Blog Oficial de Turismo de Gran Canaria

The Virgin of Santa María de Guía Fiestas are one of the essential summer attractions in Gran Canaria.

Groucho Marx lives on. Nowadays he a giant who comes alive every month of August in Santa María de Guía, at the north of Gran Canaria. He blends in with the rest of the colourful and crazy looking characters at the Papagüevos street procession, a peculiar collection of giant dummies without which the town’s  Fiestas de la Virgen wouldn’t make proper sense.  These over-sized dummies are really important to the fiestas as they come out every other day onto the streets until 15th August, providing giant-sized fun.  

The fiesta of La Rama de Agaete, in Gran Canaria, provides great fun thanks to an age-old tradition here at this stunning corner of the island.

Just listen. That’s the sound of silence and hushed emotions. Just minutes before five o’clock in the morning, the silvery light of the growing moon is etched over the sea, blending in with the night time shadows that reign over the plunging cliff edges, and –further up- in the pine groves. Down at the village of Agaete, the expectant and murmuring crowds are just waiting for something to happen. What might it be? The answer is La Diana, a firework that rips through the early morning calm at 05.00  to announce the start of the great fiesta day of La Rama de Agaete, in Gran Canaria, as it does every 4th August.

La Pila Verde baptismal font at the Church of Santiago in Gáldar, in Gran Canaria, contains five centuries of stories.

Five centuries of history are squeezed into the Pila Verde baptismal font at the Temple of Santiago de los Caballeros de Gáldar. This piece of pottery was heated in one of the pottery ovens that proliferated all through the 15th century in the Triana neighbourhood in Seville. But it wasn’t done by any old craftsman. Its large size would have us believe it was the work of a true master, one of only a few who could put together objects of such great proportions without running the risk of cracking and therefore fracturing the piece.

The Pérez Galdós House Museum in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria reflects the intense relationship between the writer and music.

There is a place where two geniuses live side by side. One of the greatest Spanish writers of all times, Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920), was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The house museum that is located in the very building he grew up in, in calle Cano, is home to the writer’s piano, and provides an insight into what a fan he was of music and how much he used to enjoy playing.

This is the tale of a passionate process that comes together to create the cheeses of Guía, Flower Cheese and Half Flower Cheese.

“This cheese is so unlike the rest”. Milagrosa Moreno Díaz is a leading cheesemaker from Gran Canaria from whose hands the finest products are created, carrying the seal of the Denomination of Protected Origin for Flower Cheese, Half Flower Cheese and Guía Cheese. They are all real gastronomic jewels that hold pride of place at the fairs to be held on 27th April in Guía, and on 5th May at Montaña Alta, in the same municipality.

Easter Week in Vegueta and other places around Gran Canaria reveals the island’s huge cultural treasures and wonderful heritage.

Everything has its origins. The artist who carved out the majority of the religious figures worshipped during Easter in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria came to the city as a young boy around the middle of the 18th century to study drawing. José Luján Pérez was born in Santa María de Guía at the heart of a family of farmworkers. From a very early age his hands were able to draw and sculpture with amazing skill.

Here begins a journey of the senses around Gran Canaria, through the colour blue, one of the island’s essential elements.

Some living beings from Gran Canaria inhabit an ever blue territory, because the sea and the sky are the canvass on which their lives are etched. The first shearwaters, Atlantic birds par excellence, begin nesting in March high on the crags on the island. At nightfall these marine tones are intensified, and the birds can be spotted flying round in groups, skimming over the water, gliding for a few minutes before shooting forward once again with five or six flaps of their wings. Suddenly, they plunge under the sea in search of fish, splitting the frontier between the two immense blue expanses of Gran Canaria.

She, Gran Canaria, also celebrates March, woman’s month. Women have shaped the history of the island with the same wisdom with which María Guerra, the potter from La Atalaya de Santa Brígida, shaped her pieces of clay as she turned them into unique pieces of art. Take any mountain, beach, monument, rock or any landscape whatsoever, behind each of these you will always find some mark left by women, without which Gran Canaria would not be what it is.

The Maspalomas International Carnival, the sunniest in Europe, will provide a crazily happy time on the ocean’s edge.

Don’t worry. Your eyes and your head aren’t deceiving you. At this time of year it is quite normal to see some extremely fun-filled and strange goings on at the south of Gran Canaria. For example, you might see a group of people crying around a giant sardine that they are dragging along the shore. This is what goes on at the Maspalomas International Carnival, this year dedicated to the millions of European tourists who make their dreams come true at this holiday paradise.

A visit to the Arehucas Distillery, the oldest rum maturing bodega in Europe, offers a truly sensual experience.

The statue of Alfredo Martín Reyes welcomes visitors at the entrance to the Arehucas Distillery, in Arucas (Gran Canaria). In 1935 Don Alfredo reopened the old Factory of San Pedro, originally inaugurated back in 1884, but this time dedicated exclusively to rum production. Today, from his pedestal, Don Alfredo seems proud of his legacy, an international landmark in rum culture. Indeed, these facilities are home to the oldest rum maturing bodega in Europe.

The first ever winner of the Drag gala at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Carnival dusts off his platforms and his memories

Evening starts to fall on the bay of Las Canteras, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Hundreds of people soak up the last few rays of sun down on the beach, as do some crabs in their prívate hide-outs, in a corner of La Puntilla, where the ocean laps over the age-old strips of volcanic lava giving them a polished finish like a skin covering a thousand year old black, dormant dragon. Nearby some fishing boats bob up and down, in view of diners from all over the world who are finding out what a papa arrugada salted potato and a chunk of sea bass taste like.

The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Opera Festival reaches its fiftieth edition with a world class programme.

The ending is a familiar one: the applause fills the air like a swarm of flapping doves, with cheers and admiration of an awe-struck crowd. The Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Opera Festival is into its fiftieth year, during which time it has been a “cornerstone” in its role in making the city one of Europe’s leading musical capitals, as Ulises Jaén, the event’s current musical director, proudly puts it. Jaén himself has had a season ticket for this event since he was just sixteen years of age.