Lanzarote, an Eden of Lava

Lanzarote had been calling to me for a long time; I had simply forgotten. The first time I heard the name I was twelve, grooming my mare after a jumping lesson, while two women in the next stall spoke of it as a dream island, a lava Eden. A perfect phrase, though I only discovered how apt it was twenty-seven years later, when I went looking for a European destination for late November that could satisfy my need to explore and my love of sailing at once. Lanzarote it was, and I loved it.

Planning a holiday in Lanzarote

As always, I planned it myself, from travel blogs, magazines and the local tourist sites. Booking well ahead in early August, I found a cheap Ryanair round trip. For getting around I hired a car, which is really essential here.

For a base I had hoped for one of the small typical houses dotted across the island, but after several dead ends I settled for a large five-star on the cliff at Puerto Calero. Objectively beautiful, and not at all my cup of tea, too big and international, and, I have to say, the cleanliness and the wifi both left something to be desired. The saving grace was a vast, joyful breakfast buffet with a tea selection that made my morning. So it goes.

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An island shaped by one man

The first thing that strikes you, driving out of the airport, is the absence of green. Lanzarote is lunar, black lava and volcanic ash as far as the eye can see, greenery only in decorative touches. The second thing you notice, everywhere, is the hand of one man: César Manrique, the artist, architect and visionary who, more than anyone, made Lanzarote what it is.

It was Manrique who insisted the island build in harmony with its volcanic landscape rather than bury it under concrete, who fought the high-rise, mass-tourism model that has scarred so many other places, and who created the network of art-and-nature sites (the CACT centres) that give Lanzarote its character. Most of the “sights” below are his. A cumulative voucher, sold at the sites and information centres, covers several of them and is well worth it; check the current options and price when you go. I took the multi-centre one, and it paid for itself easily.

The Manrique sites, and my honest verdict

• Jardín de Cactus. A garden of thousands of sculptural cacti in a former quarry beneath an old windmill, a perfect balance of stone, ironwork, plant and light. Of all Manrique’s works, this is the one that most struck me. Beautiful.
• Cueva de los Verdes. A vast lava tube formed by the eruption of the Monte Corona volcano; you walk a kilometre of it with a guide, and it leaves you speechless. My favourite detail, professional deformation showing, is a natural auditorium with perfect acoustics. I must go back for a concert.
• Los Jameos del Agua. From the same eruption: a little volcanic lake home to thousands of tiny blind albino crabs, with gorgeous plays of light and shade.
• Mirador del Río. Here I part ways with the crowd. The road up is beautiful, and the view from the 475-metre cliff over the island of La Graciosa is superb, but Manrique’s glassed-in bar-restaurant felt too artificial, too little art, and left me cold (a bit like some of Calatrava’s buildings do). The view is better still, to me, from the open cliff, or looking back inland at the villages set like sparkling stones in the lava.

Beyond the Manrique circuit

Teguise, the old colonial capital, is the pearl of the interior: low houses, quiet streets full of old stories, coloured wooden doors, tiny craft shops. My ideal little town. I came back to it to visit the Museo de la Piratería in the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, atop a volcano, which tells the island’s history of raids and invasions through models and film rather than dusty relics, and gives a 360-degree panorama from the terrace.

Órzola, a hamlet of whitewashed houses and painted doors around a little fishing port, gave me the image of the whole holiday: grilled fish in the sun by the sea. Famara, the famous surf beach, left me a bit cold as a beach but I loved the sleepy village behind it. And La Geria moved me most of all: the vineyards, each vine planted in its own hollow scooped from the black volcanic ash and shielded by a low, curved dry-stone wall against the wind. It is a heroic, hand-built agriculture that any Ligurian recognises at once, and, like our own terraces, it turns a hostile landscape into something quietly beautiful.

Timanfaya and El Golfo

I set out very early for Timanfaya, the volcanic national park, to beat the crowds, and it left me speechless: proof of how powerless we are against nature. Walking the road cut through the lava, you cannot help but imagine the islanders who lived through the ten long years of eruptions in the eighteenth century. The Last Judgment, they must have thought.

Then El Golfo, to me the most beautiful spot on the island: a cove of black lava grains eroded by the tide, backed by an olivine-green volcanic lagoon, reached along a red-sand path. When I hear “a spectacle of nature”, this is what I picture now. Nearby, the jagged cliffs of Los Hervideros, the pastel-shaded Salinas de Janubio, and Playa Papagayo (a small toll per car; I expected more).

On my last morning I even took the touristy little yellow submarine at Puerto Calero, my only chance to see below the surface after an ear problem from a bad flight grounded my diving. Not quite Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, but I did not regret it. Then I left the hotel and drove to the little port of Rubicón to board a sailing boat, but that is another adventure.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

• The sequel to this trip: a sailing holiday in Lanzarote
• Another Canary Island: Gran Canaria
• The way I most love to travel these islands: under sail