The city of Puerto del Rosario in Fuerteventura

[Photos] [Presentation] [Location] [visits] [Culture] [guidance] [Other topics]

[Previous topics] [Canary Islands] [Parent topics] [Next topics] [Via Gallica]

Presentation

General presentation

Etymology and toponymy

The town of Puerto del Rosario in Fuerteventura. The crest of the city (author Heralder). Click to enlarge the image.

Puerto del Rosario is a port city located in the middle of the eastern coast of the island of Fuerteventura; the city is the administrative and economic capital of the island, but did not have much interest in the tourism and cultural point of view. Visitors will pass to board a ferry to Gran Canaria or Tenerife, or to get to the airport El Mattoral, very close, to a bus line change to the bus station, or again to shop in boutiques and shopping centers.

Puerto del Rosario is the seat of the Chapter of Fuerteventura (Cabildo de Fuerteventura) since 1860 when she succeeded Betancuria and La Oliva as the capital of the island. It is also the capital of a town whose main towns are Puerto del Rosario, Casillas del Ángel and Tetir.

The city has about 30,000 inhabitants, mostly employed in the area of administration and services, but very few in the tourism sector.

Puerto del Rosario (Port of the Rosary) is named after the Virgin del Rosario (Virgin of the Rosary) which is dedicated to the parish since 1806.

It was not until 1956 that the city took the name of Puerto del Rosario; previously the city was named Puerto de Cabras, or Puerto Cabras (Port of Goats) because of the shepherds brought their flocks of goats to drink from a source of a ravine south of the resort, the Barranco de Río Cabras on which was built dam Río Cabras.

Situation

The town of Puerto del Rosario in Fuerteventura. Location of Puerto del Rosario in Fuerteventura. Click to enlarge the image.

Puerto del Rosario has developed around a natural port at the bottom of a large bay on the east coast of Fuerteventura.

The capital city is the center of the road network of the island: the north, the FV-1 road that connects it to the resort of Corralejo; northwest VF-10 road connects La Oliva; south coastal road FV-2 leads to the almost island of Jandía; southwest the road FV-20 joined La Antigua and Tuineje; after Casillas del Ángel, the FV-30 road separates from the FV-20 lead to Betancuria then Pájara.

The international airport of Fuerteventura is located in El Matorral, 5 kilometers south of Puerto del Rosario, on the FV-2 road.

Puerto del Rosario is the capital of a town that occupies a land strip extending from the east coast to the west coast of the island. To the north the town of Puerto del Rosario is separated from the municipality of La Oliva in an almost straight line from the Caleta del Buen Pobre, on the eastern coast to the Playa de la Mujer, on the western coast, passing by Pico de la Muda (689 m) in the middle of the island. In the south the municipality of Puerto del Rosario is adjacent to the town of La Antigua, along a line from the Punta del Cangrejito in the east, then through a series of hills (morros) and edges (cuchillos), addresses the massif Betancuria, then down to the west coast along the ravine of Agua Fria and the ravine of Los Mozos, reaching the coast at Playa de los Mozos.

The territory of the municipality of Puerto del Rosario covers parts of two protected natural areas: the west Rural Park Betancuria and the north, the Protected Landscape Vallebrón.

