Museo Canario

In the Verneau Room, 900 human skulls and half a dozen mummies stand arranged exactly as anthropologists displayed them in the 19th century. The layout is kept on purpose. It now shows how the museum's founders thought about race — they hoped to tie the ancient islanders to Cro-Magnon Europe, when their roots were North African — and how far display practice has moved since. The room is morbid, and it stays with you.

The rest of the house tells the story of the island before the conquest: clay pots, tools of bone and wood, animal skins, and the clay stamps known as pintaderas. The best-known piece is the Idol of Tara (Ídolo de Tara), a terracotta human figure linked to a pre-Hispanic village in Telde; its origin and purpose are unknown. There is also a reproduction of the Painted Cave (Cueva Pintada) at Gáldar.

• Wall texts are in Spanish. Take the audio guide: it explains what each display means.
• Mummies and skeletal remains are on open display. Prepare younger children before the Verneau Room.
• The entrance is not wheelchair accessible.
• There is a toilet inside, and a free public one about 130 m away.

The museum stands in Vegueta, the old quarter of Las Palmas, a short walk from the Catedral de Santa Ana.

By bus, the nearest stop is about 135 m away in a straight line, with a second one at about 220 m. If you drive, there is free parking in the surrounding streets, and two car parks lie roughly 360 m and 390 m away. From any of them the rest is a walk through the old town's streets to the door.

Best: a weekday, when the doors stay open into the evening.

Avoid: Saturday and Sunday afternoons, when the museum has already closed.

The audio guide and the Verneau Room both reward time, and a weekday leaves you the most of it. Everything is indoors, so the museum also suits the hottest hours of the day or a grey one.