Ireland day 1457. Wednesday 24 September 2025- To Gran Canaria

Today’s summary	After a good nights sleep, got up at 6am, walked to the departure terminal and caught a BA flight to Gran Canaria. Baggage was searched at security because a shiny book cover activated the scanners. The flight was late in departfing but almost on time in Gran Canaria. A swift taxi ride and we were checked into the hotel in Maspalomas soon after 2pm. Spent the afternoon relaxing then had dinner in the hotel followed by an early-ish night.
Today’s weather	Dry and bright with light north easterly wind and 11c at Gatwick. 26c in Gran Canaria.

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Maspalomas Day 0

Commentary

Today we started our holiday-proper. I actually slept well at the hotel last night – unusually for me I was fast asleep by 9:30pm and slept right through until the alarm went off at 6am. There was just time for a quick cup of tea in our room before packing up, checking out, and walking the short distance to Gatwick South terminal. I would definitely stay at the Hilton again – it was quiet, comfortable and not too expensive.

Security was very quick but my bag got pulled out for extra checks. Apparently a shiny book cover had triggered the scanners and needed to be checked. The same happened to Val at Dublin yesterday. Note to self – remove books from bags before they go through the scanners!

We were on a BA flight today – to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria. It was reasonably comfortable – certainly better than Ryanair – but departed almost a hour late (worse than Ryanair, which is usually pretty punctual). But the airborne 4 hours seemed to go quite quickly and I actually enjpoyed 4 hours of zero-connectivity just to sit and read the paper.

We landed at Las Palmas airport at around 1:30pm (same time zone as UK). We had splashed out and paid in advance for a taxi to take us straight to our hotel (Seaside Palm Beach) at Maspalomas so we eventually found ourselves checked in and enjoying the facilities by just after 2 pm. Seven and a half hours door to door isn’t bad, I reckon.

Once checked in and equipped with welcome drinks, we retired to our room to change into holiday gear then had a short walk round the hotel, a swim and a stroll to a nearby shop to get some beers (hooray!). It’s so nice and warm here – a real treat!!!

Dinner was in the hotel restaurant then we retired relatively early to bed. Really looking forward to a few days of proper relaxation starting right now.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Val striding purposefully towards Departures at Gatwick this morning	A bus transfer to our plane – it was an emergency last minute plane change as the aircraft we were supposed to fly on had developed a “minor technical issue” which meant it could only fly close to or above land, so making it unsuitable for the oceanic flight to the Canaries. There are some things that it’s generally better not to know

Gran Canaria’s arid landscape. It has been exceptionally hot here recently but the temperature has fallen over the last couple of days. It’s forecast to be between 20 and 29c for the duration of our stay, which is fine by me	Welcome drinks. They were indeed very welcome

Glad to be here!	The view from our room. I have had worse

Feeling reflective