Today we flew to Maspalomas in Gran Canaria for a week-long vacation. Not the destination we’d choose if it was just Eric and me, but right now a week’s rest some place warm will be just fine. In order to make this a vacation rather than an exercise in patience and child management, we brought my mum with us. She gets a free trip, we get company and another pair of hands. The adults outnumber the kids, which makes life significantly nicer for all those involved.

Now we’re all tired after a long day of travelling. The flight left at 7.30 and since we didn’t want to have to hurry at the airport, we aimed to be there two hours before, which meant getting up at 3.45. Everything went smoothly, although Adrian was pretty bored during the flight, and it was hard to get him to go to sleep. Though it could have been much worse, I suspect our fellow travellers were not too happy about having us on board.

Tabaiba Princess, the hotel we’re staying at, is large and really nice, inside and outside. It’s almost a resort rather than just a hotel, with lots of palm trees and several large pools and even an artificial beach. The only thing it lacks is wifi in the rooms. There is a wifi hotspot in the lobby but even that costs money.

We haven’t really had time to explore it all yet; that’s one thing we plan to do tomorrow.

After an afternoon snack at a bar by the “beach”, we went for a walk to the real beach. It’s about one and a half kilometers from the hotel, a pleasant walk along a palm-lined road next to a canal (dry at this time of the year). Where the canal meets the beach there’s a small freshwater lake or lagoon, with coots and moorhens and a lot of fish. Turning west/right at that point, we walked on towards the lighthouse and then back to the hotel. To the east/right, we could see the Maspalomas sand dunes, which we will definitely visit another day.