Gran Canary..?16 2 17 (12) 25 2 21
My wife and I have just returned from a short
winter break in the Canary Isles Gran Canaria to be precise a second visit
after a gap of maybe 15 - 20 years which is to say we had little benefit from
our last stay there for we were different people then with different
appetites...
The trip was one of those "Leave Immediately"
affairs when you can buy inexpensive flights to fill the aircraft but at the
end of it you probably finish by spending more on accommodation travel while
you are there etc., etc., etc.
So our accommodation left much to be desired, cost
€350 for the 7 nights Monday to Monday and was situated in the middle of
no-where in a northern suburb of the capital Las Palmas, a dormitory kind
of place with very few amenities and only the odd restaurant within walking
distance, situated quite close to sewage and cattle farms: A place with the
name Marzagán.
When after booking the flights with Thomas cook
Airlines we discovered there was no transport laid on to our "resort"
I decided we should hire a car for the duration of the holiday which at
first appeared the most inexpensive hire for many a long year at €76 for a Ford
Fiesta. In the event this turned out to be a Volkswagen Polo and upon
arrival I opted to pay another €100+ to ensure we were fully covered for all
insurance eventualities without being overly surprised...
Arriving around 9 pm then and clearing customs and
picking up the car it didn't take us long to travel the maybe 20 - 30 km about
15 to 20 miles to our destination by a mixture of motorway and minor road with
a few stops and starts finding our way with local people obligingly helping us
find the Santa Margarita Villas. Two lots of people jumping into their cars and
leading us closer to where we were staying by way of giving us directions
without the need for English as neither of us could speak appreciable Spanish. Getting
the proprietor to open first the gate to the street, then the main door to the
apartment block and finally the door to our apartment by 10:30 using an
intercom system which ensured we were never going to meet him or her in person.
hahaha!
Waking up next day was to a sky overcast with rain
not far behind totally different to the sunny south of the Island where we had
stayed on our earlier visit.
But it didn’t take us long to discover that by
jumping back into the car and driving the 20 minutes back along the motorway and
past the airport we could once again bask in the sunshine: from temperatures of
20 degrees C or 68 F in the north you could add another 9 degrees C or 16 or 17
degrees F by going south and do it in what appeared to be a guaranteed way.
And along the ways inland an infinite variety of
spring flowers in bloom at this time of year, with the Island’s “Jardin
Botanica Canario” a short distance by car to Tafira Alta: home of many tropical
plants including a cutting from the single remaining specie of a particular palm
tree found only in Hawaii in one section which probably houses a greater number
overall of palms from around the world, this our visit cut short after 3 delightful
hours spent walking round.
In summary then we had a more cultural holiday in
the north of the island on this occasion with the handful of restaurants we
visited maybe offering the same food of the sunny south at perhaps 20% lower
prices as was the wine, whine in any case which I calculated at times was
selling at a 1/3rd the price of the same Spanish wines back home in
Scandinavia, and the local people ever so friendly in the north as opposed to
more tourist-minded in the south.
Trusting my readers did not miss my blog in the interim, and when i return next I'll attach some captions to these pics a selection from the north, first 2 and the south, last 2. Have a good continuation to spring winter everyone in the northern hemisphere and in the south the opposite..?
16 2 18 as promised: uppermost pic is of the village of Santa Brigida en route as we were to Teror another similarly picturesque village, the second from the Botanical Gardens discussed already, leaving the bottom two from the path along the beaches of San Augustino on the south coast...
A few days in the sun and rain..16 2 17 (12)
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