Lanzarote

Lanzarote is an island in the Canary Islands (Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the province of Las Palmas. Its capital is Arrecife.

The name of the island comes from the Genoese sailor Lanceloto Malocello, who visited it in the fourteenth century. With 152,289 inhabitants (2019)1 Lanzarote is the third most populous island in the Canary Islands, behind Tenerife and Gran Canaria. With an area of 845.94 km2 it is the fourth largest island in the archipelago. In the center-southwest of the island is the Timanfaya National Park, which is one of the main tourist attractions of Lanzarote. The island has been a unesco Biosphere Reserve since 1993.

LANZAROTE cannot be understood without Cesar Manrique. In the mid-1960s he established his residence on the island and since then his whole life was Lanzarote and Art.

«My intention is to make my home island, Lanzarote, one of the most beautiful places on the planet». From that moment until his death in a car accident in 1992, he created a series of artistic interventions that forever transformed this island of the Canary archipelago. And, indeed, it made Lanzarote one of the most beautiful places you can enjoy.

César Manrique (1919-1992)

César Manrique (1919-1992) was born in Arrecife, Lanzarote, an island where his artistic career has left indelible traces.

After completing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid (where he lived between 1945 and 1964), he frequently exhibited his painting both inside and outside Spain. In the first half of the fifties, she delves into non-figurative art and researches the qualities of matter until making her the essential protagonist of her compositions, thus linking hem to the Spanish informalist movement of those years.

Formalized with a nuanced and abstract expression, the plastic imaginary of his pictorial production comes from the impressions of Lanzarote’s volcanic landscape, which the artist transmutes into a kind of unrealistic naturalism that is not born from the copy of the natural but from his emotional understanding: «I try to be the free hand that shapes geology,» he wrote.

In 1964, she moved to New York, where she exhibited individually three times at the Catherine Viviano Gallery. Direct knowledge of American abstract expressionism, pop art, new sculpture and kinetic art provided him with a visual culture fundamental to his later creative career.

In the mid-1960s, coinciding with his transfer of residence to Lanzarote, César Manrique promoted on the island a series of artistic projects of spatial and landscape character, novel for the time, where he embodied his plastic and ethical thinking. It is a set of actions and interventions aimed at valued the landscape and natural attractions of the island, which will shape its new face and its international projection, and that is part of the landscape transformation and adaptation of Lanzarote to the tourism economy.

Thus, he developed a new aesthetic idea, which he called art-nature/nature-art, in which he integrates different artistic manifestations, which he was able to realize in his landscape works, a unique example of public art in Spain: Jameos del Agua, Mirador del Río, Jardín de Cactus, Timanfaya, etc. They are mainly interventions linked to the tourism industry, to which Manrique prints an unpublished economic and social functionalism in Spanish artistic culture. Works of this character were also carried out by Manrique on other islands and outside the Canary archipelago, –lookouts, gardens, conditionings of degraded spaces, reforms of the coast…, in which it maintains its basic characteristic features: dialogue respectful with the natural environment and between the architectural values of the local tradition with modern conceptions.

César Manrique Foundation. Taro de Tahíche.

The César Manrique Foundation (FCM) was formed by César Manrique in 1983, and launched in 1992.It is based in the artist’s former home in Taro de Tahíche, Lanzarote. The FCM is a private, non-profit cultural institution that bases its activity through four complementary areas of work: César Manrique, the plastic arts, the environment and the territory, and cultural reflection.
The objectives of the ACTIVITY of the MCF, contained in its act of creation, are as follows: to preserve, study and disseminate the work and artistic legacy of César Manrique; promote exhibitions, studies and initiatives that address the relationships between art and nature; develop activities that promote both the conservation of the natural environment and its sustainable transformation and the management of the territory, in particular in Lanzarote and the Canary Islands; and promote intellectual, creative activity and critical thinking

César Manrique House-Museum. Would

The César Manrique House-Museum is located in the middle of an extraordinary palm grove in the picturesque village of Haría, north of Lanzarote, where the traditional way of life of the island is still preserved. In Haría, the artist found the tranquility and contact with nature he greatly appreciated.
In early 1986, Manrique began construction work on his new house by reusing and adapting a ruined farmland, located on an agricultural estate he had acquired in the 1970s. He addressed the language of traditional architecture reconsidered from a modern vision in which aesthetics and comfort prevail. Here he lived until 1992, the year of his death. In 2013 it was opened to the public as House-Museum. Its tour allows the visitor to contemplate the rooms of the residence and the workshop in which the painter worked and spent the final years of his life.

Timanfaya National Park

It was declared a National Park on August 9, 1974.4 so it is the third protected natural area of the Canary Islands to hold the designation of national park, as well as the first and only one in the entire province of Las Palmas.

