Agaete, the Measure of Beauty in Gran Canaria
The World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) names the Gran Canaria municipality the Best Tourism Village 2025.
Agaete is a verse by Tomás Morales, a brushstroke from a luminous painting by Pepe Dámaso, the sound of oars slicing through the ocean waters. It is the early-morning crack of a firework, the cheerful bustle of music and papagüevos, a sunset gazing towards Mount Teide. It is a play of colours that changes every day, the Faneque cliff rising over the Atlantic; it is the sea, the trace of an ancient aboriginal culture, Malpaís and Maipés. It is a lush valley, it is coffee, mango, orange and papaya; it is fish, it is the crab that peeks out as the waves break. It is El Juncal, the devotion to the Flemish painting of the Virgin of Las Nieves, it is Faneroque, Antigafo, El Risco – and the majesty, energy and magic of Guayedra Beach.
Agaete is one of the most beautiful villages one can find on this planet, and the World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) is right to recognise it as the Best Tourism Village 2025 – a distinction that makes this municipality of Gran Canaria the first in the Canary Islands to receive such an important international tourism accolade.
Those who have visited already know; those who haven’t only need to come and lose themselves in the whitewashed streets or along a coastline that never ceases to amaze from every vantage point. Agaete smells of the sea and of damp earth, and whoever walks its trails – climbing to Lomo Manco, Tamadaba, El Sao or El Hornillo – embarks on an ancestral, unforgettable journey. Many travellers and artists have remained in Agaete forever.
It is that place in the world so often imagined without knowing its name, yet always recalling its dreamlike spirit – that feeling that everything is exactly where it should be from the very first time we see it. It is the light and the vastness of its cliffs and mountains, and also the warmth of its people. It is the chromatic geometry of José Rosario Godoy, the aerial poise of Lorenzo Godoy, or the shaded, timeless fragrance of the Huerto de las Flores.
Travelling to Gran Canaria always leads us to Agaete. The World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) has not been mistaken in granting this recognition. Nor are the people who visit – knowing they leave wiser and calmer after exploring it.
Agaete is the measure of beauty. A gift of nature – that Finger of God which, though broken, still reigns over the immensity of the ocean.
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