Hotels in Frontera

Frontera

Frontera is the municipality that covers the great El Golfo valley in the north-west of El Hierro, the smallest and westernmost of the main Canary Islands. Its villages, Tigaday, Belgara, Las Puntas, Los Llanillos and Sabinosa among them, lie between the steep cliffs of El Golfo and a rugged coast of black lava. The sea here is wild, so swimming happens in natural rock pools such as La Maceta, considered one of the best on the island, and the terraced pools of Charco Azul and Los Sargos. At Las Puntas a small hotel on a lava point, once a 19th-century warehouse, is listed as the smallest in the world. Further west, near Sabinosa, the Pozo de la Salud spring has been valued for its mineral waters since the nineteenth century. The municipality also reaches the Punta de Orchilla, whose lighthouse marks the meridian that for centuries served as the prime meridian of maps. In La Dehesa stands the hermitage of the Virgen de los Reyes, the island's patron saint, whose image is carried across El Hierro every four years. Until 2007 Frontera also included the south of the island, now the municipality of El Pinar. Walking trails climb from the valley floor up the cliffs to the island's high plateau, with wide views over the Atlantic. Frontera suits travellers looking for nature, walking, quiet villages and swims in natural pools at the edge of Europe.