Columbus Museum, is situated in Vequeta, the old part of Las Palmas. This Museum was opened to the public in 1950, and is placed in the former residence of the Governor, (now over 500 years old) in which Christopher Columbus lived, when he visited the Island. The building can be transported to the 15th Century.

The rooms of the museum are mainly devoted to the role played by the Canary Islands in its Discovery, and to the New World and, and you'll find Paintings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and works on loan from the Prado Art gallery in Madrid.

Christopher Columbus House contains a museum and an area of scientific studies, in addition to a library that specialises in the history of America and Atlantic relations, as well as it also presents seminars, conferences and courses.

It's worth visiting for the architecture alone, which is typical of the island during that period, but there's also a permanent exhibition based around the theme of voyages of discovery and occasional temporary exhibitions.

Opening hours:
Monday - Friday  09.00 - 19.00
Saturday - Sunday  09.00 - 15.00

Closed 22 May and 24 and 31 December


Admission: Free
 

Casa Museo Pérez Galdos
Cano 6, 35002 Las Palmas
Tel. 928 36 69 76 / 928 37 37 45
Fax. 928 37 37 34

Casa Museo de Pérez Galdos, was the place where the famous writer wrote his things. He was born in 1894 and his house is saved as a Museum. The museum contains the writer's complete works as well as important letters and manuscripts. Pérez Caldos lived in the house from he was born and till the year 1862.

The exhibition rooms display part of the furniture from the Galdós family houses in Madrid and Santander, as well as the Gran Canaria writer’s library, archives and personal possessions. Furthermore the house representative of 18th century architecture. Every four years, the museum organises an International Congress on Galdós, also organising regular courses and seminars on the author and his times.

Opening hours:
Monday - Friday  09.00 - 21.00
Saturday - Sunday  10.00 - 15.00

Library: Monday - Friday  09.00 - 21.00

Admission: Free
 

Museo Canario
Dr. Verneau 2, 35001 Las Palmas
Tel. 928 33 68 00
Fax. 928 33 68 01

Museo Canario describes the Canarian past, and is founded in 1879 to you who want to know more about the Islands exciting aborigines - The Guanches. It is one the most popular and fascinating museums in Gran Canaria. There's also a big collection of skulls from the time of Cro-Magnon. A library and a newspaper archive is also at hand.

The Canarian Museum It is located in the old quarter Las Palmas and was founded in 1879. Its collection consists mostly of artefacts relating to the aboriginal people of Gran Canaria, the Canarios. It is based on the people who have inhabited the island over the centuries. Here you can see the customs and religions traditional to the island before the Spanish arrived. Every of the 11 rooms of the museum contains a different theme.

Opening hours:
Monday - Friday 10.00 - 20.00
Saturday - Sunday 10.00 - 14.00


Admission: 3,00 €
 

Museo Néstor
Pueblo Canario  Parque Doramas
35005 Las Palmas
Tel. 928 24 51 35
Fax 928 24 35 76


Photo gallery

The Museum displays the works of Néstor (1887-1938), one of Spain’s principal symbolist painters and one of the most unusual painters of the European movement.

It is located inside the cathedral and contains the island's best treasures including important art from the 15th-18th centuries. The cathedral itself took 73 years to build and is still incomplete in parts. Tourists come here on Thursdays and Sundays to see exhibitions of Canarian dance and music.

Founded to celebrate the life and works of local artist Néstor Martin Fernandez de la Torre, this notable gallery was later extended to house further paintings from the Gallery of Contemporary Canarian Art, together with antique furniture and other local artefacts.

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 10.00 - 20.00
Sundays and Holidays 10.30-14.30


Admission: 1,80 €
 

Pueblo Canario
Parque Doramas, 35005 Las Palmas
Tel. 928 24 51 35
Fax 928 24 35 76


Photo gallery

The Pueblo Canario, located in the beautiful gardens of Doramas Park in the City of Las Palmas, was created by Canarian artist Néstor de la Torre and represents the islands' typical architecture. Each Thursday and Sunday take place colourful folkloristic performances.

It was designed and built in the 1930s by the brothers Néstor and Miguel Fernandez de la Torre to interest tourists in island culture. It is a complex of several traditionally built island houses with the famous wooden carved balconies forming a typical Canary village with gates, turrets and an atrium.

The village boasts a large central square – where twice a week enthusiastic folklore shows take place – surrounded by shops selling local handicrafts and the Bodegón (wine bar) Canario, where you can taste several dishes of the typical Canary.

A pretty and very relaxed place in the heart of a big city, the Pueblo Canario is in spite of its obviously artificial nature well worth a visit!

