The Port Market in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is a beautiful modernist structure made from cast iron, which caters for every little whim.

The sheer charm of Parisian architecture shines through at the Port Market, a modernist gem made from cast iron, next to Las Canteras beach in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, was assembled and opened in 1891 following a design process by French company Eiffel. Indeed, you’re not mistaken, they are the same people who raised the emblematic Eiffel Tower in the French capital.

Although Sancocho is not regularly made on a daily basis nowadays, it continues to be the most typical dish for Good Friday, and a highly regarded “plate-filler” any time of the year.

Up until the end of the 19th century, fish in Gran Canaria had to be sold daily, and was only consumed at coastal towns, as there were no ways of keeping it fresh. However, around the turn of the 20th century, changes began to creep in to our cuisine: our range of foods began to increase thanks to the technique of salting. Around this time sancocho made its presence felt.

Melenara Beach, in Gran Canaria, makes us feel like kings of the sea for at least a day.

Sculptor Luis Arencibia carries the sea in his piercing stare, as did poet Rafael Alberti. The Atlantic glint in his eye has an explanation and an origin. As a boy, the artist used to swim out to the point of volcanic rock that poked out over the sea on the south side of Melenara Beach, in Telde (Gran Canaria). Many years later, Arencibia would create a four metre high bronze sculpture of Neptune that still towers over the area to this day, and which allows the lord of the seas to look out over his kingdom from his watch tower.