A wholly different kind of Christmas is out there to be seen, heard and savoured in Gran Canaria.

Enigmatic news has just reached us from Gran Canaria. It appears that the Christmas Spirit has been spotted on the island. Several shocked testimonies confirm this to be the case. Some witnesses claim they have seen it moving around the dunes at the south, like a warm, gentle breeze that raises the sand pyramids. The story goes that here, Christmas is a far from cold affair, and people are throwing off the warm clothing they are dependent on at higher latitudes.

Gymnast, multidisciplinary artist and acrobatic dancer Saulo Sarmiento fuses in with his home island, Gran Canaria.

Saulo Sarmiento speaks the same language as the elements. For this reason his body is able to grip onto the volcanic stone of the cliffs that hang over the ocean, or on the beds of the deep ravines of the interior, and fuse in with them all. Saulo does acrobatics, and is just like the wind on the crest of Maspalomas Dunes, or between the branches of the trees in the hillsides around Gran Canaria. Saulo sometimes looks like liquid, just like the Atlantic where he was born, into which he plunges like he did when he was a young child, way before he became a solo performer at the circus of Cirque du Soleil.

Gran Canaria is the name given to the island, and has been for centuries now.

Call me Gran Canaria. That’s my name and the only one I answer to. That’s how I’ve been known for centuries and is the denomination which tells of my history, my essence, the people who live on me, the air that breezes past my peaks, and all the people, legends, experiences and amorous conquests and failures that have occurred, are occurring and are yet to occur along my shoreline. Call me Gran Canaria, because these two words alone are the backbone to everything I am and everything I can offer you.

Gran Canaria has become the Canary Island to have the highest number of beaches with blue flags, with a total of 14 beaches currently holding this award.

Gran Canaria continues to wave the Blue Flag. The international jury has recognised this fact by awarding fourteen of the island’s beaches with this distinción, making it the island with the most blue flags in the archipielago. The awards are made by the European Foundation of Environmental Quality once they have analyzed a series of parametres including  water quality, environmental management, security and services, and information supplied to users.

The Womad Festival provides a great chance to get to know Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the island as a whole.

The whole world will be up singing and dancing between 7th and 10th November at Santa Catalina Park in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, with the celebration of the Womad (World of Music, Arts & Dance) Festival, an event that will bring together dozens of artists from a wide range of places such as South Africa, Argentina, Morocco, United Kingdom, Mali, the West Indies and Israel.

Gran Canaria harvests chestnuts until midway through December, and visitors can savour their autumnal flavours on the way back from the beach.

They are shaped like littIe hearts. It is no surprise then that they are considered the real spirit of autumn, with a very special nuance in the case of Gran Canaria. At other latitudes, the chestnut heralds the arrival of the cold, with stories of families sat around the burning logfire while the world outside is freezing and the wolves are howling. Don’t worry, there are no wolves in Gran Canaria. Besides, right here you can savour their autumnal flavour on your way back from the beach if you come across a stall where they cleverly roast them for you on a camp stove.

The workshop of watchmaker Pedro Macías in the district of Vegueta in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria provides a gift for the senses.

As a boy there was a lovely American-made wall clock in Pedro Macías Falcón’s house. It was over a hundred years old, that’s old even for a clock. When he was on his own he would play around with it, scrutinize it and put it to his ear to hear the tick-tocking of its little metal heart. He got so caught up in the hands of the clock that Pedro ended up being a watchmaker, learning the tricks of the trade in the workshop of family relative José Henríquez. The workshop looked more like a magical kingdom of chords, anchors, rods and minute hands there in the peace and quiet of Tenoya.

Top professional tennis star Carla Suárez gives us a few recommendations to help us fully enjoy our stay on her home island of Gran Canaria.

Long before the grass of Wimbledon began sprouting, or the hard court of Roland Garros was laid, there was the sand of Las Canteras, the favourite beach for top women’s tennis player Carla Suárez. “It is incredible to have such a great beach in the heart of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. I spent most of my childhood there”, she recalls. Carla also spent many of her early years around Plaza de Santa Ana, opposite the Cathedral, running after the pigeons that flew up into the air like dreams. Her dream indeed came true, as she became a player on the international professional circuit.

Mogán’s beach and port, in Gran Canaria, make up a happy, almost amphibious spot, a place that time seems to have forgotten.

It has been this way for as long as we can remember. The fishermen and the sun follow the same clues to reach this point of coastline. One such clue is a rock that local fishermen have coined ‘pointy stone’, due to its peculiar shape, which has come to be a sculpture half way between the beach and Puerto de Mogán. Together they make up one of the essential spots to visit along the quite fascinating coastline of Gran Canaria. When you see the ‘pointy stone’, just stop for a moment, as if time itself seems to have stopped.

If you go up to the top of the Cathedral of Santa Ana, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, you are treated to a panoramic and illustrative view over the city.

It takes less than two minutes to reach the sky. The time it takes to pay 1.50€, take a modern lift for around twenty seconds, and then walk up the 54 steps that lead up to the top of the south tower of the Cathedral of Santa Ana in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a religious monument from where the city calls out to the heights.

Tradition and modern day fuse together at the Hotel Emblemático Arucas de Gran Canaria, a century old house that has been refurbished.

The first stone at the San Juan Bautista church in Arucas, one of most important historical buildings in Gran Canaria, was laid back in 1909. There is evidence of a photo being taken of its construction from the skyroof of a house just thirty metres from where building was taking place. This means that this century old house was already standing prior to the building of the church, which due to its noble structure, is called a cathedral by many.

Cider, cuisine, music and traditions all come together at the fiesta of La Encarnación and the Apple fiesta of Valleseco.

Apple trees dug their roots into the fertile soil of Valleseco at the same time as history did, here at the green heart of Gran Canaria. It all started back in 1858, when the then mayor, Vicente Suárez Rodríguez, decided to reclaim some barren land around the municipality, and plant it with fruit trees to stem the erosion. The governor provided the town hall with examples of the pippin apple trees which settled comfortably into the hillsides caressed with the gentle trade winds. These breezes maintained the optimum levels of humidity the apple trees required, known locally as manzaneros.