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 10.00 - 20.00
Sundays and Holidays 10.30-14.30

Admission: 1,80 €
 

Museo Elder de la Ciencia y la Tecnologia
Parque de Santa Catalina,
35007 Las Palmas
Tel. 828 01 18 28
Fax. 828 01 10 01


Photo gallery

Museo Elder, an impressive and well-organized science and technology museum, accommodated in a building that formerly belonged to the Elder-Dempster Shipping Line, hence the name.

In this museum, visitors to the island interested in science and technology will be entertained for hours and especially for children there are a lot of interactive exhibits to amuse them, like an industrial robot spot-welding a car – just to name one of them – as well as an IMAX-Cinema.

Over twenty display areas devoted to the reconstruction and reproduction of mankind's greatest scientific advances form part of this interactive science awareness centre whose motto is "Forbidden not to touch".

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday  11.00 - 21.00

Admission: 3,00 €
 

Museo Diocesano de Arte Sacro
Espíritu Santo 20
35001 Las Palmas
Tel. 928 31 49 89
Fax. 928 31 49 89

Religious Museum situated in the south wing at the grand Cathedral de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The entrance is to be seen left in the picture. A visit to the museum, located in the "Patio de los Naranjos" of the Canary Islands Cathedral, is included in the entrance fee.

Items of religious art on display, including valuable sculptures and paintings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as well as gold and silverware. There is an outstanding polychromatic mosaic in the Chapter House.

The museum also contains various furniture pieces that have enormous historic and artistic value.

Opening hours:
Monday - Friday
10.00 - 13.00 and 15.00 - 17.00

Admission: 1,00 €
 

Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno (CAAM)
Los Balcones 9-11-13
35001 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Tel. 902 31 18 24
Fax. 928 32 16 29

Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), is one of the City's great art centres situated in a beautiful well kept house from the 18th century. It has a permanent collection as well as hosting temporary exhibitions of modern art from around the world, and is the principal art museum of Las Palmas

Casa-Museo León y Castillo
León y Castillo 43-45
35200 Telde
Tel. 928 69 13 77
Fax. 928 69 66 53


Photo gallery

An institution established in 1954 by the council of Gran Canaria, situated in the house in which two distinguished Gran Canaria personalities were born, namely Fernando León y Castillo, the first marquis of Muni, and his brother, Juan, the engineer who designed the port named Puerto de la Luz in Las Palmas, and who was a faithful exponent of Mudejar architecture in the Canaries. Both men were faithful exponents of the political class of the Bourbon Restoration.

The museum houses a research centre, with a library that is specialised in contemporary history. This centre organises courses, seminars and conferences, while also awarding scholarships and a research prize.

Museo Palacio Spínola
The house of the Spínola family is one of the most important surviving buildings in the town owing both to its features and to its size. It was built by Don José Feo Peraza between 1730 and 1780, though his son Don José Feo de Armas was the most important person to live in this mansion. The surname Spínola became associated with the mansion for the first time in its history in 1895, after being linked to the Feo family for over 150 years.

The house-museum León y Castillo is one of the best examples of large ancestral houses in Canarias. Inside the house,  there are numerous personal objects, the library and paintings by Gusach, Raimundo Madrazo and José Arencibia Gil. Other places of interest are the tower of Gando, of the 18th century, at present aeronautical museum, the ancestral houses of the quarter of San Juan, with their carving works of  Arucas and wooden balconies coloured in green, the house of Ponce de León and the so called basilica menor.

Telde possesses the oldest historical centre in the whole canary archipelago. The natural environment of Telde is of great beauty. Most interesting is the Special Natural Reservation of Los Marteles, with places of great importance like el barranco de los Cernícalos or el barranco de las Goteras, in the protected landscape of Tafira.

Opening hours:
Monday - Friday 08.00 - 20.00
Saturday - Sunday 10.00 - 13.00

Admission: Free
 

Casa Museo Tomás Morales
Plaza Tomás Morales
35420 Moya
Tel. 928 62 02 17 / 928 61 24 01
Fax. 928 61 12 17

The birthplace of the modernist poet Tomás Morales(1884-1921).

Numerous personal possessions and pieces of furniture belonging to the poet are on display together with editions of all of his works and those of other Canary Islands poets. And a yearly poetry competition, which is well supported.

The museum has a library that specialises in poetry, while also organising various cultural activities, such as conferences, concerts and recitals... It also awards a prize for poetry, in addition to scholarships and a research prize.

The museum’s holdings consist of objects or memorabilia closely linked to the author, and are based on the writer’s legacy.

