Last February, we wanted to go somewhere for a week, just to look at the sea and feel some nice warm weather. The best choice for us seemed to be the Canary Islands because it’s not cold here in winter and also it’s possible to get the flight tickets for quite a cheap price. We have been to two of the seven islands (La Palma and Tenerife – I’ll write about it later) and now we set off to Lanzarote.

• Place: Spain – Canary Islands – Lanzarote
• Length of stay: 7 days
• The date we were there: 9. 2. – 16. 2. 2019
• Transport to the place: by plane from Germany
(bus Prague-Düsseldorf → bus Düsseldorf-Weeze → plane Germany-Lanzarote)
• Transport back: by plane to Germany
(plane Lanzarote-Germany → bus Weeze-Düsseldorf → bus Düsseldorf-Praha)
• Way of travelling in Lanzarote: on foot or by a rented car
• Car rent: reserved in advance with Payless – a car rental which we have used several times, cheap, no deposit, great communication, we would definitely recommend them
• Driving: no problem, nice roads, sometimes a bit narrow, but in general, driving is easy here (link to our video)
• Accommodation: 4 nights in a car, 3 nights in a room in Tinajo (link to the room on Airbnb)
• Price: about 670 euro in total for the both of us together (flight tickets 36€ + bus tickets 170€ + car rent 80€ + accommodation 84€ + entrance fees 159€ + gas 24€ + travel insurance 18€ + food 98€)

VISITED PLACES IN LANZAROTE

• Visited places: capital city Arrecife, Jardín de Cactus, cave Jameos del Aqua, market in Teguise, cave Cueva de Los Verdes, town Orzola, Stonework beach, view Mirador del Rio, town Tinajo, national park Timanfaya (El Diablo), park de Los Volcanes (Montana Blanca), El Golfo (Laguna Verde), beach Playa de Janubio, Papagayo beach, town Playa Blanca, town Puerto del Carmen
• Entrance fees: Papagayo beach 2€, Jameos del Aqua with concert and dinner 55€/pcs (tickets), Cueva de Los Verdes + Mirador del Rio + El Diablo (3 tickets in one pack) 23,5€/pcs
• The best beaches: Stonework beach (a beautiful sandy beach, big waves, no people in the morning), Playa Chico (a nice little sandy beach), Playa de Janubio (a big one with black sand)

Day 1

Plan for this day: capital city Arrecife → Jardín de Cactus → cave Jameos del Aqua

CAPITAL CITY ARRECIFE

We arrived at the airport near Arrecife, where we rented a car and we drove to the city. We spent a while on the beach, enjoying the warm weather and the view to the sea. After that, we went to the town. We aren’t very much into towns, but this one was fine. By the sea, there was a fortress of Castillo de San Gabriel and a nice road with a bridge called Pente de las Bolas led to this place. It was a good walk there, these old places have their special charm.

CACHE – OLD TRUCK

Since we had arrived before noon, we had quite a lot of time this day and we decided to drive to Jemeos del Agua cave. During our way, we stopped to look for a cache (coordinates N 29° 03.858 W 013° 29.202). We expected nothing special here. However, we went like a mile on foot and the further we went, the more we were surprised. Each step, the path was more beautiful. On the right side, there was a mountain and on the left, there was a breathtaking view. Actually, this was our first walk in nature in Lanzarote and we felt like we were on Mars. The countryside just looked like from another planet. When we reached the coordinates, there was a wreck of an old vehicle, perfectly matching the atmosphere of that place. If you don’t do geocaching, I recommend this place anyway, it definitely worths the walk.

JARDÍN DE CACTUS

After that, we stopped by Jardín de Cactus. Nevertheless, we didn’t really longed for going inside, as we are not very much into cacti. Moreover, they were closing in a few minutes. We just peeked over the fence. There was a windmill, like from a fairytale. It was a nice sight. Across the road, there was a field of prickly pears and it was a nice sight as well.

CAVE JAMEOS DEL AQUA

The next and the final stop was the cave. In advance, we had reserved a ticket including the entrance, four-course dinner and a live gig. It was quite expensive for us, but it was well-spent money. I like things which I can experience for free. When we are somewhere for the very first time, there is always a vast amount of amazing places we can see for free. Here, however, we made an exception and spent some money. We wanted to go into the cave, have dinner and see the gig in the cave. And it was amazing. There was even a lake with white cancers (which you can’t see everywhere). The dinner was delicious and it was served with wine and water around 8 pm. Then we were waiting for about two hours for the gig. The gig was very interesting, I don’t know which words to choose to describe it, but we really liked it.

