Green Golf Maspalomas (Maspalomas)

Member Name: Belfastgirl

Product:	Maspalomas
Date:	30/04/01 (1036 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: sun, fun etc

Disadvantages: con artists

Maspalomas, Gran Canaria - a perfect place to spend a week, if all you want to do is lay in the sun for a while, do a spot of shopping, and want the option of spending the night in, or out.

I just spent the last week there, what can I say? The weather was beautiful, the majority of people were friendly, and it was lovely and relaxing.

We stayed in Green Golf apartments in Maspalomas, right beside a beautiful Golf Course. The apartments slept 3 people, though those with young children could have cots provided. Each apartment was like a tiny house, with a bedroom (with two single beds) and bathroom upstairs, and a small kitchen area and a sitting room, which also had a sofa bed. The doors opened up onto a little patio area with table and chairs, where a lot of people liked to have their meals. Our apartment looked out on the pool, and so we were able to just leave our apartment unlocked while at the pool area and come and go as we pleased.

To be honest, there isn’t much to do in Maspalomas itself. Where we were was about 25 minutes walk to the beach. We did this one day, but found it too warm. Saying that, the beach was lovely, and I noticed that it had won a blue flag award for 2000, and a number of years before that. It had lovely sand dunes which are a nature reserve area, and is protected. You are able to climb on the Dunes nearest the beach, but are asked not to go further so as to preserve the wildlife.

A little bit down from the beach, there are camels, you can pay to sit on the camels, and have your picture taken - an activity which I declined to be a part of, but was one that most children seemed fascinated by.

In Maspalomas itself there is a shopping centre, called Farros 2 which was very close to our apartments, we found this to be very expensive, but put it down to it being very touristy, appealing to what many feel as the stereotypical golfer (you know what I mean, consultants, people who have lo
ads of money etc.).

As you may have gathered, golf plays quite a big part in Maspalomas, and may explain why it is so quiet. While there was a good age range of people visiting, there was not that many young people - probably preferring to go to the likes of Playa de Ingles where most of the night life is.

Playa de Ingles is where most of the big shopping centres are. We went to two - Yumbo and Kasba. Yumbo is a massive place, the middle and top floors being full of shops. A word of warning though for those of you who perhaps have children and do not want them seeing such things - Yumbo at night houses gay bars, quite hardcore stuff from the look of the outside. These are mainly on the bottom floor and are only open at night time, so is no problem during the day - just thought I’d give a warning. Kasba is another quite large shopping centre, housing a number of shops selling perfume, and the general nic nacs that you find on holidays. Another word of warning - beware of con artists here! We were caught out by two apparently lovely women from Uganda who were standing outside a chapel. We naturally thought that they were some religious group when they came to speak to us, and so were pleasant etc. One rather large lady shook my hand and then would not let go! She placed a bracelet on my arm and started doing this sort of chant thing, her friends did the same to my mum and aunt. I was a little suspicious, and started pulling my arm away, but she held my hand tighter and then asked for a gift for their cause. Still thinking along religious lines, I reached into my purse and gave her a 500 peseta coin, she then grabbed a 1000 peseta note from my purse, while her friend took money from my aunt. They then demanded that I give them more, we were so shocked - they had been so nice… I walked off dragging my mum and aunt with me. I guess we were a little naive, and it has taught us a lesson, hopefully by writing this here, I will
stop the same happening to other people.

Maspalomas market is a must go to place! There are lots of wonderful stalls there - brilliant if you like to find a bargain, some of the sellers are flexible, and seem to enjoy when you go along with them. I really enjoyed this place, and I got a lot of bargains there.

In all, Gran Canaria was great, the sun shined the whole week I was there. Most of the people were friendly, and spoke great English. It’s somewhere that suits all ages, and all types, families, single people, married couples of all ages - there is always something to do. For me, it was a brilliantly relaxing holiday despite our one "Incident", it had everything that I needed and more.

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