Opening hours:
Monday - Friday 09.00 - 20.00
Saturday 10.00 - 20.00
Sundays and Holidays 10.00 - 14.00

Admission: Free
 

Casa-Museo de Antonio Padrón
Drago 2
35460 Gáldar
Tel. 928 55 18 58
Fax. 928 55 18 58

The Antonio Padrón house-museum in Gáldar is located in the painters former studio and belongs to a larger architectural complex that included the family dwelling, which is now separate from the museum premises.

Here, you can contemplate more than a hundred works by a Canarian artist, being one of the most representative artists of the indigenous movement.

Opening hours:  
Monday - Friday 09.00 - 14.00
 

Archaeological Museum
Plaza de San Antón 1
35260 Agüimes
Tel. 928 78 54 53



Photo gallery

For four centuries, Agüimes was a domain of the Episcopal Chamber; the Episcopal Palace witnessed that period. The first writing mention to this building as Palacio de Obispos (Bishop’s Palace) dates from 1706. Said building has been restored and now houses the long-waited Museum of Agüimes History. 

The Agüimes History Museum enables visitors to learn about the last five centuries of the area’s history, from the establishment of the Señorío Episcopal (Bishop’s Seat and estate), following the Castilian Conquest of the island, up until the middle of the 20th century.

Interspersed between the different exhibition rooms and the services provided by the museum, are architectural works, some of which are new, while others have been recently restored.

This doubtless helps to recover the former splendour of such a unique building. In addition, the generosity of the town’s residents in ceding many of the items on display has not only prevented them from being lost but also has allowed them to be enjoyed by all.

Nowadays the museum has eight rooms for exhibiting the historical legacy: Episcopal Domain; Territory, and Population; Social Classes; Migrations, and Social Problems; Ideas; Home Economics; Agricultural-Ranching Economy, and Industry; Craftsmanship and Commerce.

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday
08.30 - 13.30 & 16.00 - 18.00

Monday closed

Admission: 2,50 €
 

Museo de Guayadeque
(Centro de interpretación arqueológica)
Barranco de Guayadeque
35260 Agüimes
Tel. 928 17 20 26

The Guayadeque ravine is situated between the towns of Agüimes and Ingenio, in the east of Gran Canaria island. The ravine can be reached by road from both towns passing through the troglodyte hamlet of Cueva Bermeja and ending at the small village of Montaña de las Tierras situated within the ravine.

The outstanding environmental and heritage value of this exceptional area has led to it being declared a Natural Monument in accordance with the Law for Natural Areas of the Canaries and as an Area of Cultural Interest with the classification of Archaeological Site.

The preservation of this natural and cultural wealth has been possible due to the isolation this area has been subjected to up until relatively recently and this has also permitted the endurance of centuries old traditions and practices in the area which have long disappeared from other parts of the island.

In its course of some 20 km, from the foothills of the Marteles crater to the area surrounding the El Burrero beach, the water has carved out a channel and created towering walls in which a considerable number of typical Canarian plants have their home. The diverse flora and fauna benefit from the variety of altitudes and temperatures which occur along the water course of the ravine, from its headwaters in the peak district to the point at which it reaches the coast, through the areas in between.

The water, which has helped to shape this relief, has been and continues to be one of the defining elements of the landscape and of the ways of life in the ravine. The different sources have not only encouraged the growth of vegetation but have also provided sufficient water to cultivate adjacent land plots and supply the surrounding villages.

Human activity in this area dates from the Pre-Hispanic Age, an age from which we have many reports. The archaeological importance of Guayadeque began to be recognised in the last decades of the 19th century, when the Museo Canario began the first explorations.

The mummies and the large burial caves are the most well-known archaeological elements of the ravine but they are by no means the only ones. Modern archaeology, in addition to the further study of anthropological and burial aspects, has highlighted the presence of other equally significant elements such as the large troglodyte hamlets, grain stores and the cave paintings and engravings.

When post-Conquest historical documentation refers to Guayadeque it does so almost exclusively in relation to the exploitation of the waters whether for supply and irrigation or to drive the mills which have lain along its route up until the present day.

Guaydeque's environmental resources of national importance are on show in the Information Centre, situated in a building that has been carved out of the hillside following the troglodyte tradition of the ravine. The centre allows you to journey from the depths of the past when erosion and volcanic activity first shaped this route to its current state, through the indigenous occupation and subsequent settlement.

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Saturday  09.00 -17.00
Sunday 10.00 - 18.00

Monday closed


Admission: 2,50 €
 

Parque Arqueológico de Cueva Pintada
Audiencia 2
35460 Gáldar
Tel. 928 89 57 46
Fax. 928 55 24 02

After having been closed for 24 years, while work was performed and a gentle modernization was made, Cueva Pintada was reopened on the 27. of July 2006. The famous cave now appears a modern Museum Complex, showing a unique, historic part of Gran Canaria. Many people will visit, tourists as well as locals, and it is a must-do visit.