It occupies an area of 51.07 km2 of the southwest of the island. It is a park of volcanic origin. The last eruptions occurred in 1824. It has more than 25 volcanoes, some being emblematic, such as the Mountains of Fire, Montaña Rajada or the Caldera del Corazoncillo. It still has volcanic activity, with heat points on the surface reaching 100-120 C and 600 C at 13 meters deep.

The Timanfaya eruption

«On September 1, 1730, between nine and ten at night, the earth opened in Timanfaya, two leagues from Yaiza. and a huge mountain rose from the bosom of the earth,»4 according to the testimony of the parish priest Lorenzo Curbelo. The island was completely transformed. Nine villages were buried and for six years the lava spread throughout the south covering a quarter of the island and filling the nearby vegas with volcanic ash. In 1824 again the eruptions began in Timanfaya, giving rise to the so-called Tinguatón Volcano, Tao and Fire. There were terrible famines and much of the population was forced to emigrate. Since then the landscape has been transformed thanks to the agricultural techniques of cultivation on volcanic lapillis that lanzarotens use to capture the humidity of the trades.

Currently, with 1,655,772 visitors annually (2020), Timanfaya is the second national park in number of visits to the Canary Islands, after the Teide National Park in Tenerife, as well as the fourth in Spain, after the Teide, the Sierra de Guadarrama and the Picos de Europa.5

Cueva de los Verdes

The tunnel formed by the Crown Volcano is one of the most extensive and interesting on the planet. Throughout his

there are at least sixteen Jameos. The more than six kilometers of gallery, extend from the crater of the

volcano, until it enters the sea on an underwater stretch of a mile, called the «Tunnel of the

Atlantis». Visiting the Cave of the Greens will allow you to go in and discover part of this amazing tunnel

Jameos del Agua

The Jameos del Agua, like the Cave of the Greens, are located inside a volcanic tunnel produced by the eruptions of the Corona Volcano. The Jameos are located in the section of the tunnel closest to the coast. They owe their name to the existence of an inland lake caused by marine leaks.

Jardín de Cactus

Lanzarote’s Cactus Garden is home to around 4,500 specimens of 450 different species grouped into 13 cactus families from five continents. It was one of cesar Manrique’s last architectural interventions on the island. It mixes art and nature.

Mirador del Rio

The Mirador del Río is located in the northern cape of the island, 479 meters above sea level and facing northwest, offers a privileged view of the area comprising the Chinijo archipelago (Islands of Graciosa, Clara Mountain, Alegranza, Roque del Este and Roque del Oeste).

The one responsible for the reconstruction of this ancient artillery position, «Batteries of the River», was the artist César Manrique, who had an excavation carried out on the mountain, building in the hollow a restaurant, and put two domes in that large space, on which the grass was then laid growing on them.

Casa Museo José Saramago

José de Sousa Saramago (November 16, 1922 – June 18, 2010). The novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991) catapulted him to fame because of unprecedented controversy in Portugal, which is considered a lay republic, when the government vetoed his presentation to that year’s European Literary Prize, claiming that he «offended Catholics».

As an act of protest, Saramago left Portugal and settled on the Canary Island of Lanzarote. In 1995 she published one of her best-known novels, Essay on Blindness, a novel that was brought to film in 2008 under the direction of Fernando Meirelles. In 1997 he published his novel All Names, which he also enjoyed with great recognition.

In 1998 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first writer – and so far the only one – of Portuguese language to win this prize. Since then, he shared his residence between Lisbon and the Canary Island, participating in the social and cultural life of both countries, whose close relations he justified in an interview to propose his utopian idea of creating a united Iberia.4

Both his house9 and the private library are open to the public all year round in the village of Tías. In the corridors it is easy to meet Pilar del Río, his wife, who still frequents the house and presides over the José Saramago Foundation. There, among other things, is the collection of watches that the Portuguese writer stopped at four o’clock, as a symbol of love for her, because they met at that time.

He died at the age of eighty-seven, on June 18, 2010, at his residence in the town of Tías (Lanzarote), due to chronic leukemia that led to a multiorgan failure. He had spoken to his wife and spent a quiet night. Saramago wrote until the end of her life, even said to have carried thirty pages of an upcoming novel.

Salinas de Janubio, Yaiza

Salinas de Janubio is one of the most impressive landscape prints in Lanzarote. Its incalculable natural and cultural value is magnified by its surroundings. Surrounded by the last volcanic ponytails of Timanfaya, an essential natural lagoon in the process of saltmaking and the mystical black sand beach of Janubio. Operational since 1895, in its goldenest stage 13 million kilos of salt a year came out. Today the salt flats are at 15% yield. About 2.5 million kilos of salt are extracted annually.

El Golfo, Yaiza.

The Gulf is an open amphitheatre to the ocean that formed as a result of the eruptions of 1730. The lagoon at the bottom of the semicircle arose due to the flooding of the crater. Its green color is due to the algae that inhabit its surface.

