Garachico is one of those old volcanic towns where the whole place seems to know each other, and for a month each summer it turns the streets over to fiesta. The headline nights are the float parades on 2 and 3 August, when five squares and five carriages are smothered in close to 370,000 paper flowers, every one folded by hand by local families over the preceding weeks. Brass and percussion bands march behind, and it all winds up with a thirty-minute pyromusical that retells the 1706 eruption which buried the town's old port.
Mid-month brings the San Roque romeria on 16 August, a slow pilgrimage of ox-carts, folk groups and pilgrims threading through town to singing and showers of firecrackers. It's free, friendly and properly local. Come early if you want a spot near the seafront for the fireworks.
