Lanzarote Island – it’s all about volcanoes!

Canary Islands – All About Lanzarote

My Visit to Lanzarote

I recently explored Lanzarote Island with a friend for nine days. The long-ish stay was rather unintended, but ended up being well worth every single day. In fact, I could easily have stayed longer.

During our stay we rented a car and took full advantage of that to explore the island extensively. We drove most of the island’s roads, entranced by the unique, sometimes bizarre volcanic landscapes.

We enjoyed a surprising variety of volcanic hiking that included walking around the base of volcanic cones, circumnavigating crater rims, descending down into craters, summit-ing volcanic peaks and plodding across rough black lava fields.

We also visited beaches, tall coastal cliffs, high look-out points, quaint towns, museums, sculptures, luxurious cave homes (yes!) and a historic castle that had been built to ward off pirates in the 1600-1800s.

I enjoyed the unique scenery, traditional culture and art of Lanzarote so much that it’s easily my favorite of the three Canary Islands I visited.

Here’s what I observed and learned about Lanzarote while exploring:

Lanzarote & Fuerteventura – off the coast of Morocco

Introduction to Lanzarote

Lanzarote is the easternmost island of the Canaries, along with Fuerteventura, which is situated just south across a narrow channel. These two islands are only 100 km from the coast of Morocco, although there are no regular ferries or boats connecting them.

Both islands are primarily flat, with dry sandy desert-like terrain, more similar to Morocco than the other five Canary islands, which are all dominated by high volcanic mountains.

Lanzarote’s unique volcanic landscapes

Lanzarote has an utterly unique, stark volcanic landscape that’s entirely different from all other Canary Islands. In fact, it’s probably unique to the whole world.

Most of the island consists of flat, dark gray volcanic soil, punctuated everywhere by weather-softened volcanic cones rising abruptly out of the flat terrain. On the small, oval-shaped island there are a whopping 300 volcanoes! In many places, you can easily see 10-15 volcanoes at once, sometimes all situated in one direction, sometimes completely surrounding you.

Even more surprising is the sheer variety of colorations found on the volcanoes and terrain. While the over-all color scheme is gray, there are golden tones, beige tones, white and even a rich deep red. Shades of gray range from near black to quite pale.

Added to that are hundreds of lichen species slowly spreading across the lava-stone land as well as a variety of low, arid-climate bushes, flowers and some scattered palm trees. These all add varying shades of green and tiny bursts of vibrant red, orange, pink, purple, yellow and white.

Probably the most stark and other-worldly terrain on Lanzarote is found in the southwest, centered around Timanfaya National Park. Hundreds of square miles of land consists of crusty, rough black and gray lava stones, like a giant rubble field.

lava fields and volcanoes at Timanfaya NP

It’s the result of six years of heavy volcanic activity in the early 1700s. During those years a steady stream of lava ‘bombs’ were hurled out across the land, even plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean. Almost continuous red hot lava flowed out across the land, flowing around ancient volcanic cones, burying 50 villages and completely changing the surface of ¼ of Lanzarote Island.

There’s an entrance fee to the center of the park, where some of the land is still so hot that park rangers grill chicken and demonstrate the extreme heat by throwing bundles of thin branches into a hole, which then immediately bursts into flame. Another demo consists of pouring water into a small hole. After a couple minutes, the water blasts out like a geyser, high into the air. A park bus takes visitors around a loop through the very center of the dense volcanic peaks area.

However, aside from those special spectacles in the park center, several public roads drive right through the lava fields for many miles. Along the way are several parking spots, from which many hiking trails head into the lava fields and over to various volcanoes where you can hike around the base of the volcanoes, climb into their craters, scale the mountains to the top and circumnavigate crater rims.

The park’s fantastic, educational visitors center is free and outside the park entrance. The center has excellent displays explaining the history of the 1700s Timanfaya volcanic eruptions, volcanic activity in the Canaries and the current natural state of the land (plants, animals, etc).

They also have an hourly video presentation about Timanfaya and ongoing demos of a volcanic explosion & lava flow, which are held in the basement.

You could easily spend two hours or even a half day learning all about volcanic activity.

vineyards at Lanzarote

Lanzarote’s unique vineyards

Lanzarote has a few other very distinctive attractions. Most noticeably as you drive around the island are the unique vineyards. Because of strong winds and the harsh land, grape orchard growers have come up with a completely different way of growing grapes.

Instead of heavy, hanging grape vines found in most of the world, on Lanzarote, they plant small individual grape vines (that look more like a bush or plant than a vine) and surround them with low C-shaped volcanic stone walls. The result is a very rare but charming site.

There are actually several different styles of plantings/vine protection around the island. Some farmers build long straight stone or mesh net walls. Others make different stone wall configurations.

It’s really interesting to see hundreds of C-shaped low gray walls placed evenly across dark gray fields.

