Castillo de El Tostón

El Cotillo was a working port long before it was a surf village, and that made it a target. Corsairs from the Barbary coast, along with English and French raiders, worked the Canarian coastline for centuries, and the anchorage here was exposed. The Captain General of the Canaries ordered a tower built, and construction began in 1700 to a design by the engineer Claudio de L'Isle. Its formal name is the Torre de Nuestra Señora del Pilar y San Miguel, though almost nobody uses it — locally it is the Castillo del Tostón, or simply the castle.

The design is compact and practical. A circular tower of two levels: a store and powder magazine below, quarters for around a dozen men above, and three iron cannons on the terrace covering the approach to the harbour. It replaced an earlier fortification on the same spot, the Rico Roque, put up in the first years after the conquest. The tower was declared a historic monument of cultural interest in 1949 and has been in public hands and open to visitors since.

One thing to sort out before you go, because it catches people: the traditional fishing museum, the Museo de la Pesca Tradicional, is not in this tower. It is inside the Faro del Tostón, the lighthouse of 1897 a few kilometres away at the island's north-western tip, and it is a separate visit with its own hours. What the castle holds is an exhibition on the history of Fuerteventura, plus the tourist information point for the municipality of La Oliva.

The visit is short and cheap — entry is around a euro and a half, less for Canarian residents, and half an hour covers the interior and the terrace comfortably. Reported opening hours differ between sources, broadly from mid-morning to late afternoon with some variation by day and season, so check locally if you are making a special trip; on a walk around El Cotillo it hardly matters. Climb to the terrace for the view over the harbour, the boats and the surf breaking on Playa del Castillo below. Late afternoon is the moment, with the tower's dark stone warming up and the fish restaurants along the harbour just starting to fill.