Lanzarote... that was long thinking pause. What to write about it? Which emotions do I have? Did I like my holiday? I suppose - when those questions already arise, then there are some doubts.
First, the weather. Before starting our journey, I read, that in Lanzarote rains only like 1 day in a year. Well, kind of nice, when you come from a country that rains approx 350 days in a year :) But hey, when we reached to Lanza, the weather had turned to cold and rainy. And the rain did continued on and off throughout our vacation. It has been weird weather all over Europe this year and locas said, that this kind of weather was really uncommon in Lanzarote.
We took Airbnb for first 5 nights. The house located in the middle of isand, small village called Tiagua. With nice weather this place would have been absolute heaven! We had private pool, two bedrooms and full kicthen. And the price was rediculously good. But as weather was not so good, we woke up in the mornings in a damp room, where air temeprature was approx same as in outside, 10 degreed celcius. Plus as usual Spanish houses - there was tiled floors, which were soooo cold. But still it was nice and with this cold room, there was amaizing sleep under 3 blanckets. This is exactly opposite, what we experiences during our last 2 nights in hotel called Diamar in Arrecife. Prrr, it was bad. The hotel too had tiled floor all over - so whenever anybody slammed the door shut close at the 6th floor - we heard it loud and clear on the first floor. Or when somebody decided to move furniture on the middle of the night - we knew it. Oh my, I´m not too sensible about the noise, but this was bad. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone :(
The island itself is very small and laidback. There are many longterm holidaymakers from Scottland, England and Germany, manely older generation. Its funny, how all Canary Islands are almost the same, but still so different. I didn´t get this "I want to retire in this island one day" vibe in this current island, which did in Tenerife and Gran Canaria. It was almost too sleepy and boring, but I admit, that maybe I have this feeling because of the crappy weather we got.
Food - we tried many times, but then gave up. All they seems to serve at the restaurants/cafés are sandwiches, pizza and fries with different variety - they do like deep-fried food. Pizza average price is about 8€, main courses start from 10€, sandwiches are about 5€. Wine and beer is cheap :)
The island is known for the long walking/running/cycling strips along the beach. We also enjoyed them a lot. Our favourite walking path was from Arrecife to Playa Honda and forward. Its windy and I had great trouble to get my hair combed later, but it´s worth it! Plus - you get a full airplane show along the way - airport is just in between Playa Honda and Los Pocillos. You literally can feel the turbulence when planes take off from the runway... The strip in total is 20 km long, so go nuts!
All the small resorts near the sea were nice places, but I suppose Playa Blanca and Puerto del Carmen were my favourite. They were the most crowded ones as well, but as January seems to be quiet month, this didn´t bother me much. Seaviews were great!
We also wanted to take a hike to Timanfaya park, but it was either too windy or rainy when we tried to that :( The road passing through the park was so idyllic and so characteristic to this volcano island.
Another great viewpoint was Mirador del Rio, Cesar Manrique´s one of creations. The entrance fee was about 7€/pp, but it was well worth to go to this place. I had a nice peaceful cup of coffee there and my mind went wondering while looking this small Graciosa island. It looked something like I would imagine a moon would look like. No nature, just rocky/vulcanic ground with some mountains.
On the way back we mad a stop at the Cueva de los Verde caves (entrence fee 9€/pp). I have never bothered to visit caves before, but I was mesmerized by the beauty of stone. I wish they had a concert there during our holiday - I would have like to visit that. I didn't manage to take as colourful photos as I saw online, but even the greyish photos still impress me.
And then finally - beautiful surfars paradise near Famara village. My god, there was windy. But if surfing were my passion, then I could easily imagine myself living in this small commune.
As conclusion - it was nice get away and I´m glad that we went there for this short vacation, but this 7 days were more than enough.
Our costs were as follows:
Tickets from Riga airport to Lanzarote airport with Ryanair - 140€/pp
Car rental in Lanzarote for 7 days by Goldcar (with full insurance) - 190€
Airbnb accomodation in Tiagua - 175€/total (I had -50€ discount from Airbnb)
Hotels.com accomodation in Arrecife - 37,31€/total (2 fee nights to use from hotels.com is deducted)
Other expanditures (food, restaurant, petrol, ect) - 542€
TOTAL 1255€, so that makse 255€ more than we budgeted :(
Comments
Post a Comment