Fuerteventura, one of the Canary islands

We moved to Fuerteventura from Stockholm, Sweden. That was really a change of life I tell you!

For obvious reasons you cannot easily bring all your furniture, books or belongings. We choose not to bring so much. We descided to build a home again there. And we did so.

Fuerteventura is a place where it is summer year around. They call it the Hawaii of Europe. The climate is nice year around. There is almost no rain, only sunshine. No shoveling snow or scraping ice from your car windows. Since Fuerteventura is so close to Africa and the vast Sahara desert, the winds from there - the calima - is making the air warm and dry. Fuerte is barren except for planted gardens and flower beds. The palm trees give a little shaddow and the beaches are many and really long. It is easy to find a place of your own with privacy. Very often there are little black rings built in the sand and inside you can claim your own secret world=)

The canary islands belong to Spain but they have their own government and some of the laws are uniqe too. The taxes on cars is so low so you can afford a really nice one. But the minute you ship it away from the islands, you pay high tax on it! We lived first in the capital of FV - Puerto del Rosario. We had an apartment in the city. We sat on the balcony watching the traffic and city life. We laughed at the parking habits. It seemed like if you just was away from the drive lane, you can park as you like. One wheel on the pavement, some parked sideways when they had a short car =D

After a year in the city we bought a house of our own. It was located at a lovely fishing village called Pureto Lajas. The walk to the beach took 5 minutes. The sand was black and there were very few people there. Little fishing boats were in the bay and a couple of restaurants were there too. We loved our beach and our house. When you buy a house in this part of the world, there is only an empty shell. We had to fit our kitchen, build wardrobes, landry and lots of other details. We had so much fun doing this. One day we took the car on the ferry to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (anothere canary island) and went to IKEA. We made a whole day´s shopping tour. Filled the car with lots of things we needed or just wanted. We had so much fun and were so happy to return to our house again with all these new things.

As time past we got to know our island more and more. We found the fantastic Beach Jandia in the south. It is the longest beach in Europe. We found the mountain town Betancuria that once was the capital. It is sheltered up there to stop the pirates to get to her too easily. The tourists are so welcome there. Excellent restaurants and nice souvernires to bring home.

Up in the north of FV is Corralejo located. That is the town where there are many restaurants, music places and lots of shopping. They opened a water park for the kids too that is very popular. Caleta de Fuste is another place just south of the air field that is very nice for tourism. Pieros Cafe and the Glass bottom boats are there too. I recommend a trip to Caleta.

If you have any questions about Fuerteventura - just ask. I will try and anwer you.They say that Fuerteventura got its name from Fuerte=strong and ventura=joy.

FUERTEVENTURA