you will see for yourself by ordering a tour to these places from us.

Vacation in Spain by the sea

The local climate is an excellent opportunity to relax with children. The weather slightly depends on the chosen region – in the center and south-east of the country, summer is hot and dry, and in the north it is moderately warm. But the Canary Islands will delight you with eternal summer.

Popular Spanish resorts open the swimming season at the end of May. Tourists swim and sunbathe in Spain until the end of October. Buy tickets to this sun-rich country, where you can swim in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea (on the east and south coasts) and in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean (on the north and west).

You will be pleased with the well-developed beach infrastructure, as well as a variety of beaches, including pebble, sandy, rocky and black volcanic ones.

Prices for holidays in Spain

Here you can always find accommodation options at an affordable price. There are luxury 4 and 5 star hotels on Tenerife and the Costa del Sol. And the Costa Dorada and Costa Brava are full of budget housing. Three-star Spanish hotels have a high level of service – the staff is always friendly, and the rooms are clean and tidy.

Good conditions in Spain and for shopping. In Barcelona you can buy almost everything, and at affordable prices and excellent quality. Go for bargains, sea and sun! Travel agency “Other Places” will help you choose a vacation at a convenient cost for you.

Vacation in Spain with departure from Gdansk

We offer a convenient flight from the Polish airport to the Canary Islands and other resorts in Spain. Do not miss the opportunity to visit places that amaze with the number of natural, historical and cultural monuments. The incredibly beautiful Spanish nature creates a harmonious background for architectural masterpieces, fountains, museum complexes, ancient castles, and from all this, the impressions only intensify.

Be sure to visit Spain! In this country, the level of ecology on the beaches and the purity of the water is at a record high. Rest in such conditions will be not only pleasant, but also useful. On the website of our travel agency, you can follow ongoing promotions that will help you relax at the most favorable cost.

Spain approved oil production in the waters off the Canary Islands

03/28/2012

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=5590

19.03.2012
Spain plans to start oil production in offshore fields near the Canary Islands within two years. This will allow Spain, which now imports almost all the oil it needs, to increase its own production by 50 times – unless the local Canarian authorities manage to stop this project, as they already did in 2004.

On Friday, the Spanish government approved oil exploration off the coast of the Canary Islands. Preliminary exploration, which was carried out in 2001-2004, made it possible to discover several deposits east of the island of Lanzarote near the maritime border with Morocco.

These deposits could become the largest in Spain. According to The Wall Street Journal and Agence France-Presse, citing industry sources, production at these fields could reach 100,000 barrels per day, which corresponds to about 10% of its imports. Now Spain produces only 2,000 barrels a day and has to import about 99% of the oil it consumes, despite the fact that the country’s economy is in a recession and the unemployment rate exceeds 20%. The previous Spanish government (which was dissolved after the elections in November 2011) estimated that a €10 increase in the price of oil puts a strain on the budget by €6 billion.

Exploration off the Canary Islands will be undertaken by a JV owned 50% by Spain’s Repsol YPF S.A., another 30% by Australia’s Woodside Petroleum Ltd, and 20% by Germany’s RWE AG. Repsol is due to submit a report to the Spanish government on the possible environmental impacts of these deposits in the near future. Repsol and its partners intend to start drilling within two years. According to Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau, this project will require an investment of €9billion over the next 20 years, and it will be possible to reach the maximum possible level of oil production no earlier than in ten years.

The plans of the Spanish government are met with strong resistance from the local authorities in the Canary Islands (the Canaries are an autonomous region within Spain). They fear that oil development will harm the tourism business of the Canaries – now these islands are visited annually by about 9 million tourists. In 2004, when the conservative People’s Party was in power, local authorities had already succeeded in blocking the exploration of these deposits through the Supreme Court. This time, the head of the government of the Canary Islands, Paulino Rivero, said at a press conference that his government would use all legal means to prevent the development of oil fields off the island of Lanzarote. “The economic asset of the Canary Islands is the sun, the scenery, the white sandy beaches and the crystal clear waters. This is completely incompatible with oil production, ”added Fernando Ríos Rul, spokesman for the Canary Islands government.
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1896137

http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands
Website: Gobierno de Canarias

Blog started on 17/12/2011
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19.03.2012
The Spanish oil and gas company Repsol received a production license. In two years, it will start drilling wells 60 kilometers east of the popular island of Lanzarote.
http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/280273

02/06/2012
High oil prices and an oil embargo from Iran are forcing the Spanish authorities to start developing the largest oil field near the Canary Islands – Lanzarote (Lanzarote) and Fuerteventura ( Fuerteventura), according to the Spanish newspaper La Razon on Sunday.

We are talking about the development of nine oil and gas blocks that were discovered in 2002 on the sea shelf near the Canary Islands by the Spanish oil company Repsol.

According to experts, oil deposits cover an area of ​​6.1 thousand square kilometers, and its reserves amount to about one billion barrels. The development of a new oil field will allow Spain to cover domestic oil consumption by 11-15% in the next 30 years. It is planned to produce from 140,000 to 150,000 barrels of oil here daily.

In 2004, the Spanish Parliament decided to suspend the development of this oil field because of the danger of harming the environment of the famous Spanish resort in the Canaries, where international tourism is the main source of income for local residents.

“Spain cannot continue to abandon its largest oil field in the face of an economic crisis and high oil prices,” said Spanish Industry, Energy and Tourism Minister Jose Manuel Soria.

Spain has almost no oil of its own, so 98% depends on the largest oil monopolies in the world. Currently, the largest oil suppliers to Spain are Iran (15%), Saudi Arabia (14%), Russia (12%) and Mexico (10%).

According to the Spanish newspaper, the Spanish Foreign Ministry intends to hold a series of talks with Morocco in the near future in order to resolve disputes over the development of the largest oil field, since it is located in the 200-mile economic zone of interests of this African country.

The fact is that Morocco has unilaterally declared that the region of the new oil field is included in the so-called economic zone up to 200 nautical miles wide from the Moroccan coast. In accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 years old, the coastal state in the economic zone has sovereign rights to explore, develop and conserve natural resources. On the other hand, the field is located 50 kilometers from the Spanish islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, so Spain also has equal rights to this economic zone.

As the newspaper writes, the Spanish authorities want to offer the Moroccans a compromise, according to which a 200-mile zone should be divided and joint development of
http://energo-news.