The Colbert Family's German Adventure: Canary Islands

In our first 10 months here we've been fortunate enough to travel a lot to so many different cities. As great as it has been, though, trips like this are high energy and fast paced so we were ready for a veg-out beach vacation. Our good pal Aaron had his dad hook us up with an all-inclusive resort on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. For 7 relaxing days we did not leave the resort - we did not drive or have to search out an affordable restaurant - it was exactly what we all needed!

I'd heard of the Canary Islands before, but didn't know anything about them, including where they were. The islands are off the coast of Africa, but they belong to Spain. It's a big beach destination from Europe so it was really easy to get there. Even though the islands are Spanish everyone at the resort spoke English, which was also a relief to us - just being able to easily communicate on vacation was a huge bonus. However, the biggest group of travellers on the islands are Germans so we still heard a lot of the language and all the signs/menus were in Spanish, English & German. This was a little disappointing to Griffin who seems to need breaks from the language more than the rest of us - when we came to the States later in the summer one of the first things he said walking through the airport was "I only hear English - we won't hear any German while we're here, right?". On the other hand, this cultural mix was really cool based on the timing of our visit because it was nearing the end of the World Cup soccer games, and Spain, Germany & the Netherlands were all still in play so the resort played the games on the movie screens in the theater and there were big fan bases rooting for these remaining teams.

We definitely relaxed here, but we weren't too lazy! Scott played beach volleyball every day, Ethan was at the soccer pitch a LOT, we swam in the pools & ocean, we played tennis, and took in the resort entertainment. The beaches were really gorgeous and natural! The prettiest beaches I've ever been on. They are surrounded by small cliffs and volcanic rock which is striking to look at, but then the sand was very soft and fine. The best part was that there was nothing on the beaches - no hotels, vendors, shops - nothing, only a few hotels and condos built up on the cliffs. OK, there were naked people on the beach, but nothing touristy :-)) Yes, we were definitely reminded that we were in Europe because at the pool there were usually several topless women, and on the beach full-blown nakedness - including an entire family where the kids were playing in the sand while mom & dad played a physical game of paddle ball! The boys took it much more in stride than Scott & I - we've gone almost 40 years without seeing nakedness on the beach, but the boys barely noticed - Scott & I were downright silly about it most days!

Views of the resort.