The city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is an ideal destination for a cultural getaway and enjoying its famous Las Canteras beach at any time of the year.
But in addition to its exciting heritage sites and numerous cultural activities throughout the year, you may be surprised to know that there are exciting places of nature next to the city.
They are ideal places for hiking through areas where the volcanic landscape prevails.
Places of nature in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Next, we will highlight three places of nature you can visit in the municipality of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
They are ideal for walking and hiking through the most rural side of the Canarian capital.
Hiking through El Confital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
When you visit Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, you will soon see that the city extends along the sea and that its northernmost slope opens up a peninsula with a volcanic landscape.
This is La Isleta, a place that long ago was an islet that, after various volcanic eruptions, joined the main island where the city is now located, creating the isthmus of Las Canteras beach.
La Isleta today is a protected natural landscape, part of which in 1898 became a military zone after being expropriated to establish defenses during the Cuban War.
It has three central volcanoes, El Vigía (219 meters), El Faro (240 meters), and Montaña Colorada (239 meters), although there are up to 16 volcanic foci, the most recent being about 36,000 years ago.
In La Isleta, an outstanding archaeological and ethnographic heritage is also preserved.
However, on the western slope of the peninsula of La Isleta is Confital beach, which you can visit during your getaway to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria by hiking along the so-called Sendero Azul de Las Canteras.
You will start this excursion in the northernmost area of Las Canteras beach, La Puntilla.
There begins a promenade that will take you to the Confital beach.
From Las Canteras, after walking just 50 meters, you will arrive at the Roque de la Cruz viewpoint, from where you have a landscape of cliffs next to which the houses of the La Isleta neighborhood extend.
It is an old working-class neighborhood from which the city’s development began at the beginning of the 20th century, which accelerated with the tourist boom of the 1960s.
It is currently the most famous neighborhood in the port area, although it is becoming fashionable and experiencing an urban boom.
This area, known as the Route of the viewpoints, will take you to the Plaza de Pepe, the shoe shiner, and to the Confital beach along a route equipped with wooden platforms that facilitate hiking.
El Confital is an example of a fossil beach, with characteristics similar to Ajuy beach in Fuerteventura.
Its name Confital comes from the petrified seaweed, samples of which you can now find on the beach and which you will recognize because they look like popcorn.
Throughout this area in the 70s and 80s, there were huts where marginalized people lived. Still, after being completely rehabilitated by the Las Palmas city council, today it is an ideal corner of nature for walking.
Once you have passed Confital beach and left the view of the city behind you, you will enter an area characteristic of a volcanic belt.
There you can see the remains of the structure of old batteries built-in 1941 due to the threat of a possible invasion by the English during World War II.
You will also see fenced areas where there were old fish dryers and some natural salt flats by the sea.
This final part of the route runs at the foot of the viewpoints of the neighborhood of Las Coloradas.
This is an ideal place to go up to see the sunset, which you can do in your rental car or a taxi through the neighborhood of La Isleta.
It should be noted that in Las Coloradas, you can find El Padrino, one of the most popular restaurants in the city, where you can taste a wide variety of Canarian food.
Hiking in Bandama in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
If on your getaway to the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria you are looking for a special place of nature to go hiking, you should not miss going up to the Pico de Bandama viewpoint.
This enclave in the municipality of Las Palmas should always be a must because from the viewpoint; you have spectacular views of the city and its surroundings.
In the opposite direction, from the Pico de Bandama, located at 569 meters high, you will see the enormous Caldera de Bandama, which may seem like a crater when it is a volcanic collapse.
With one kilometer and 200 meters deep in diameter, in the Caldera de Bandama, you have two trails for hiking. This activity is recommended to do first thing in the morning.
On the one hand, you have the path surrounding the caldera by its edge, which will take you an hour to travel.
And you also have the option of going down to the bottom of it, where you can reach the houses of an old winery, with a route down and up for an hour and a half.
Guiniguada Trail in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Another alternative you have for hiking through a corner of nature in the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is the Sendero del Guiniguada.
It is a pedestrian route of just over 7 kilometers in length that starts from the historic neighborhood of Vegueta and takes you to the Botanical Garden.
Specifically, it begins in some banana trees at the foot of the Risco de San Roque, a place that will catch your attention due to the group of houses with colorful facades extending on the ravine’s slope.
You can do it on foot or by bicycle, and it runs through the Guiniguada Ravine between agricultural and livestock farms and with a landscape of palm trees.
After a journey of approximately 2 hours, you can end up visiting the Botanical mentioned above Garden, also known as the Canary Garden. This place will catch your attention for its native flora of the island.
