ANNETTE WOLFSPERGER

PB, Rother Walking Guide, 160pp, walking guides are pocket-sized (115 x 165 mm), in full colour and include 50 walks, varying from day-long hikes, mountain and valley walks, some easy some more demanding. Each walk has accompanying mapping, usually 1:50 000 and colour photos capture the 'feel' of each of the countries. This is a guide of La Gomera, second smallest of Spain's seven Canary Islands. La Gomera can be considered the wildest of the Canary Islands. From the central highlands of the almost 1500-metre high island, countless, steep-walled gorges wind down to the sea, slicing the otherwise gently sloping island coast like a cake. La Gomera is made for nature-loving walkers, and offers an incredible variety in its countryside. Idyllic valleys with terraced fields and palm groves stand in contrast to precipitous cliffs and spectacular gorges; the magical laurel forests of Garajonay National Park are countered by pine forests and banana plantations. This Rother Walking Guide presents the hiker with a wide variety of entertaining tour recommendations encompassing all regions of Gomera.

The finest walks on the coast and in the mountains. Rother walking guides are pocket-sized, in full colour and include 50 walks, varying from day-long hikes, mountain and valley walks, some easy some more demanding. Each walk has accompanying mapping, usually 1:50 000 and colour photos capture the 'feel' of each of the countries. The greenest of the Canary Islands awaits the hiker with a scenic diversity that almost no other region in the world with a comparably small area has to offer. Wide valleys, wild gorges and crater landscapes, pine and laurel forests, banana plantations, cascades and waterfalls form a rich contrast. On this island, hiking is considered a trump card and even the most beautiful of beaches veiled in black pale into insignificance compared to the temptations of nature waiting to surprise at every corner. La Palma is ideal for the hiking nature lover in search of adventures away from noisy bathing resorts and cheap sightseeing attractions. This Rother Walking Guide presents the hiker with a wide variety of entertaining route suggestions incorporating every region on the island: from physically demanding excursions to the wildest Barrancos in the North to the romanticism of a sunset on top of 2000 meter high mountains. It also describes the truly phenomenal volcano route. Leisurely hiking tours leading to fluorescent green pine forests, dark lavastreams and to a hiking destination that could quite possibly be considered the most spectacular of all: the Caldera de Taburiente, one of the largest erosion craters in the world, an immense primeval landscape shielded by 1000 metre high cliff faces.