Ireland day 1232. Tuesday 11 February 2025- Fuerteventura Day 01

Today’s summary	Starting our trip to Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, today. We’re going to walk the length of the island, from North to South, on the GR131 long distance path. Started with the 102 bus to the airport at about 11 am, then a 4 hour Ryanair flight to to the island. The flight was smooth and efficient and ten minutes early. A quick taxi transfer to the hotel in Villaverde, a video call with family, and we rounded off the evening with dinner at the Escanfraga restaurant.
Today’s weather	Grey cold and damp in Dublin. Moderate easterly wind. Appx 6c. Clear and dry in Fuerteventura with no wind. Appx 15c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today )

Commentary

Well, we are off again. This time it’s just the two of us, and we are heading to the Canary Islands – our favourite go-to winter destination. Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to be walking the GR131 long distance path in Fuerteventura, which runs the whole length of the island from North to South.

Our journey started this morning, as many of our best adventures do, on the 102 bus to the airport. The bus set off from St Sylvester’s at 11 and we were at the airport 40 minutes later. I was quite glad to get off it, to be honest, as it was a bit noisy, crowded and dirty.

The airport, though, was a delight. There were no queues at Security and we were done in about 30 seconds. In fact, the whole airport seemed to be surprisingly quiet today. We duly departed at 1405 for the 4 hour flight to the Canaries, courtesy of Mr O’Leary. I paid a supplement for extra-legroom seats at the front. On reflection, I’m not so sure that was a good idea as most of the time the space in front of us was occupied with people waiting for the toilets.

Anyway, eventually after a very quick and easy flight, despite the lavatorial distractions, we we arrived ten minutes early, were first off the aircraft and through immigration in about five minutes flat. The taxi driver was waiting in the near-deserted airport arrivals hall with a card with our names on it – always reassuring – and sped us over to Hotel Rural el Cabo in Villaverde. We were in our room just as it was getting dark at 7pm.

It’s a lovely mild evening here with clear skies and a full moon. We’re making a quick videocall to family in Canada then hot-footing it over the road to the Escanfraga restaurant for dinner. [Late news – it was excellent. Informal, friendly, unpretentious and, at €50 for two, about half the price of Dublin]. Then it will be time for bed. The adventure proper starts in the morning. Can’t wait!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Cold and grey on the tarmac. At least they didn’t keep us waiting on the runway too long!	Extra legroom – great (and easy access to the loos too…)

Portuguese coastline	Morocco coast in the murk at the top

The desert-like mountains of Fuerteventura – where we will be walking	Like Dublin, Fuerteventura airport was curiously empty this evening. Where has everyone gone?

In the taxi!