Vegueta Historic Quarter

Stand in Plaza de Santa Ana and the city's whole story sits around one paved square: the towers of Santa Ana Cathedral on one side, the town hall facing them, the Bishop's Palace alongside. From there the streets run straight and ordered, laid out in the 16th century, past house fronts with wooden balconies and stone doorways in Late Gothic and Renaissance styles. Calle de los Balcones is named after them.

The same streets hold Casa de Colón, the Museo Canario, the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Casa Móxica and the Mercado de Vegueta. The Ermita de San Antonio Abad stands near the spot where the conquerors pitched their first camp in 1478. Nothing of that fort survived the fires of Drake's and Van der Does's raids. The street plan did. The quarter is quiet, and there are cafés to sit in between visits.

• The streets are cobbled: wear shoes with grip, and expect a bumpy push with a wheelchair or buggy.
• Free public toilets are about 90 m from Plaza de Santa Ana; paid ones about 320 m away.
• A drinking-water point is about 350 m from the square.
• Information boards and a street map stand by Santa Ana Cathedral.
• Walking the quarter costs nothing; the cathedral and museums are separate visits with their own hours.

The bus is the simplest way in: two stops, Reyes Católicos 9 and Plaza de las Ranas, sit within about 200 m of Plaza de Santa Ana. Drivers have two car parks at roughly 300 m and 360 m, the farther one at the Mercado de Vegueta. Either way the last stretch is on foot over cobbles, and the cathedral towers give you a fixed point to steer by. The quarter's northern edge is the GC-110, laid over the old Guiniguada ravine, with Triana on the far side.

Best: early morning or late afternoon.

Avoid: the middle of a summer day out on Plaza de Santa Ana.

Low sun lights the balconies and stone doorways from the side, while at noon the open paved square takes the full heat and only the narrow side streets hold shade.