A guide to Lanzarote

Fire mountains: the eruptions that made Lanzarote

On 1 September 1730 the ground split open near Timanfaya, and the eruptions went on for six years. Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo, the parish priest of Yaiza, wrote down what he saw: mountains rising where there had been fields, lava burying farms and hamlets, the sea boiling where the molten rock reached it. By 1736 around a quarter of the island lay under fresh lava. The result is the landscape of Timanfaya National Park, the Fire Mountains: rust, ochre and black under a huge sky, with ground a few metres down still hot enough to cook on.

Inside the park, the Route of the Volcanoes is driven only by the park’s own coaches from Islote de Hilario, so we plan the day around it, with a private guide and driver before and after, and lunch at the park restaurant, where the grill is heated by the ground itself.

César Manrique and the island he protected

Lanzarote owes much of its look to César Manrique, the artist born in Arrecife in 1919 who came home from New York in the 1960s and spent the rest of his life persuading the island to stay itself. The low white houses with green or blue woodwork, the roads without billboards, the buildings set into the volcanic ground instead of on top of it: much of that is his doing. When UNESCO declared the whole of Lanzarote a Biosphere Reserve in 1993, it was largely thanks to him.

His home at Tahíche, now the Fundación César Manrique, is the place to understand him. He built it into a lava flow around five volcanic bubbles: you step down from a white house into rooms of black rock, each opening onto the next, with patches of sky overhead. His other works are the island’s best visits. Jameos del Agua turns a collapsed lava tube into a lagoon, a garden and a concert hall; the Mirador del Río hangs on the cliffs above the strait to La Graciosa; the Jardín de Cactus fills an old quarry. We book them early or late in the day, when they are quietest.

Black earth, white walls, green shutters and the Atlantic in every window. Lanzarote asks you to slow down, and rewards you when you do.

Best time to visit Lanzarote

Any time. Lanzarote is one of the driest islands in the archipelago, so the sun is reliable all year and winter is as popular as summer. The trade winds blow most steadily in summer, which keeps the heat gentle and suits the surfers at Famara; the calmest, warmest sea comes in late summer and early autumn. In winter the light is soft enough to make the black lava look like velvet.

Where to stay in Lanzarote: a private villa in the south, or the quiet north

The south is the usual choice. Playa Blanca has the best beaches within easy reach, the marina at Rubicón and the ferry to Fuerteventura; Puerto Calero is a small, quiet marina where yacht days begin; Puerto del Carmen is livelier, with restaurants along the front. A private villa in the hills of Yaiza or Femés has volcanic views and complete quiet. The north is more traditional: Teguise, the old capital, with its Sunday market; Haría, the valley of a thousand palms where Manrique spent his last years; and the long, wild beach of Famara beneath the cliffs.

Things to do in Lanzarote: La Geria wine and the Papagayo beaches

After Timanfaya, La Geria is the island’s most unusual sight: vines planted one by one in hollows dug into black volcanic ash, each sheltered from the wind by a low crescent of stone. The Malvasía Volcánica grown there makes a dry white that goes well with the island’s fish, and we arrange private tastings at the bodegas along the valley. The Papagayo coves near Playa Blanca have the best beaches on the island, golden sand inside a protected natural area, and they are easiest to enjoy by boat before the day visitors arrive. The island is about an hour from end to end, and with a private chauffeur you can taste the wine without having to drive.

La Graciosa, the eighth island, by private yacht charter

From the Mirador del Río you look straight down onto it: a low, sandy island across a strait of very blue water. In June 2018 the Spanish Senate recognised La Graciosa as the eighth inhabited Canary Island, though it still belongs to the municipality of Teguise. It has sand tracks instead of roads, one small harbour village and some of the clearest water in the islands. The public ferry leaves from Órzola. A crewed yacht charter lets you swim in a quiet bay, have lunch at anchor and come home past the cliffs of Famara as they turn gold.

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Alba Zas