Agaete is a small town of around 5,800 people on Gran Canaria's northwest coast, at the mouth of a green valley that produces the only commercially grown coffee in Europe. It feels genuinely local — not a resort — with a compact fishing harbour at El Puerto de las Nieves from which fast ferries cross to Tenerife in under an hour. Just offshore, the sea stack El Dedo de Dios — God's Finger — is an unmistakable landmark despite losing its tip to a hurricane in 2005.
The Valle de Agaete behind the town is worth a wander: banana plantations, citrus groves, and terraced gardens climb towards the mountains. On the edge of the municipality, the El Maipés Necropolis preserves over 700 pre-Hispanic Guanche burial mounds on a volcanic lava field — one of the most significant ancient sites in Gran Canaria. In late August the town holds La Rama, one of the most important festivals in the Canary Islands, drawing crowds from across the archipelago for a procession in which branches are carried down from the mountains to the sea — a survival of an ancient Guanche rain-calling ritual.