In the foothills of Mount Teide on Tenerife, only the salamanders stir in the quivering midday glare. The peak, also the highest point on Spanish soil, is an apparently docile volcano; a neighbouring stack blew itself to pieces 170,000 years ago, leaving behind a range of rocks with eerie, jagged profiles and a lava field like a petrified peat bog. This extraterrestrial landscape is barely an hour by road from the island’s southern beaches. But you could be in another country, if not galaxy, from the pullulating resorts.
This summer, a wave of protests against over-tourism, which has swept European destinations from Amsterdam to Barcelona, finally made landfall at this normally most forgiving of destinations.
Stephen SmithIndustrial lawyerStephen Smith is the Principal of Actus Workplace Lawyers and former Director of National Industrial Relations of the Australian Industry Group.