Cueva Pintada is a small cave with geometric paintings from the Guanches, which is unique on the island. It is located in the small town Gáldar, which was the seat of Gran Canarias ancient rulers at the time of conquest in 1478. The Spanish city was built over the aboriginal settlement and the cave lost.

The cave has several rooms which were used as cave houses by the Guanche. Several walls were built from basalt or tufa without mortar.  Bed and seat were also carved out of the soft rock.

In the caves mummies, tools and pottery were found. But the most famous finds were the drawings, that gave the cave its name. The paintings are red, black, and white squares, spirals, and triangles. The meaning of the paintings is not clear, some imagine symbols of female fertility the expression of religious beliefs. But maybe they are just simply for decoration.

This drawings/paintings are bleaching by the light, so the cave was closed several years ago. Another problem is irrigation water, oozing though the volcanic ash rock of the cave, is raising the humidity and destroys the paint.

The whole site, the cave and the ruins of the surrounding village, were restored during the last years. The paintings were covered by a special glass to protect them. A new museum was created, which shows the findings and - as a part of the visit - the view into the cave.

However, it is not possible to enter the cave, just a visit through the protecting glass is possible. There are computers in the museum which allow a virtual cave visit, and there is a new website which also allows a virtual visit. The virtual visit is a computer animated mpeg file though, and is obviously generated by the architect of the new museum building. Hopefully they will find the means to  change this soon, now the museum is reopened.

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Saturday  09.00 -17.00
Sunday 10.00 - 18.00

Monday closed

Admission: 2,50 €
 

Mundo Aborigen is an outdoor Museum on at least 110.000 m². In a protected National Park, a setting of incomparable beauty, and through a carefully planned itinerary we will se before our very eyes the different aspects of their life: the social hierarchy, the world of magic and religion, burial rites, the most deeply rooted social customs, different types of dwellings, ornamentation, manual skills, food, agriculture and live animals.

All of which is presented with more than one hundred life-size figures showing the aborigines in a setting of a large variety of endemic flora which make the visit even more pleasant. In order to pay special attention to the most important aspects, we have created a small archaeological museum which, together with the different shows and demonstrations of the island's sports, complete this fascinating visit.
 
Mundo Aborigen has been declared, "A place of Cultural, Social and Historical Interest" by the Canarian Government.

Unfortunately there are no shows or such, as was the case in the beginning, and the adjoining kiosk is closed, so you'll have to bring your own food and drink.

Opening hours:
Monday - Sunday  09.00 - 18.00

Admission: 10 € - Children free
 

Cenobio de Valerón is a large basaltic arch, covering volcanic tuff. Into this rather soft material, the Guanche excavated about 300 caves, cavities and cubicles.

These cave are fascinating. To this day, nobody really knows why they are here... The Monastery of Caves are located on the north coast of Gran Canaria. They date back to the Stone Age and are widely recognised as the most important and impressive pieces of architecture on the island.

In total there are 298 caves here. It's considered a very holy place. But the question remains... who were the original inhabitants and why were they there?

Many people believe that it was a monastery or "cenebio" where young girls went in preparation of marriage, in order to practice spiritual exercises and perform various rituals. Others say the caves were just used as granaries. Whatever they were used for, they certainly are very impressive to look at!

This place is an agadir (a collective-fortificated granary) similar to the agadirs in North Africa. The ancient people stored their agricultural surplus here. The Faican, a religious, political and economic chief distributed it between the community.

The cavities were used as silos, closed with a wooden plank and marked with a seal called pintadera that indicated the owner.

The visitors reach this place in a few minutes from the well developed coastal highway. A small road winds along a steep valley and runs right below the cenobio. The small parking is only suitable for half a dozen cars, but it seems the typical Gran Canaria tourist is not interested to visit this place, and the this small parking is absolutely sufficient.

From the car the road is crossed to fence with a sort of ticket office at the fence. The guard tells you something about protection of the site and helps with some archaeological background info. But there is no fee and you are free to visit the whole site, as long as you stay on the paved paths.

This site, along with the Gáldar Painted Cave, is one of the most important relics of the heritage of Native Islanders prior to Spanish conquest.

To get to the caves, take the C-810 road to Las Palmas heading east of Guia until you get to Cuesta de Silva. Then just take the road up to the car park. You can walk up to the caves from here.

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday
10.00 - 13.00 & 15.00 - 17.00

Admission: Free