Las Palmas

The capital of Gran Canaria!

Friday morning saw us walking to another bus stop and waiting for yet another bus. This one was a tour bus so we knew it had to come, but whether it would be on time was another question! It was late but at least it came (I was starting to wonder if we had the right bus stop) and the tour guide even apologised for being late!

The tour was to Las Palmas which is on the North Western "corner" of the island. We went to two different shopping areas but instead of looking at shops alone we did a bit of sight-seeing too. The first of the two stops found us near Christopher Columbus Museum (and house) which we planned to visit. We had to find it first and took a little diversion to find the information kiosk. This diversion took us down a pedestrian area between various shops. What interested us down here though were all these statues of dogs (pic to left). We found out later that these statues are the emblems of the island: the island is named after dogs (not canaries) and what the islanders did was to produce various statues of these dogs (not sure of breed although we did ask) and then artists painted them in various manners - some bold colours, others with flags on, and some (like the picture) with designs on. Cool!

Back to our visit. We did manage to find out how to get to the museum and had a wander around the museum which showed interested parties the various expeditions that Christopher went on plus various inventions that occurred during his time. The museum also gave a brief history of Gran Canaria. The picture shows the outside of the museum - beautiful!

At this point we had to head back to the bus so we could move on to the next stop. At the second stop we went towards the beach to find somewhere to eat and landed up walking along the beach where we saw this artwork in the sand (the urge to build a sandcastle dissipated at this point!)- see picture below...

Another try at the local food saw me ordering a seafood sandwich (that actually sounds disgusting but it was good) that had salmon and prawns on it. And there were chips too - all for about £2. Pretty good price!

After lunch we headed north up the beach to find a castle (not a sand castle mind you). However on finding the castle we couldn't get in as there were renovations occurring. This was a bit of a disappointment but we didn't let it dampen our holiday! Off we went again to look around and head towards the shops (since that is what the tour was about). And the shops were pretty impressive... pictures!! First one is of the outside of the shopping area we went to and then the next two are of displays inside the centre...

After the visit to the shopping area, it was time to catch the bus back to Maspalomas! A good trip was had by all (and we were good at not spending too much money!).

And now I must go help cook lunch... next installment will follow soon (I hope)