Visits

The city of Puerto del Rosario
Puerto de Cabras was founded around 1797 by mainlanders who saw in its natural harbor great potential; the coastal village then part of the municipality of Tetir. The development was made from the fishing port became too commercial port for the export of samphire and grain in the early decades of the nineteenth century. However, it was not until 1835 that the town became an independent town in the municipality of Tetir when the significant growth of its population made the necessary emancipation. Puerto de Cabras became the capital of the island of Fuerteventura in 1860, replacing in this function the city of La Oliva. Administrations, insular government agencies and commercial establishments settled there. In 1925-1926 years, Puerto del Rosario absorbed the cities of Tetir and Casillas del Ángel. The harbor area is the oldest part of the city that comes alive when the fishermen return; south of the harbor is the beach of Puerto del Rosario, surrounded by a pleasant promenade. From the port you can head for the old town and the place of the municipal market (Mercado municipal), through narrow streets lined with old Canarian style houses protected by high walls. Further north are the shopping streets Avenida 1 de Mayo and Calle León y Castilla; they intersect are the few cultural attractions: the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, the home of Unamuno and the City Hall. In this city the municipality has installed a “sculpture park” 50 figurative or abstract sculptures of various styles. Northwest of the city center is the shopping center of Las Rotondas. The west and north of the city are a grid of streets occupied by residential areas, while the south hosting companies, supermarkets and hotels. South of the town is the long beach of Playa Blanca where once stood the old Parador de Fuerteventura. Since the 1990s, a ring road bypasses Puerto del Rosario north and west.
The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary (Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario)
The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary was built between 1824 and 1835; the bell tower was built in 1888 and houses two bells from Marseille, France. The church found its current form in 1930. The festivities of Our Lady of the Rosary held on the first Sunday of October.
House museum Miguel de Unamuno (Casa Museo Miguel de Unamuno)
House museum Unamuno is a XIXth century (1877) where lived for a few months the writer, poet and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936). In February 1924, after he had harsh criticism against the regime of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (head of government from 1923 to 1930), Miguel de Unamuno had been stripped of his chair of Greek at the University of Salamanca from his post as rector of the university; he was banished from the Spanish mainland and forced into exile in Fuerteventura. He moved to Puerto de Cabras and lived from March to July 1924, in this house which was then a board named “Hotel Fuerteventura”. After five months Unamuno was able to escape to go to France. The museum displays personal items Unamuno, photographs and period furniture such as a workbench where he wrote some of his sonnets exile newspaper “De Fuerteventura to Paris” (De Fuerteventura a París: diario íntimo de confinamiento y destierro vertido en sonetos, 1925). Including sonnets on the Canaries and on the island of Fuerteventura : " Como hijos de un volcán , son ardientes y firmes” ... “As the son of a volcano, they are ardent and strong” ... " Si a estas Islas Canarias se las llamó Afortunadas, a esta de Fuerteventura habrá de llamarla la Fuertemente Venturosa” ... “If the Canary Islands are called the Fortunate Islands, Fuerteventura will be named Highly Adventurous” ... In front of the museum stands a bronze statue representing the writer, conducted in 2006 by Emiliano Hernández. Visit the house museum Unamuno : Address: Calle de la Virgen del Rosario, 11, in the center of Puerto del Rosario, near the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. Phone: 00 34 928 862 376 Hours: Open Monday to Friday, 9 am to 14 pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Admission: free admission.


The village of La Matilla
The village of La Matilla is located 14 km northwest of Puerto del Rosario, 4 km after Tetir on the FV-10 road. This village of 150 inhabitants has a small church of the eighteenth century, Notre-Dame du Bon Secours (Ermita de Nuestra Señora del Socorro). North of La Matilla is the Montaña de la Muda (689 m) (“the Muette Mountain”), the highest mountain in the north of the island of Fuerteventura. At the top of that mountain was a place of worship of the aborigines of Fuerteventura, discovered in 1991. Despite these archaeological remains radar was installed at the top of Pico de la Muda. We can reach the summit via a footpath leading from the western outskirts of the village towards the sources Chupadero; According to sources the path continues to the top.
The village of El Time
The village of El Time is north-northwest of Puerto del Rosario; the FV-10 road turn right at Los Estancos (former airport Fuerteventura) on the FV-219 road. The village name means “Cliff” in the language of the aborigines, as the village is built on the edge of a deep, narrow ravine. The village has an early eighteenth-century chapel, the chapel of Our Lady of Mercies (Ermita de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes).

Practical information

The tourism office

Address: Calle Almirante Lallermand, 1

Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 am to 14 am and from 17 am to 19 pm; Saturday from 10 am to 13 pm. Close on Sunday.

Phone: 00 34 928 530 844

Site on the Web: www.turismo-puertodelrosario.org

Weather and forecasts

Ferries

The shipping company Naviera Armas offers connections from Puerto del Rosario to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Gran Canaria (starting at 11 am; arrival at 17 h 30) and to Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Tenerife (starting at 11 am; arrival at 22 h 30).

Opening hours and prices at: secure.navieraarmas.com

Road transport

The bus station in Puerto del Rosario is the hub of road transport on the island of Fuerteventura, at the junction of the road FV-1, which connects the capital with Corralejo in the north and the FV-2 road that connects the capital with the almost island of Jandía in the south. Both routes run along the east coast of the island.

Bus lines # 1 and # 10 go to Morro del Jable, line # 2 in Vega de Río Palma, the line # 3 in Caleta de Fuste, line 6 to Corralejo, the No. line 7 in El Cotillo, line No. 14 in El Time, line # 15 in Triquivijate.

Site on the Web: www.tiadhe.com/es/rutas.htm

Hotels

Hotel Fuerteventura Playa Blanca

Former Parador is located 3 km south of Puerto del Rosario, behind the beach of Playa Blanca. This 3-star hotel now belongs to the Cabildo Insular and managed by the hotel chain R2.

Address: Calle Playa Blanca, 45

Phone: 00 34 928 851 150

Price: double room 69 €.