01
Vieja con papas
The catch of the day — local parrotfish — salt-baked and served with wrinkled potatoes and two mojos: green from coriander, red from paprika. The most honest Canarian recipe, and the hardest to get right off the island.
- Position
- 28°51′N 13°49′W
- Time zone
- Atlantic/Canary
- House
- Royal Mónica
- Airport, as the crow flies
- ACE · 23 km
— Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Lanzarote, where the lava met the sea
A lunar landscape with vineyards in craters, architecture born of the rock, black beaches too hot for bare feet and hidden coves of impossible water.
Year-roundthe island has no bad season
18 — 28 °Ctemperature through the year
2 h 30direct flight from Madrid
UNESCOthe whole island, a Biosphere Reserve
Where we are on the island
At Playa Blanca, on the island's southern tip, close to the coves of Papagayo. It is the end that faces Fuerteventura and the one that catches least of the northern wind.
- Visa
- EU · not required
- Currency
- Euro · EUR
- Language
- Spanish · Canarian
- Time zone
- UTC+0 · WET
- Airport
- ACE · Lanzarote
— The island
A habitable work of art
Lanzarote is like no other island. Not for the volcanic landscape, but for the way it was protected from itself.
César Manrique, the Canarian artist who convinced the whole island that growing too fast kills places, left behind a design manual that still holds half a century on: whitewashed architecture on black basalt, green windows, no building taller than the palm trees, no neon signs. The result is the only island in the Atlantic that looks designed by a single hand.
— La Geria
A vineyard that looks like a sculpture
The eruption of Timanfaya in 1730 buried a third of the island in lava. Two centuries later, the farmers discovered that the basalt held the night moisture and sheltered the vines from the wind.
So the vineyards of La Geria were born: semicircular pits dug into the lava, a single vine in each, hundreds of thousands of them. It looks nothing like an ordinary vineyard — it looks like a sculpture. From it comes a volcanic Malvasía that grows with no water but the night dew the basalt soaks up.
— The island at the table
Three flavours you remember
02
Volcanic Malvasía
A white grape that grows in lava craters. La Geria's volcanic Malvasía is one of Spain's great winemaking secrets — barely any of it leaves the island, so you try it here or not at all.
03
Gofio and majorero
Toasted-wheat gofio, kneaded with warm milk. Majorero cheese cured in paprika. A shepherd's snack — what the farmers carried up the mountain.
— MONEA hotels · on the island
One house, in Playa Blanca
MONEA's house in Lanzarote, on the island's southern tip: where it is, how you get there and what the weather does over a year.
-
Playa Blanca · Spain
MONEA Royal Mónica
A 215-room all-inclusive family resort in Playa Blanca, with the south coast, La Geria and Timanfaya close at hand: the base from which the island is explored.
- Position
- 28°51′N 13°49′W
- Airport
- ACE · 23 km as the crow flies
- The air, over a year
- 17–22 °C
- The sea, over a year
- 18–23 °C
Both temperatures are thirty-year normals (1991-2020): the range between the coldest and the warmest month, not a forecast. The distance to the airport is calculated from the house's coordinates. The full method, month by month, is in When to go
— Around
What lies beyond the hotel
The island in six stops. Manrique rules — to this day.
01
La Geria
Vineyards in volcanic craters and family wineries where you taste the dry Malvasía and the sweet one, with majorero cheese alongside.
02
Timanfaya
The National Park, and the routes through its lesser-known corners. A few metres below the surface the ground still burns: there they cook with the heat of the volcano.
03
Jameos del Agua
A Manrique masterpiece — an auditorium inside a volcanic cave. Next to it, the Cueva de los Verdes: the same lava tube, left untamed.
04
Papagayo
The turquoise coves of the south. Kayaking at dawn and snorkelling in underwater lava formations.
05
Teguise market
Sunday morning at the oldest market in the islands. Majorero cheeses, mojos, local crafts. Before eleven — after that the cruise crowds arrive.
06
Famara
Cliffs 600 metres above the Atlantic and a surfers' village with a lesson on the black-sand beach. A fish lunch in the cove.
— Playa Blanca, Lanzarote
Sleep on the southern tip, wake up in the lava
Sun all year round, and an island you can grasp in a day but never exhaust in a year.