The tiny fishing port of Puerto de la Aldea, where small restaurants serve simple, but ever so delicious, fish dishes is a beautiful place to visit. South of the port, there is a long pebbled beach - Playa de la Aldea - and a pretty tiled promenade.
At the far end of the beach is El Charco (The Lagoon), which only really gets busy on weekends as well as the 11th of September when the Fiesta del Charco takes place. The origins of this festival, where locals try to catch fish with their bare hands and splash each other with water, hark back to an aboriginal past. A unique breed of fish is allowed to grow all year until just before the festival when literally hundreds of people descend on the Charco, launch themselves into the water and try to catch as many fish as they can. There are also Canarian wrestling matches and stick-fighting competitions.
Some 9 km (approx. 6 miles) further up the coast you will come across two viewpoints, the Mirador del Balcón and the Andén Verde, where you can relax a bit from what, at times, can be an extremely demanding coastal road. Perched on the edge of jagged cliffs at up to 500 m above sea level, these viewpoints allow stunning views over the north-western part of Gran Canaria.
