Isla de Gran Canaria Things to Do

Always found dolphins fascinating, the tour was not ridiculously overpriced and although we saw some Dolphins they offered free tickets for next day, or until we saw them as they were gone as quickly as they were spotted. Unfortunately we did this on our last day so were unable to take them up on the offer. So best to do it early on in your stay.

Also please note that seasickness affected quite a lot of people on the boat so maybe worth taking some motion sickness tablets and not doing it with a hangover.

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About 10 km from Maspalomas, this cool park has a nice collection of cactus, and a very funny show of trained birds.

It's a very good idea for a brake in sun tanning, and a must see if you're travelling with children.

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We didn't spend much time in Las Palmas.

It seemed a modern city, with a reasonable beach, but with too much movement, so, we quickly moved to the southern coast. But living in Las Palmas may have some hidden advantages that we didn't find (nor search for).

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As usual, an old stage to cowboy films was kept and used to live show. A group of stunts perform an assault and the subsequent fight and escape.

Everything is too quick, almost as real. After and before the show you may wander around the village, have a drink in the saloon, or visit the Indian camping. On Fridays, you may also eat a barbecue.

A warning about the African women.... do not stop to talk to them as they soon grab your wrists and go on to put a bracelet on you.... then they demand money!!! If you say you havent got any they them grab your bags and look for it themselves! Very scary experience being in a group of females as they tended to spread around the promenade area so we didnt really have an escape route!!
If you just ignore them and keep walking you should be fine.. shouldnt put you off visiting gran canaria though... lovely place with gorgeous weather!!

A Fantastic 4 hours of adventure. It will be a day that will stay in my mind for a long time. We had very good weather as usual for the Canaries and went places i dont think anyone else goes to. Its amazing scenery when you get high up, you can see for miles.

The quads were quite good, seemed very responsive and well maintained and for this tour you just have 1 person to a quad. There is no way you can share, you would probably shake off your passenger if you tried.

Our guide was cool, he was very friendly and knew what he was doing. We did about 70 miles overall and because i'm not used to sitting on a quad everyday, i was pretty worn out by the time we finished.

Overall its a great way to see Gran Canaria in its natural state and the quality of the tour is difficult to fault.

Arucas is the third city of the island. 27000 people live here. The city is famous for its rum. The Arehucas factory produces 3.5 million liters of rum each year. The most famous rum on the island is the Ron Miel, rum mixed with honey.
But the most eyecatching thing in Arucas is without doubt the church. The Iglesia Parroquial de San Juan Baudista is a neogotic building in black basalt. The church towers high above the city, the churchtower is 60 meters high. Manuel Vega March, a student of Gaudi, started building this church in 1909. Although the church looks fabulous from the outside, the inside is not special.

This park is a subtropical oasis, about 10 km from Maspalomas. You drive through dry and barren landscape and when you come to the park it's like beeing in a totally different place.

You can find botanical gardens with over 1000 palmtrees and more than 15.000 plants. There are also more than 150 different birdspecies, plus aquariums and other animals like crocodilles, reptiles, monkeys etc.

Everyday there are different shows in the park. In one you can see birds like eagles and falcons performing stunts in free flight. One of the most popular shows is the parrotshow, where the parrots perform plenty of different tricks and shows.

The children love this place and you can easily spend a whole day here. Or you can combine it with something else, like a trip to one of the waterparks. Just remember to leave before they close, so you don't get locked inside, have to sneak out and set off the whole alarmsystem... ;)

Click here to see more pictures from the park

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Yumbo center is by far the biggest entertainment center in Playa del Ingles. There are sooo many shops there and restaurants and all kinds of entertainment on many floors. On the ground floor there are many gay cafés and entertainment and drag-shows, and as I love a good drag-show I visit Yumbo center often. The shows start late and go on until early in the morning. I have only seen as many gay men as here in the gay area in Soho in London. Very lively and very colourful!

On the ground floor there are also a lot of Serbs doing caricature, selling paintings and pictures, doing engraving and lots of stuff.

Yumbo center is not to be missed while visiting Playa del Ingles, it is the very center of Playa del Ingles.

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CITA shopping center is a big center with lots of shops, bars and restaurants. In Playa del Ingles there are 3 big centers like this, Yumbo center, Kasbah and CITA. CITA is the German center as most of the stores and restaurants there are owned by Germans and Germans frequent CITA more than any other nation. I would say that the other tourists were there just for a quick visit, whereas the Germans sit there and watch German football, eat German food etc.

There are some excellent stores there, f.ex. the luxurious Grimaldi jewellers and many German fashion stores with excellent clothes. It is a plus speaking German when visiting though ;)

In the basement there are German bars and entertainment. And there are some swing clubs as well here in Playa del Ingles

The exterior of CITA is so interesting, it is miniatures of all the landmarks over the world, Big Ben, Disney World etc, as you can see from my first photo.

There are so many Germans in Playa del Ingles that many people living and working here have had to learn German to be able to add service to all these Germans.