Winter Escape

January and February in England are the bleak months. The euphoria of the Christmas and New Years holidays is over, the temperature is dropping and there are still at least two months to go before one can realistically expect to see the first signs of spring.

It was not without some relief, therefore, combined with no small amount of gratitude that, in late January, I received an invitation from a friend who over-winters each year in the Canary Islands, to join him for a couple of weeks in early February in his spacious apartment at the Southern end of Gran Canaria.

And so it was that some ten days later, ‘speedy-boarding’ pass in one hand and hand luggage in the other, I boarded an EasyJet plane for the four hour flight to that little group of Spanish islands off the North-West African coast. The first sign of nearing our destination was, as so often (I have done this journey a number of times) the sight of Mount Tiede on the neighbouring island of Tenerife poking up through the clouds. From then on, it seemed like no time at all before we were on the ground at Las Palmas airport and getting our first breath of warm tropical Atlantic air.

Each island is a place of great contrasts, from the relatively low-lying coastal areas – and the main tourist spots – in the southern part of the Island with little vegetation covering the red-brown volcanic soil, to the more mountainous centre of the island with the damper conditions changing the scenery from bare earth and rocks to lush green, with each bend of the largely excellent roads giving rise to yet another stunning panorama. Occasionally one will spot an isolated restaurant or coffee stop, or a house perched perilously on the mountainside with a few acres of terraced land below it. Originally carved out by hand, what back-breaking labour it must have been.

My friend’s apartment is in an urbanised area just north of the dunes and mini-desert of Maspalomas. There are doubtless many more scenic places in which to have a holiday home, however, for someone spending several months there every year it has all the necessary conveniences of shops, bars, and restaurants, including a vast supermarket with an array of fresh food the like of which we just do not see in England – the Spanish together with the French and Italians all seem to do this sort of thing so well.

But if the immediate area is fairly urban, the beauty of the island is not far distant. From the main street with its hotels, shops, and other attractions, the mountains can be seen just a short drive away by locally available hire car, scooter, or motorbike. Heading west takes one to the very pretty former fishing village of Port Morgan. I have described it as a ‘former’ fishing village, for, although there are fishing boats to be seen, most of the harbour is occupied by a marina filled mostly with locally-owned boats, but always a good sprinkling of yachts that have made the long journey from northern Europe. Some will be heading back again while others move on the explore the Moroccan and West African coast or go south to the Cape Verde Islands. For the more adventurous, the small port is a jumping-off spot for a transatlantic voyage to the Caribbean. For the rest of us, confined to the land, the harbour front restaurants and bars overlooking both the yachts and the blue sea beyond are their own attraction.

You won’t find boiling hot weather here at this time of year. Blue skies for the most part, certainly, and maybe the occasional shower (the torrential downpour and flooding reported recently are an extreme rarity in the Canaries), but in the main, if you think of a fine English summer’s day with temperatures in the low to mid-20s centigrade, that would be a reasonable expectation. For fair-skinned Anglo-Saxons like me, just perfect.

For families with children, there is no shortage of hotels catering for just that, many with their private beaches and entertainment. But for those of us no longer encumbered with such things, the restful break from the hustle of the real world, and the speed with which the time went, tells its own story of a perfect winter break.