Vacation time: Maspalomas

Before I forgot, I should mention a recent vacation trip to Canary Islands. The plan was a winter escape somewhere sunny and warm - the original destination was Curaçao but that didn't work out, thanks to its dangerous proximity to Venezuela which was all over the news, so we changed our minds about necessity to go there right now this moment. From my previous experience I remember Canary islands always having a wonderful climate, even when the rest of Europe was in a winter's grip, so after some online research it turned out the south of the Gran Canaria might be the best choice for sun soaking and relaxing.

Maspalomas was a curiosity as a town completely built for tourism: at certain point we decided to take a walk and to see is there anything interesting; it was miles and miles of hotel resorts, restaurants and SPAR supermarkets. Our own resort was super cute but we soon got tired of forced activities around the swimming pool, water aerobics, Bingo, foam parties, Karaoke, etc - those were gratefully embraced by families who needed some fun for their children, but we only wanted space to unwind from work and relax in the sun. So we slowly pulled out of crowded breakfast (even though we paid for it), than eventually decided the best would be to combine one day of relaxing next to the pool and next day going elsewhere for a day trip. That worked out perfectly, so we managed to see little bit more of the island and were not bothered by enthusiastic centertainment. 

We took a long walk along the Playa del Inglés, barefoot in the sand towards Faro de Maspalomas which was quite a nice experience. We took a bus to a capitol, Las Palmas which had the most beautiful old town and visited a house where Christopher Columbus stayed during his voyages back and forth to the New World. We hopped on the red tourist sightseeing bus and saw the rest of the city, including brilliant Poema del Mar Aquarium that was educational, exciting and scary all at the same time. We visited Palmitos Park built in a canyon right in the middle of the island and enjoyed seeing all the animals (though I am still not sure about keeping them caged and how happy they are). We took a day trip to a beautiful Puerto de Mogán and its quite spectacular neighbourhood Little Venice that looked heavenly, though we still prefer Maspalomas.

It was perhaps our nicest vacation so far - in other places I was always too busy with museums but here we were forced to relax and do nothing - we are already thinking about the next possible destination and it might be something similar, though far away from the children and busy swimming pools.