La Graciosa

La Graciosa forms part of the Chinijo Archipelago Natural Park, together with Montaña Clara, Alegranza, Roque del Este and Roque del Oeste. The group is surrounded by the largest marine reserve in Europe, some seventy thousand hectares of protected waters where rocky and sandy seabeds sustain biodiversity that has disappeared from other stretches of the Canary coast.

To the north lies Las Conchas Beach, almost a kilometre of sand presided over by the bulk of Montaña Bermeja, with the silhouette of Montaña Clara facing it. Its beauty comes with strong currents that make swimming inadvisable — a factor that has helped keep it virtually untouched.

At the southern tip, Montaña Amarilla takes its name from ochre and golden tuffs produced by phreatomagmatic eruptions, when rising magma met seawater. Erosion has gradually exposed layers and hollows that form a natural amphitheatre opening onto the Atlantic.

The archipelago's islets make up one of the most important seabird sanctuaries in Macaronesia. Colonies of Eleonora's falcon, Cory's shearwater, European storm petrel and Bulwer's petrel nest here, some among the largest in the world. Access is strictly regulated and much of the surface remains closed to visitors.

Caleta de Sebo was founded in the late 19th century as a settlement of fishermen from Lanzarote, drawn by the richness of the Canary-Saharan fishing bank. It remains the island's only permanently inhabited village, with unpaved sand-covered streets and single-storey whitewashed houses. The absence of private vehicles and heavy street lighting has kept its urban scale almost unchanged since it began.

Pedro Barba, on the north-east coast, was the island's second settlement and also grew around fishing. Abandoned for decades, its houses were later restored as seasonal homes. It has no road access or permanent services and can only be reached on foot, by bicycle or by sea, which has preserved its character as an isolated hamlet.

Facing the island, across the El Río strait, lie the Salinas del Río, regarded as the oldest salt pans in the archipelago. Their basins, cut into the foot of the Famara cliff, began operating in the 18th century to supply salt to the fishing fleet working the African coast, and stand as direct evidence of the activity that gave this corner of the Canaries its purpose.

La Graciosa's heritage is above all intangible: traditional fishing with pots and handlines, a maritime vocabulary of its own, the memory of boat crossings to Órzola, and a way of life shaped by the lack of fresh water, which had to be brought from Lanzarote until a desalination plant was installed. Administratively, the island belongs to the Lanzarote municipality of Teguise.