Day 2

Plan for this day: market in Teguise → cave Cueva de Los Verdes → town Orzola

MARKET IN TEGUISE

The second day, we went to the town of Teguise. It was Sunday and on Sundays, there is usually a huge market. Before we get there, we stopped by the road very often to look around the countryside. When we reached the market, we were surprised. The market was enormous. There were a lot of people (and I really mean A LOT). The number of sellers was also huge. In fact, it was like if the whole town had turned into one big market. They were selling probably everything you can think of. Food, souvenirs, handmade stuff, clothes. We bought several things and set off to another cave.

CAVE CUEVA DE LOS VERDES

This cave was longer than the previous one. There was no restaurant, just very long corridors and one concert hall. We went with other people some guided tour (there was no other way to get to the cave), but almost the whole time, we were behind the group of tourists and we felt like we were alone here. The best place in the cave was the lake. Obviously, there is no wind blowing underground, so the water was perfectly still and it looked like a mirror.

ORZOLA TOWN

When we left the cave, we drove to the nearest beach. We explored the place a little and continued our way to Orzola. From this town, we originally wanted to go by boat to an island called La Graciosa (the next day morning). In the evening, we went to the port to find a timetable for boats or something like this. We didn’t find anything. Then we realized that we don’t have to go anywhere, there is no reason for such a journey. Lanzarote is a beautiful place as well and we will probably have no time to explore each interesting part of it. Why would we lose our time travelling elsewhere? So, eventually, we decided not to go to La Graciosa this time.

Day 3

Plan for this day: Stonework beach → view Mirador del Rio → Tinajo (accommodation)

STONEWORK BEACH

In the morning, we went about two miles on foot to Stonework beach. It was one of the beaches I’ll probably remember forever. Or at least I would like to. When we came here, there were no other people. The beach was perfect, nice pleasant sand, no stones. Big waves. It’s said to be a great place for surfing. We swam in the sea, relaxed on the beach and when people with surfs were arriving, we left. We went for a cache which was placed extremely dangerously on the rock, not very far away from the beach. It took us several hours and in the end, we didn’t find it anyway, but whatever, it was a nice trip.

MIRADOR DEL RIO

Then we drove to Mirador del Rio. We parked our car nearby, showed tickets, and went to see the view (there was also a restaurant for tourists). The view was astonishing. But there were many people. When we left, we decided to go for a walk to the northernmost point of Lanzarote. It was about three miles on foot. The walk was very nice and for the whole time, there was a view, almost completely the same as the one from the paid tourist attraction. Yet this one was for free. So I would definitely recommend going for this walk, much more than to go to the paid view. And if you don’t like walking, you can go just a bit behind the tourist attraction and you will see the same view. For free and without people. We met only some goats.

TINAJO – ACCOMMODATION

From Mirador del Rio, we went to Tinajo to our rented room. We had found the accommodation on Airbnb. On the internet, we’d communicated with a woman who wrote in English pretty well. However, when we arrived, there was only an old man who couldn’t speak a word in English, he spoke only Spanish. Unlike him, we spoke only English. Eventually, we managed to deal with him, but it was hard work. Except for this language barrier, the accommodation was fine. Nothing luxurious, but we don’t need that. For us, it was enough that there was a kitchen, a shower and free wi-fi.

Day 4

Plan for this day: Tinajo (accommodation) → national park Timanfaya → park de Los Volcanes → Tinajo (accommodation)

NATIONAL PARK TIMANFAYA (EL DIABLO)

In the morning, we set off to Timanfaya and we went to El Diablo. El Diablo is a well-known tourist attraction. There is a restaurant and you can watch the food preparation. That’s interesting since they bake potatoes and meat on the hot air, which is produced in the volcano under the restaurant. Around the restaurant, there are several other attractions. For instance, there is a hole in the ground and if you put there some hay, it lights a fire. Also, because of the heat from the volcano. The most popular attraction is undoubtedly the one with long tubes, leading underground to the volcano. When someone pours water into that tube, the water comes back after a while like a geyser with a lot of steam.

PARK DE LOS VOLCANES (MONTANA BLANCA)

After we left El Diablo, we drove to the natural park called de Los Volcanes. We parked our car and we went around the colossal crater of the volcano Montana Blanca. The trek wasn’t really a piece of cake. It was just 6 miles with an elevation about 1312 ft. It doesn’t sound that bad, but when you go in a really hot lava field, you get tired after a while. Nevertheless, the walk was very nice, we enjoyed the countryside a lot. Like another planet. We met a few people but mostly we were completely alone. Several times we saw wild sheep or goats and it made me happy.

A STOPOVER BY THE SEA

Driving back to our accommodation, I really wanted to stop somewhere by the sea, as I love watching waves. And in Lanzarote, the waves were pretty cool. Moreover, watching the sunset above the sea is just amazing.

