GRAN CANARIA

The second most populated and the third largest of the Canary islands is GRAN CANARIA. Its capital Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which is the most populated city of the Canary islands.

The beautiful Capital of Gran Canaria has important sights such as Catedral de Santa Ana, Plaza de Santa Ana, El Gabinete Literario, Port of Las Palmas, Elder Museum of Science and Technology and Casa de Colón ( which is a house where Christopher Columbus used to stay now converted to a museum)

For me, a person who has never been in a real desert, the coolest thing on this island were the

Dunes of Maspalomas. They look just as magical as in the Aladdin Cartoon. The Dunes are a natural space located in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, south of the island of Gran Canaria. In the area, you can also enjoy the local sandy beach playa de Maspalomas.

One more sight worth mentioning is The Painted Cave Archaeological Park and Museum which is located in the city of Gáldar, northwest of the island of Gran Canaria. Inside it is one of the most representative archaeological sites in the Canary Islands, with characteristics that make it unique in Spain.

And if you are a history lover you should visit El Museo canario which is dedicated

to 24 years of excavation and conservation work on the remains of an aboriginal Canarian town. Like literally I’d call this - museum of bones! They were found in very good conditions, you can easily identify tall people with very good teeth. And there you can see cave paintings made by the aborigines up close. 

On the island there are many protected archaeological locations of the pre-Hispanic culture of Gran Canaria such as Cenobio de Valeron, Cuevas de Guanche, Cuatro Puertas also known as Montaña Bermeja and more

Another must see of Gran Canaria is The Roque Nublo Natural Monument, better known simply as Roque Nublo, It is one of the most emblematic natural spaces on the island. 

The island of Gran Canaria was formed in three eruptive cycles and specifically the Roque Nublo was formed during the second eruptive cycle.

If you wanna visit a botanical garden and zoo, you have a variety of options such as Palmitos Park, Jardín Botánico Viera y Clavijo,Cocodrilo Park Gran Canaria, Poema del Mar Aquarium, Parque San Telmo and  Parque Doramas. 

Because of the volcanic nature of the area, you can see a good amount of the natural swimming pools (or as Canarians call them Las Charcas) created by mother nature itself. One of them is El Bufadero which is super cool in my opinion.

On the east of the island there is a less touristic village named Tufia with white houses in front of the black sand beach. One interesting thing about this place is the cave-houses (or casas cuevas which are pretty common on the islands) 

More sights in Gran Canaria are:

The Roque Bentayga, El Roque Partido ( popularly known as the Finger of God) Caldera de Bandama, el Pico de las Nieves (which is The heist peak of Gran Canaria), beautiful town of Teror, and Puerto de Mogán (also known as Venice of Gran Canaria).

We stayed in the zone called Taurito, there are chains of all-inclusive hotels, where you can just relax, eat, sleep, go to the pool, repeat, or come down to the black sand beach Playa de Diablito.

CHECK OUT MY VIDEO ABOUT THE CANARY ISLANDS