Game of Thrones may film in the Canary Islands for Season 7

Game of Thrones Season 6 has now aired five of the ten episodes for Season 6, and if we’re in the back half of the season, that means it time to start focusing on production for next year. Though we are vaguely under the impression there will not be a full ten episodes, we have heard that the production is looking to return to at least one of the Spanish locations that stood in for Westeros and Essos this past season for next year.

This is also the time when rumors fly that Game of Thrones will head to new locations, or return to older ones again they haven’t been to in a while. It feels like every season, newspapers in Malta post hopeful articles that the show might finally come back, after decamping for Croatia in Season 2, or Morocco, suggesting a return after the show decamped after Season 3. Rumors fly thick and fast that the show might try new locations too, from Israel as a possible location for Dorne in Season 5 to Macedonia suggesting they could be a perfectly good Essos for Season 6.

Now we have a new rumor that the production might head back to Africa, though not Morocco proper. Instead, according to Los Siete Reinos, reports are coming out of the Canary Islands that the production is looking to strike a deal for Season 7. The Canary Islands, for those not good at geography, are just off of Morocco’s southern coast of north western Africa. Some might immediately write this off as the wishful thinking of former filming locales before the show got *really* big. But in fact, The Canary Islands, though technically part of the African continent, are owned by Spain, a relic of the colonial era. And as we know, after a former HBO exec was appointed Spain’s ambassador, the show when there to film Dorne for Season 5 and then moved bag and baggage for filming almost all of their outdoor locations for Season 6 that didn’t occur in Ireland. That the Canary Islands are part of Spain then, makes this a a far more credible rumor than at first blush–especially since the new tax breaks introduced to keep Game of Thrones coming back apparently is even higher for that region than some others. LSR reports that the president of the Canary Islands has confirmed the rumor as well in a recent interview, though the filming commission will neither confirm nor deny anything.

Suggestions are that the location being considered in the Canary Islands is Teide National Park with an arid climate, high mountain peaks and impressive rock formations. These resemble some of the areas we’ve seen in Essos, and could make a great stand in for some of the areas were heard about in the books as possible places for characters to be heading to in The Winds of Winter and A Dream Of Spring, if not traveling through parts we’ve already been to.

Via http://winteriscoming.net/2016/05/26/game-of-thrones-may-film-in-the-canary-islands-for-season-7/