Richard gower 09/05/2026 Richard gower 09/05/2026

Ibiza: Then and Now

Timea and I visited Ibiza in May 2026 for a warm break and to finish off our Balearic Islands collection. While over there I remembered that my parents took my sister Lisa there in 1972 when she was 2. This kicked off our occasional quest to recreate old family photos in the same locations.

Dalt Villa - Ibiza Old Town

Plaça de la Constitució, Ibiza Old Town, 1972

Plaça de la Constitució, Ibiza Old Town, 2026

Portal Nou, Dalt Villa, Ibiza Old Town - Dad and Lisa - 1972

Portal Nou, Dalt Villa, Ibiza Old Town - Me and my rucksack - 2026

Cala Longa Beach

Finding this one gave us the most amusement. Finding the Dalt Vila locations was fairly easy as we just had to wander around Ibiza Old Town until we found the exact places. Google Lens and some AI-enabled searching helped too.

The beach photo below was a bit trickier as the resort wasn’t obvious. My first attempt at solving it with Google AI told me: “This is the Bay of San Antonio (Bahía de San Antonio) on the west coast of Ibiza. The man in the photograph is Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees. The Gibb family had strong ties to Ibiza at the time: his parents relocated to the island in late 1971, and the brothers frequently visited.”. This was immediately suspicious as San Antonio isn’t on the west of the island and, as far as I was aware, my dad wasn’t in the Bee Gees. I was intrigued though and some further research confirmed the Maurice did visit Ibiza at the time and he did look a little like my dad at the time. Maurice was married to the singer Lulu back then who did look a little like my mum.

After a couple more attempts I managed to work out that the Beach was Cala Longa, conveniently just 15 minutes from the hotel where we were staying. We couldn’t match the camera angles and the beach seemed to have been widened since then but it was definitely the place. You can see the old hotels still there but extended upwards.

More Then and Now

Jersey

Tenerife and La Gomera

Gran Canaria

Richard gower 24/02/2023 Richard gower 24/02/2023

Gran Canaria: Then and Now

Five years ago Timea and I visited Tenerife for our February end-of-winter getaway. One of the highlights was recreating some of the old photos from when I used to visit there with my family when I was growing up. Here’s the results. Five years later we booked Gran Canaria for our winter break and decided to do the same.

We went to Tenerife a lot as a family in the ‘80s as my parents shared an apartment there with my dad’s business partner and his family. We only went to Gran Canaria once and I’m guessing that it was 1983 when I was 7, going on 8. That would put it at exactly 40 years before I returned with Timea. I only had one memory of the inside of the hotel that we stayed in, plus a small collections of scanned in photos.

Flight to Gran Canaria

Hotel Paraiso Maspalomas

Coming back to Maspalomas after 40 years I assumed that the hotel that we stayed in might not still be there. As it turned out there’s a lot of very old hotels in the resort, mixed with some very modern luxury ones. After having a walk down the sea-front and not finding it, we decided to ask one of the older gentlemen who worked on reception at the hotel where we were staying. As it turned out he knew it well and actually worked there in the ‘80s, maybe at the time I was there before. He pin pointed it on a map for us and we visited there a few days later.

When we drove towards it the white and yellow curved balconies were obvious. Very little had changed since 1983 and much of the décor probably hasn’t been updated since then. The major difference is that it’s now a private apartment block rather than a hotel.

1983: View to the hotel rooms from the pool

2023: Same view. Rooms are now private apartments

1983: Dad looking out to the pool bar from our hotel room

2023: Pointing at the approximate location of the original room

1983: Me and Lisa (sister) in the atrium

2023: Slightly pained expression due to sun in my eyes

1983: Me with my Nintendo Game and Watch. Likely Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong

2023: Nintendo replaced by iPhone. You can’t see it but I have the original photo (left) on the iPhone screen

2023: Slides barred off, presumably due to a health and safety incident

Barranco de Guayadeque

Apart from the hotel the other batch of old photos that I had were from a ravine where we went on a donkey safari. The only clue that I had was one photo displaying a sign for Bar Vega. I looked it up on Google Maps and it’s still there, although now called Restaurante Vega. The roads have had an upgrade in the past 40 years and it now takes only 35 minutes to get there from Maspalomas.