Lanzarote wines are by no means a new industry there. Surprisingly, Lanzarote vineyards have been on the island since the 1500s! Several top vineyards have ‘museums’ on their premises, enticing visitors to stop by and learn about grape growing and wine making. Most of these museums are free, though they charge modest fees for wine sampling tours.

Casa Museo de Campesinos – Lanzarote

Lanzarote’s unique traditional architecture

Lanzarote’s traditional houses and towns are also unique to the island. They are all low white stucco-style buildings, all with bright green trim on windows and doors. The interiors are also done entirely in white stucco with green trim. Visitors will quickly notice that all Lanzarote’s towns and villages are basically the same – white buildings with green trim.

Lanzorote has several quaint historic towns that are well -preserved, filled with all the usual white buildings with green trim, now with boutiques, restaurants, bars, cafes, churches, libraries and other buildings. They’re worth strolling around, particularly Teguise and Haria (where one of Manrique’s museum houses is located).

The excellent Casa Museo del Campesino – Museum of Traditional Farm House – situated near the town of San Bartolome, about 30 minutes north of the capital city of Arrecife, is a beautiful little white oasis with a backdrop of stately gray volcanic peaks. Entrance is free.

Museums guides stand by, waiting to show guests inside a traditional farm house kitchen, bedroom and storehouse. There are shops selling organic produce, breads and traditional handicrafts. There’s also an amazing underground restaurant accessed by a descending, circular volcanic stone stairway and then through a tunnel.

The entire complex is landscaped with walkways, local plants and volcanic stones. It was designed and constructed by Lanzarote’s world-famous artist/sculptor/architect, Cesar Manrique.

One of Manrique’s tall, stunning all-white statues marks the museum at a highway round-about.

Manrique sculpture

Lanzarote’s famous artist Cesar Manrique

Speaking of Manrique, the artist and his works are another unique feature of Lanzarote. Renowned in Europe, particularly in the 1950s & 60s, his modern art has been featured all over the world.

In later life he returned to Lanzarote, where he set about leaving his print all over the island, in great part intentionally to showcase the unique beauty of Lanzarote and draw in international visitors and create a tourist industry for the island.

Many of his tall, striking statues are set at highway round-abouts around the island. In addition, three amazing & luxurious cave homes that he created are open for public viewing as museums.

One is the amazing house, Lagomar, that he designed for actor Omar Sherriff. The property has a museum, restaurant and bar. You can visit the bar and restaurants in evenings for free, which allows you to see a good portion of the fabulous property, including the pool, tunnel entrance, cave bar and several sitting rooms and hallways.

Lagomar – Omar Sherriff’s former cave home on Lanzarote

The Fundacion de Cesar Manrique runs two of his former island homes as museums. One at Haria and his most famous Jame’s Bond-like volcanic cave home at Tehiche.

Manrique also designed several striking destinations, specifically as tourist attractions. They all have a signature statue or metal sculpture and stunning architecture. They include:

Casa Museo del Campesino (above)

Mirador del Rio, a look-out point high atop cliffs on the north tip of the island, with amazing views down onto little La Graciosa Island.

Cueva de Los Verdes – The interior of a huge lava tube where tours are offered and concerts of jazz & blues are regularly held.

Jameos del Aqua – A natural blue water hole inside a volcanic cavern where Manrique added a restaurant, bar and seating for concerts.

cliffs at Caleta de Famara

Other Lanzarote natural attractions

Lanzarote also has some great beaches, both bustling, developed tourist beaches and lesser-known au naturale beaches. The main tourist beaches are Playa Blanca at the southern tip; Papagayo National Park beaches, next to Playa Blanca; and Puerto del Carmen on the southeast coast.

Great natural beaches include Playa Quemada, just south of Puerto del Carmen; Caleta del Famara on the northwest coast; and an un-named beach at Jameos del Aqua.

In addition, a range of tall soaring cliffs line the coast just beyond Caleta del Famara beach in the northwest. A rough stone & dirt road grinds over to the base of the cliffs, where you can gaze up at the rock walls, stroll on volcanic stone shores and view the coastline.

Castle de Santa Barbara – Lanzarote

Tales of pirate invasions on Lanzarote

The Canary Islands were repeatedly invades by marauding pirates from the late 1400s through the 1800s. Lanzarote was particularly plundered over and over again.

Eventually the islanders built a few fortress castles on hilltops to defend themselves. Castle de Santa Barbara, set on the edge of a crater rim above the town of Teguise has been converted into a museum about piracy on the islands.

My friend and I both found it quite fascinating and informative.

Summary

With all the fantastic & bizarre natural landscapes, abundance of hiking opportunities and pretty beaches; the cultural & art attractions created by Cesar Manrique; cute historic towns and castles, Lanzarote is a fantastic island to explore. You could easily spend 1-2 weeks or more, driving around, hiking and exploring all the interesting sites.

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