Ireland day 1247. Wednesday 26 February 2025- Fuerteventura Day 16

Today’s summary	Last day of our Fuerteventura holiday and return to Dublin. Got up early again and were first into breakfast at 7am. Checked out of the hotel then were collected at 8:30 by Tito the taxi man’s brother. Took a good hour to get to the airport despite clear roads. Flight at 12:00. An excellent on-time 4hr flight and back in Dublin by 1605. Caught the 102 bus and in the flat by soon after 6pm. Beans on toast for dinner. Back to the real world now.
Today’s weather	Warm and dry in Fuerteventura with some cloud further north near the airport. Light north easterly wind. Appx 20c. 7c, rain and strong north westerly wind in Dublin.

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 after our long walk and our last few days of R&R, it was finally time to return to Dublin today. It’s been an absolutely fabulous holiday and we are both coming away feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and a lot fitter than when we set off. I think the sunshine, warmth and exercise – as well as the lack of stress about making our own travel and accommodation arrangements – has really helped.

Talking of making arrangements, a special shout out goes to Belen, Alberto and Miguel at Natour Travel, in the island of La Palma. They did all the organising for us and were absolutely superb. I’d definitely recommend the company ( https://www.natour.travel/en/ ) to anyone thinking of going on a walking holiday in the Canaries. First class.

Anyway, we stuck to our new-found enthusiasm for early mornings and were first into breakfast at 7am today, in time to watch the sun rise over our cornflakes at 7:30am. We checked out painlessly from the hotel and we were duly collected by Tito the Taximan’s brother at 8:30. It was a full hour’s drive to the airport, despite a clear run and a good road.

Once at the airport, we went through the usual security and immigration rigmarole, taking care to get my passport stamped yet again as I left. As usual, we were miles too early in arriving at the airport, but the time passed quickly enough and the plane left pretty much exactly on time at 12:00. I was impressed at how speedily Ryanair turned the plane around – we were airborne not much more than 30 minutes after we had seen it touch down in Fuerteventura.

It was a good flight and we landed in cold windy and wet Dublin at 1600 on the dot. We were off the plane and through immigration swiftly – giving ourselves a pat on the back once again for travelling hand baggage only. We just missed a departing 102 bus so used the half-hour wait to get some groceries to keep us going for the next few days. The bus eventually arrived and were back in our apartment – which seemed more or less exactly as we left it – by soon after 6pm.

So now it’s back to the real world, which means beans on toast rather than freshly prepared tapas and sliced papaya for dinner. It will be interesting to see how long we can stick to our new resolutions to get up early and take more exercise. As an incentive, perhaps we should start planning our next sunny getaway right now!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Our hotel for the last six nights – the Occidental Jandia Playa Royal Level. It was quite good – not the best hotel we’ve had in the Canary Islands, but it did the trick	About to set off from Fuerteventura airport – but Val is already dressed for Dublin!

Enjoying the last of the sunshine on the tarmac	Fine dining at 10,000 metres

Good view on the approach to Dublin, of the Portmarnock peninsula at the bottom of the window, the Sutton tombolo in the middle, and Bull Island, top right	yep – it’s Dublin and it’s raining! Welcome back!

Another good aerial view. This one was soon after take-off, of Lobos island, where we started our adventure two weeks ago. Playa Blanca, in Lanzarote, is to the right, and Corralejo, in Fuerteventura, is to the left