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Nestling between giant steep-sided and inaccessible mountains and a large natural harbour, the dynamic city of Santa Cruz is where the Spanish conquest of the island began in the fifteenth century. Now the island's capital, Santa Cruz was then simply the landing site for Alfonso de Lugo who planted his holy cross here in 1494 before heading his party inland to found the island's first town - La Laguna , based around a lagoon and well inland, out of easy range of pirates. The first island government was located in La Laguna, but was moved to the flourishing port of Santa Cruz in 1723. La Laguna, instead, reinvented itself as a university town, and is now the major one in the Canary Islands. Today the two towns have more-or-less become one, thanks to the almost uninterrupted strip of residential and commercial developments that has grown up between them. To the east of Santa Cruz rise the magnificent mountains of the Anaga peninsula. Sinuous roads climb through mist-shrouded laurel forests to reach the remote communities tucked into the deep valleys and knife-edge ridges of this ancient volcanic range. While the northern coast of the peninsula remains particularly remote, the southern side, with huge Atlantic rollers breaking against its twisted rock cliffs, is easily accessed from the city and has been turned into a playground for city dwellers, with the construction of the island's most impressive artificial beach 10km north of Santa Cruz at San Andres . A string of dormitory settlements stretches west from Santa Cruz for around 20km, petering out around the dreary modern town of Candelaria . Of interest solely for its church, Candelaria is host to the archipelago's most revered religious symbol - the Virgin of Candelaria . Inland from here the fertile terraces around Guimar , 6km away, were once the basis of a thriving local community. Agriculture in the area has since declined in importance and the town is now best known as the location of pyramids , once built by the aboriginal Guanche peoples and now painstakingly reconstructed by Norwegian archeologist Thor Heyerdahl. This major find is not only an intriguing insight into local Guanche culture but is considered of wider importance, as a stepping-stone in the migration of ancient African culture to South America.
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