Lanzarote’s history is as turbulent as the sweep of volcanoes that forged it and today still spectacularly dominate one of Macaronesia’s most dramatic islands, whose entirety is a Unesco Biosphere Reserve. Legends swirl around of daring adventurers and scheming pirates, through to marauding Berbers and conquering Spaniards. Since the 1960s affordable jet travel has brought a wave of new arrivals to the beach resorts of Puerto del Carmen, Costa Teguise and Playa Blanca.
Largely thanks to visionary local artist César Manrique development has been kept both pleasantly low-key and low-rise. Manrique also helped create and curate many of the island’s most impressive cultural attractions, forge viewpoints and create outdoor sculpture. His legacy is an island where style and design very much accompany substance, whether you are reclining in one of the bountiful vineyards with a glass of superb Malvasia, enjoying boat fresh seafood in an oceanfront restaurant or just lazing on one of Lanzarote’s shimmering necklace of sandy beaches.
For more Lanzarote, see our guides to the best restaurants, bars and nightlife, things to do and beaches.