Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 3 April

The area north of Parque Santa Catalina is a seedy version of Tottenham Court Road. The only reason we headed there was to find an internet cafe. In our search we came across a huge shop with everything careful laid out in highly polished chrome and glass cabinets like Selfridges. F had lost the battery for her obscure Aldi purchased digital camera and bizarrely they had a replacement battery. They ripped her off quite literally by tearing off the price ticket before handing it over to her and asking 30 euros. Guess they had to pay back the loan on the expensive display cabinets.

We headed west or it could have been south as the map supplied by El Corte Ingles did not have a compass printed on it. A neon light flashed from the outside of noisy amusement arcade to indicate Internet. We dived in to find the place full of kids playing pool. This was slot machine internet and it was a race against time to check our emails whilst avoiding the cockroaches that were running across the computer screen.
God we must have been desperate to check our mail.

As we walked towards the main shopping area we came across an interior shop called La Oca, Galicia 35. They had the obligatory Philippe Stark products but a few Spanish designers also. In the shop I picked up a free copy of a magazine called Via. It's a bilingual publication with articles about Canarian artists, architects and musicians. It also has a great listings section in the back for all art events primarily in Tenerife. There was also an interesting article about Europa Ciudades y musica / Europe Cities and Music. It talked about the Greek Rebetiko music and of course Fado sung by the fantastic Mariza.

Returning to the port we took a taxi to the old part of the town called Vegueta. (10 euro).















I'm still puzzling over this piece of graffiti . It says Islam vencera. The wall is for the cathedral which had lots of early Islamic decorative influences. Not sure if the writing was positive or negative. I'll have to ask my Spanish teacher.
















Strolling towards Triana you will find lot's of lovely independent boutiques selling jewellery and designer clothes. Cano Peregrina had the best shops. There are also several tabenas similar to tapas bars around here that looked rather good. Just wish my stomach had been up for it. It takes too long to get back to the main shopping street Avenida de Jose Mesa y Lopez, where El Corte Ingles is. So take the number 2 bus from Avenida Primero de Mayo and get off at the mercado/ market stop.

If you have not maxed out your credit cards after all that you can really go crazy in the Spanish version of Bluewater El Muelle. Situated on Muelle de Sta. Catalina this huge building houses, Zara, C&A, WomensSecret and lot's of other chain stores. There is a tapas bar on the ground floor outside one of the entrances if you'd rather not have Burger King.