Many visitors make their way to Teguise on Sundays to visit the weekly market and for those not on an organised bus tour the main problem will be where to park.

Although it is possible to park in the streets around the centre of the town, these are often blocked off for the day with police on hand to make sure that only the locals use them.

For everyone else there are the lava fields on the outskirts, where your car will be guarded for a charge of 1.50EUR. Often these display a notice with the distance to the market – be aware that the first ones you see will not be the closest!

The car park at Arrecife airport is split into two halves. One half is reserved for the hire car companies, who park their fleet there when not in use. The other half is open to the public and has one of the most unusual price structures that I have ever seen for a car park.

They charge by the minute.

Admittedly the price is only between 1 and 2 cents per minute, and as of 2009 the first half hour is free.  So effectively that is about 1 Euro per hour, making it cheaper than most car parks in Germany.

But still, as fair as it might seem to have such an exact method of charging, imagine what it must be like to have to wait in a long queue at the ticket machine on your way out  and see the minutes ticking by!

Airport parking charges, October 2009

Here is another example of a translation into German that appears to have gone slightly wrong:

What it wants to do is to ask you politely not to park in front of the entrance, but it should read “Bitte vor diesem Eingang nicht parkieren”.

Or should it?

“Parkieren” sounds funny to the native German – but why? Is it because it appears to be wrong, or even because it appears to be an attempt to translate “to park” into German (as in “to walk” being “spazieren“?)

Actually, in this case, the translation is technically correct – in Swiss German the verb would be “parkieren”. The sign was seen on the entrace to a complex on Lanzarote – perhaps they have a lot of Swiss park in front of the gate?