Several paintings  by the painter Pepe Dámaso light up Triana Tourist Information Office, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

When he comes on stage, one gets the feeling that the air lights up and a warm breeze starts to blow, as when the rays of the morning sun creep into a room with views of the ocean. Pepe Dámaso, born in Agaete (Gran Canaria) in 1933 and one of the Canary Islands most universal artists, is the ambassador of light and colour of his island birthplace. Pepe says that one has to “emborregar” (a local word for rolling in the sand) tourism in flour and give tourists a taste of fried moray eel, “toasted and salty like the sea”. When the painter speaks, his Gran Canaria speaks through him.

The historic town centre of Villa de Agüimes, in the southeast of Gran Canaria, is a heady and empowering setting.

Life is art in Agüimes. Every corner of its old town centre looks like it has been chiselled out especially. These painstaking efforts have created a setting in which tradition and history have melted into one. A whole grid of main streets, backstreets, squares and alleyways have forged a quite heady beauty.

Everyone is aware of regions throughout Spain that pride themselves on their long tradition of producing cured meat and sausages. However, among these areas, the chorizo and black pudding made in Gran Canaria’s town of Teror clearly stand out as world-class.