The volcano consists of porous tue, which, by the action of time, has created spectacular formations.

The sea passes through the crater forming a beautiful black beach that contrasts with the green of the Lake, communicating with it by means of an underground.

This lake has been declared a Nature Reserve, so bathing is prohibited.

It is located to the south of the island, in the municipality of Yaiza.

A few meters away is the village of El Golfo, where you can enjoy several restaurants facing the sea.

The most beautiful villages in Lanzarote.

Arrieta, Tinajo, San Bartolomé, Yaiza, Teguise, El Golfo, Femés, Haría, Aunts.

Playa del Papagayo

In the south of the island of Lanzarote, in an unspoilt environment of extreme beauty and protected under the protection of the Natural Park of the Ajaches, is the wild beach of Papagayo. Overlooking the neighboring island of Lobos and Fuerteventura, its fine golden sand and the quality of its waters stand out, so transparent that they sometimes acquire an intense emerald color.

La Geria.

La Geria is one of the most characteristic agricultural landscapes of the island of Lanzarote. Considered Protected Natural Area, it consists mainly of volcanic rock and its most characteristic use are the plantations of vineyards that take advantage for its development the possibilities of lapilli as a retainer of moisture.

El Vino en Lanzarote

The cultivation of the vine in Lanzarote is unique in the world, retains the primal characteristics of a procedure that allows, that from a weeded and calcined land, a generous and refined wine is born, son of lava, strong as the volcano, pampered under ashes responsible for treasure every drop of dew, so valuable in a land without springs.

In La Geria there are many historical wineries, such as El Grifo, Los Bermejos, La Geria, Vega de Yuco and others.

Bodega el Grifo is the oldest in the Canary Islands and is among the ten oldest in Spain. He has been making wines uninterrupted since 1775. Antonio de Torres y Ribera inherited some plots from El Grifo, which his parents owned prior to the eruptions of 1730, and completed the estate and planted it vineyards. He also built, in addition to the winery, the primitive winery (which is now Museum) and the house. Since then three families have been in charge of the continuity of the winery. Its primitive cellar of 1775 is exhibited today as a Museum.

The malvasia of Lanzarote one of the best wines in the world La Malvasía is one of the oldest known strains. It is native to Asia Minor and owes its name to the port of Monemvasia, located in the south of the Peloponnese, from where it was first marketed.

In the nineteenth century the phylloxera swept through much of the vineyards of southern Europe, France, Spain, Italy. In Lanzarote the plague of phylloxera did not arrive among other things by remoteness with the European continent and by insularity, which allowed free standing plants to be maintained, which brings a special characteristic to the broths produced on this island.

Gastronomía

Gofio has historically been the most important Canary food. Consumed throughout the Canary Islands since the Aboriginal era, it is part of the Canarian identity. Gofio is toasted cereal flour, which can be consumed in any meal and accompanied by milk, honey, sugar or wine, accompanying a fish broth… It has great nutritional value, so it has been fundamental in feeding infants or growing ages.

The starters Gueldes, jareas, lapas, tuna in marinade, cheese… are some examples of these dishes that we can still find in bars and restaurants. A typical dish is pejines, small sardines or anchoies that are left to dry in the sun and eaten as is. Wrinkled potatoes are perhaps one of the most popular dishes. Prepared with small or medium potatoes, water and abundant salt, they are an important part of several dishes and companions of others. A mojo is the perfect companion for wrinkled potatoes or a plate of the sea. Whether red or minced, made with canary-billed, or green, cilantro-based peppers, cover the fish or the potatoes get wet in it.

Roasted sardines combine well with wrinkled potatoes soaked in mojo. Prepared with abundant salt, they are part of the typical stamp of the lanzarote grill, in which wine is tasted and timple interprets the folklore of the island.

The dishes, with very important presence of the sea, such as fish broth, sancocho, fish encebollado… Sancocho is one of the most important dishes in the Canary Islands. It is made with cherne, potatoes, sweet potatoes…, and is usually accompanied by mojos and gofio. The old one, a fish with a parrot bill-shaped mouth, presenting very varied colors, predominating grey and red. It is very tasty stewed or on the back – open by the back and the iron. The jars, fish open by the back that are then salted; pejines, small, salty fish; and the towels, strips of shell or other squat, dry and hardened by the sun and air.

Livestock is also present, and the Canary ranch or goat meat or rabbits in sauce show the mastery that has been achieved in its preparation

Comer en Lanzarote

Lilium Restaurant, Arrecife.

Restaurant el Risco, Caleta Calero.

Restaurant El Amanecer, Arrieta.

Smoked Salmon of Uga ( (Yaiza). One of the best Smoked Salmon in Europe. (To buy and carry).