The ravine is famous for its cave dwellings where people have lived in the rocks for 100s of years. As we drove up the ravine road I remembered walking along a path past some of the cave houses. The road is only passable to tourist traffic until the restaurants, after which it continues as a narrower local road further up into the mountains.

Our first stop was Bar Vega where we easily found the spot from the original photo. We stayed there for lunch and showed the hold photos to the son of the owner. They told us that the other bar photos that we had were from the Restaurant La Era next door so we visited that too. The owner of La Era was very excited to see the old photos as asked to send her copied. She also told us about the Donkey Safari which we did in the ‘80s but no no longer operates.

1983: Bar Vega overlooking the Barranco (ravine) de Guyadeque

1983: Restaurante La Era, next to Bar Vega

2023: Restaurante La Era. Original table and music area is now a bar

1983: Restaurante La Era overlooking the ravine

2023: Same spot - notice the stone pillar behind me

1983: overlooking the terraces just down the hill from the restaurants

Here’s a great clip from the 1980s travel show Wish You Were Here? featuring Playa del Ingles. I remember watching this show when I was growing up and it’s likely that we would have seen this clip before we went to Gran Canaria in 1983.

Playa del Ingles is the older part of a now continuous resort that includes the towns of San Agustín, San Fernando and Meloneras and is most commonly referred to as Maspalomas. For our return trip in 2023 we stayed in a newer hotel near the Dunes. We walked the 2 km to the centre of Playa del Ingles to find it looking much the same as in the Wish You Were Here? clip. The old hotels and bars are still there and still as tacky as you’d expect.

Don’t get put off though as the newer developments to the west are much nicer. We’re definitely not into beach holidays but found Maspolomas to be a great location for exploring the island by car. You can access most of the island within an hour’s drive.

Richard gower 24/02/2018 Richard gower 24/02/2018

Tenerife & La Gomera: Then & Now

Coming back to Tenerife wasn't very appealing to me until recently. I must have been there about 20 times with my family when I was growing up. My parents had a half share in an apartment in Las Americas with my Dad's’ business partner’s family . We had some great times there and it was the setting for some of my fondest memories.

I only got the travel bug in my mid twenties and since then I’ve been on a mission to see the world. I developed a rule about not going back to places, so Tenerife never got a look in. It was going to Madeira last year and walking the Levadas that started to change my mind. I realised that I’d only seen holiday resort Tenerife, not the outdoor wonderland that most tourists never visit. It was time to return and to show Timi the holiday places of my childhood.

First up, a 5 mile walk of the resort to recreate some old moments...

Playa de las Americas

Dad: view to Villamar, Bouganville Playa and Gran Tinerfe - early 1980s

2018: Same view from lower position. Upper walkway now closed for building works.

Dad: view to Parque Santiago 1,2,4 and Conquistador - late 1980s

Los Angeles cafe & view to Roque del Conde mountain: mid 1980s

Flanagans: the scene of some epic 1980s dad dancing.

Cafe amazingly still there in 2018. Mountain obscured by palm trees

2018: Flanagan's is long gone. Still classy though.

Parque Santiago 3

Parque Santiago 3 was the resort where my parents shared an apartment with the Blore's, the family of my dad's business partner.

Mum: late 1980s. The big ugly block in the distance is the now-demolished Europa hotel

2018: Smugness comes naturally now. Bigger me, bigger tree.

Mount Teide Cable Car

2018: slightly different angle, bit colder, but still there.

2018: new cable car. Click here for the Teide website's history of the cable car

1980s low tech sign on the cable car station

Dragon Tree, Icod de los Vinos

La Gomera

Roque de Agando - mid 1980s, rocking the Comic Relief T-shirt

View of Tenerife from La Gomera ferry: mid 1980s

Roque de Agando - looking a bit older in 2018

2018 - still ruined but looks like someone lives there now.

2018: much more development. Think there's a volcano in there somewhere.

And finally, one of my favourite photos: The Gowers and The Blores at the Santiago 3 apartment before a night out (late '80s). Sadly, no 2018 recreation for this one as not all of the original cast are still with us.

See also: Gran Canaria: Then and Now