Santa Catalina

Between the harbour Puerto de la Luz in the east and the Playa de las Canteras to the west you will find the bustling district of Santa Catalina, where, especially along the Calle Mesa y López boulevard, most of the big stores can be found, including two branches of Spain’s largest department store El Corte Inglés, as well as specialized shops and elegant boutiques. The heart of this district is the big and busy Parque Santa Catalina – which is actually more a square dotted with palm trees and flowerbeds than a park – where most of Las Palmas’ nightlife takes place. Numerous restaurants, bars, clubs and discotheques attract fun-loving locals and visitors until dawn.


But also during daytime there is always a lot of activity here, with people doing their shopping or frequenting the many outdoor cafés, crowds of elderly men playing cards, chess and dominos and tourists getting information at the kiosk Casa de Tourismo. Horse-drawn cabs are waiting to serve as taxis or take tourists for a sightseeing tour. At carnival time a big stage is erected here and the Parque Santa Catalina becomes the centre of the city’s colourful and exciting carnival celebrations.


On the port side of the park you will find the outstanding 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.


A landscaped pedestrian area leads from the museum to the Muelle Santa Catalina, the ferry terminal for the connections to Tenerife and the other islands, located at the south side of the Avenida Marítima del Norte.

In front of the ferry terminal you will find a big awning concealing the entrance to the city’s new underground bus terminal and to the left of it, overlooking the port, there is the new shopping centre El Muelle gleaming in shades of blue and yellow with numerous big-name chain stores, cinemas, discotheques, open-air restaurants and cafés.