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Blog Oficial de Turismo de Gran Canaria

Carnival "comparsa" dancing troupe. Las Canteras Avenue

Gran Canaria, Carnival is back home again

The spirit of the Carnival possesses a thousand different faces in Gran Canaria and reflects hundreds of years of tradition.

Ana lives in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Ever year she improvises with a couple of different fancy dress costumes, while there is one fancy dress that she uses year after year for carnival. She goes outdoors in the middle of the fiestas in her pyjamas, a pair of slippers, a worn-out but adorable blue-coloured teddy bear, and a mug with a camomile tea bag hanging on a thread. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what shapes the unbreakable spirit of the carnival, which, on the island of Gran Canaria, is a particularly lively and rowdy affair.


Faro de Maspalomas

Your own personal palm tree

The Canarian palm tree forms part of the landscape and identity of Gran Canaria, and will linger in your mind following your stay

They have always been around, rustling in the breeze, providing shade, breaking up blue skies with their slim shadows. A group of them even led to the name of the island’s capital city, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, over five centuries ago now. Poet Bartolomé Cairasco de Figueroa (1583-1610) used to say that they were “so, so tall, much taller than the Pyramids in Egypt”, while the chronicals of the Conquest referred to the island “being just like a garden, covered with palm trees”.


The Alfredo Kraus Auditorium, Las Canteras beach

The voice of the ocean

The Alfredo Kraus Auditorium triumphs as an icon in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for how it fits in with its surroundings. 

As a boy, Juan Bordes described the existence of some little caboso fish that inhabited the pools left at low tide by Las Canteras beach. Juan then grew up, became a man and a famous sculptor, but those little fish continued to swim around in his mind, the very place from where they came out to become the sculptural series set into the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The mermaids on the façade are inspired by those early salty memories.


Potato crop in Finca de Osorio

The potato: from the Andes to Gran Canaria

The humble potato, one of the jewels of Gran Canaria’s cuisine, has a passionate tale to tell.

Let us tell you the story of an incredible journey which is not yet over. Our hero in this story is not that big, but has become world famous, has received countless awards, and has inspired poems and songs, has fed whole generations, and has become one of the greatest symbols of Gran Canaria’s gastronomy.


Faro de Maspalomas (Maspalomas Lighthouse)

Maspalomas Lighthouse looks towards a bright future

El Faro de Maspalomas Lighthouse in Gran Canaria is planning to open a craft shop, museum and a tourist information point.

Maspalomas lighthouse launched its first beam into the skies one night in 1890. Over 125 years on, this emblematic display of Gran Canarian civil engineering located down at the south of the island is gearing up to beam a brand new kind of light, thanks to a project to open a craft shop and information point to the general public on site. They will also be restoring the former living quarters of the lighthouse-keeper, prior to the installation of the automatic beam mechanism, and also the rooms where the old machinery is kept, a real museum piece indeed.


Amadores beach

Amadores Beach, a daily dose of sun and relaxation

Amadores Beach, in Gran Canaria, guarantees total tranquility in a place where a stretched out towel is a conquest of the good life.

Nobody does this nowadays, but there are chronicles out there that indicate that ancient inhabitants from this area on occasions used to go up to the top of the mountain of Amadores (that appeared on some old maps at ‘Llamadores’), at the top of Lechugal Ravine, to shout out to the fishermen. Today it is still possible to cast our eyes over the gentle bobbing of fishing boats as they come in and out of the coast of Mogán, the municipality in which the velvety beach of Amadores nestles invitingly, a beach where people now only speak quietly and whisper.