Day 5

Plan for this day: Tinajo (accommodation) → El Golfo → beach Playa de Janubio → Tinajo (accommodation)

EL GOLFO (LAGUNA VERDE)

The goal of this day was to get to the little town of El Golfo, to see Laguna Verde. Laguna Verde is a pretty small lake with totally green water. The place, which is marked on the map as the best one to look at the lake was overcrowded with tourists. I saw a beautiful beach right next to the lake where there was no one. There wasn’t any sign prohibiting going there, so we walked to the beach. At the beginning, there were few people and so I wanted to go further. There was a rock preventing us from going there, however, with some athletic skills, you can easily get to the other side. I’m not sure, whether it was low tide or not, maybe it’s not always possible to get there. But we made it and we were on the black beach completely alone. We looked at the lake from a bit closer and enjoyed that empty beach. I would recommend going there as well, it’s way much better than looking at the lake from the overcrowded place.

THE OLIVINE STONES

Around El Golfo you can find a green mineral called the olivine stone. We hoped that we will find one, but we thought that we won’t be lucky enough. We tried to look for that stone and Martin made it! Just after a while, it didn’t even take long. Great. We started looking for them a bit more and we noticed that they are almost everywhere and it’s not hard to find them at all.

A CACHE IN THE CAVE

After a while, we continued our way somewhere else. We wanted to enjoy the sea, so we drove to the beach Playa de Janubio. Not far from this beach, there was a cache (coordinates N 28° 57.671 W 013° 49.573), so we went to get it. It was hidden in like 60 ft long cave which was completely dark and we needed a torch to be able to see anything in there. I was a bit scared. The cave was in the middle of nowhere, we hadn’t met any other people nearby. I think going there was quite dangerous. Nonetheless, we managed to find the cache and we came back from the cave unhurt. It was a nice experience. On the map, it is marked as an inaccessible cave, so we didn’t expect anything interesting and in the end, we were really surprised.

BEACH PLAYA DE JANUBIO

When we arrived on the beach, we swam in the sea and lied to the ground. We were lying there, in the black lava sand, and we were collecting small pieces of the olivine stone. We spent the whole afternoon like this. Before it got dark, we moved elsewhere by the see, just to look at the beautiful sunset.

Day 6

Plan for this day: Tinajo (accommodation) → Papagayo beach → cliffs near Papagayo beach → town Playa Blanca

PAPAGAYO BEACH

The next morning, we went probably to the most visited beach in Lanzarote – Playa de Papagayo. The beach was said to be the best and the most awesome one. We wanted to see it as well. Before we get to the beach, we had to pay an entrance fee. There were actually more beaches than just this one and even some restaurants. The most famous Papagayo beach was pretty nice, but in fact, nothing very special. I prefer empty beaches with no people and in Lanzarote, there were plenty of them.

CLIFFS NEAR PAPAGAYO BEACH

About half an hour on foot from the beach, there were small cliffs. I liked them probably even better than the beaches as they looked beautiful.

TOWN PLAYA BLANCA

In the evening we were in a town called Playa Blanca. It was a tourist town. Unlike other towns in Lanzarote, this town was living at night and it was a nice walk there. After the sunset, there were a lot of cats and I like cats, so it was perfect.

Day 7

Plan for this day: lighthouse in Blaya Blanca → Pechiguera lighthouse → town Puerto del Carmen

LIGHTHOUSE IN PLAYA BLANCA

This day we started with a short walk to a lighthouse. The lighthouse was much smaller than I had expected but I liked it anyway.

PECHIGUERA LIGHTHOUSE

After that, we drove to another lighthouse. This one was much bigger and more importantly, it was situated in a beautiful place. The sea was full of huge waves and afar we could see the island of Fuerteventura.

TOWN PUERTO DEL CARMEN

We arrived to Puerto del Carmen. We were just exploring the town, walking on some beaches we wanted to see (Playa Chica in the picture). It was the last evening for us, so we wanted it to be nice. We went to a restaurant with a view to the sea and the sunset and we had some pizza. Later we ordered tapas because we wanted to taste at least something Spanish. And it was delicious.

The next day in the morning we just returned our car and we flew home.

Another good website with tips and information about Lanzarote is for instance HERE.

Video

Please, excuse the quality of the video, it is one of the first videos I’ve ever made. Moreover, it’s a lot shaky since I didn’t have any stabilizer for my camera when I was shooting it. I hope that it will be enough to serve its purpose and to introduce you this amazing island of Lanzarote.

Itinerary

In case you want to set off to the trip, we can send you our itinerary (.pdf document) for free to your email, so as you don’t have to waste your time with planning 😉

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