Gran Canaria – Escape from Winter

Terrible Touristic Airlines

After this short week i remeber why i do not like the touristic airplanes:

Somehow everything is more hectic, noisy and stressful compared to the regular flights. There are significantly more children on these airlines and we had the blessing of one strong smelling specimen sitting in front of us, which had to use all the available throw-up bags.

The Pilot as did the best job in finding every single pothole and he landed the plane not straight, but very hard on the runway. But anyway, we arrived and that all that matters.

Accomodation in Maspalomas

After we arrived in the Hotel Los Calderones  we got a glass of sparkling wine and can move straight to our rooms. It was worth it to invest a little more money for the Hotel – the rooms are brandnew, clean and the entire Hotel is neat. Only the beds (mounted on wheels), the sometimes steril ambience and the location remote to civilization are possible points to criticize. But this Hotel is a perfect fit for us since we like to ride a Motorbike and enjoy a quiet evening.

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A walk to the Beach of Maspalomas takes only 25 Minutes – a Taxi to Playa de Ingles to get to the company for renting the bikes is just about 5 Euro.

First day we have nothing to do, so we walk around to explore the area. First Impression: If you like beach and stones you are in the right spot. But other than that this is not the most charming place on earth.

Food

…you’ll find a lot. Only authentic Canarian food is hard to find – at least at the touristic spots in the South. Our guide recommends the „Faro Grill“ at the beach. So we went there to find out that all the tourists messed up the service staff. At this location customers appear not to be important and the food is not worth a good recommendation. After this experience we decided because of the close vincinity to our Hotel to eat at the Beirut – a libanesian restaurant. This restaurant offers good food and some entertainment on Friday.

Finally  – a  XT660!

On Wednesday we pick up the Motorbikes!

At „Moto & Bike“ we get a map of the Island, some recommendations to fill the three days and finally the motorbike. It was not even neccessary to do some planning upfront.

 

 

After this we are seeking the turns on this Island…

…um, seeking is certainly not the right expression for it. If you find a straight street on this Island: Keep it! Apart of the few Highways in the east part of Gran Canaria there are only delicious little curvy roads through the mountains or at the coastline.

It was good decisionmaking to rent a XT. Every additional pound you have to carry through the turns is just too much. In those three days we drive about 750km and this is damn exhausting.

I tend to call Silke and myself as experienced driver with some stamina. On these roads you need both – experience and stamina!

In the South you’ll not find too many streets, however guaranteed good weather conditions. As soon as you drive to the Mountains the weather becomes more unpredictable – but the amount of streets and viewing points increases.

Personally i like the round trip along the coast (ideally starting clockwise in Maspalomas)  the GC210 which connects several water supply dams as well as the GC65 with a lovely street layout. The speed is very often only up to 60km/h which means that bigger bikes make not much sense on these roads. Even the Guardia Civil drives only 125cc bikes in that area.

Driving several Minutes on the same altitude is almost impossible to do. The profile of the daily tour shows this very well – and it invites you to drive more! Here it is definitely possible to ride more than 3 days without getting bored.

Before this holiday i was asking myself if we can have 4 days fun with the bikes because of this small Island. For this reason i was not too disappointed about the fact that the bikes were only 3 days available. However now i have to say: This Island is damn good to ride. 3 Days have been definitely not enough and Gran Canaria is a nice location to escape from Winter! It was worth every single minute.