EL HIERRO

Mar de las Calmas, on the south-western side, was among the first marine reserves declared in Spain. The near-total absence of swell, the vertical drop of the seabed and a steady water temperature produce exceptional clarity and an uncommon concentration of life: groupers, moray eels, rays and shoals of barracuda gather within metres of the shore, in a spot rated among the finest dive sites in Europe.

At La Dehesa, the juniper grove of El Sabinar offers one of the archipelago's most recognisable images. Subjected for centuries to the constant push of the trade winds, these trees have grown twisted and arched until their crowns touch the ground, becoming a symbol of adaptation to the wind.

Off the El Golfo valley rise the Roques de Salmor, the last natural refuge of the El Hierro giant lizard. Believed extinct for decades, it was rediscovered in 1974 on the Tibataje cliffs and is now recovering through a captive breeding programme. It can exceed sixty centimetres in length and is one of the most endangered reptiles in Europe.

Declared a Biosphere Reserve in 2000 and a Global Geopark in 2014, the island has turned its isolation into an advantage. The Gorona del Viento wind-hydro plant combines turbines with two reservoirs at different altitudes to store energy, allowing clean sources to cover much of the island's electricity demand.

Valverde is the only island capital in the Canaries that does not face the sea. Its position above five hundred metres and set back from the coast follows the same defensive logic that placed Betancuria inland on Fuerteventura: to avoid surprise landings. Its church of Santa María de los Reyes, with a free-standing bell tower, presides over a compact centre of narrow streets and two-storey houses.

Every four years the island celebrates the Bajada de la Virgen de los Reyes, documented since the mid-18th century as thanksgiving for the end of a prolonged drought. The image is carried on shoulders along the twenty-eight kilometres of the Camino de la Virgen, from the shrine at La Dehesa to Valverde, accompanied by dancers and musicians from every village in a day that draws virtually the whole island population.

On the southern slope, the El Julan site holds the island's most important collection of rock carvings. Hundreds of signs and lines attributed to the Bimbaches appear across the basalt flows, among them Libyco-Berber inscriptions that remain undeciphered. Nearby lie the remains of a tagoror, the space where the community council gathered.

El Hierro's heritage is completed by features on a domestic scale: the wells and cisterns that resolved centuries of water scarcity, the transhumant grazing system between coast and highlands, and the memory of the Garoé, the tree that according to the chronicles condensed mist on its leaves and supplied the population before the conquest.