EXPLORE: GRAN CANARIA

At the end of July, my boyfriend and I finally packed for our much anticipated vacation to the island of Gran Canaria, which is one of the biggest of the 12 islands of the Canaries.

Somewhere above Italy.

After flying from Bergamo, Italy to the Gran Canaria airport, we took a bus that brought us to the northern city of Las Palmas where we stayed in an apartment located right on the beautiful Playa de Las Canteras.

Las Canteras Beach

Since the apartment we stayed in was part of a surf school/shop with incredibly friendly and cool people, we couldn’t miss trying surfing and bodyboarding for the first time. We took a surfing class and spent the next two hours in the ocean enjoying ourselves until complete exhaustion. I have to say that surfing must be one of the most exciting, fun, exhausting and rewarding sports. It is also true what our French teacher told us, “Once you get the hang of it, surfing gets pretty addictive”.

The locals smashing it

A few days after surfing. we decided to rent bodyboards and have some more fun hours in the waves. As it turns out, bodyboarding is much easier then surfing since you don’t actually have to stand on the board to ride a wave.

The rest of the vacation was spent exploring the city of Las Palmas with a population of almost 400,000. Renting bikes turned out to be a great idea that enabled us to visit the old part of the town called Vegueta with its famous Cathedral of Santa Ana, as well as La Isleta and other parts of the city.

The view of Las Palmas

Houses with flat roofs

Bikes are handy

Of course, we had to try this climbing spot in one of the parks

Amazing street art

Despite many skate parks, locals still enjoy skating cultural monuments

One day we decided to take the bus and visit the southern town of Maspalomas to see the famous dunes. They were quite mesmerizing but we didn’t opt to explore them in great detail since the sand was way to hot to walk on even with our flip flops on.

The Dunes of Maspalomas

El Faro de Maspalomas

Much to our disappointment, the whole town of Maspalomas turned out to be a touristy compartment of hotels, apartments and way too expensive shops. Needles to say, we were quite happy to ride the bus home to the much nicer Las Palmas.

Matej enjoying the black sands of Las Canteras

Lonely surfer

Some words that sum up our Gran Canaria adventure are: fun waves, long and sandy beaches, friendly locals, cool city vibes, constant ocean breeze (which is why it is a good idea to bring an extra long sleeve shirt), amazing sunsets and a chilled beach lifestyle.