Canary Islands: Lanzarote

Top things to not miss in Lanzarote

1. Mirador del Rio

2. Jameos del Agua

3. Cueva de los Verdes

4. Charco de los Clicos (Charco Verde)

5. Vineyards (Bodega Stratvs)

Checkout also details about accommodation and travel itineraries below.

Mirador del Rio

This is in one of the most northern parts of the island, and has an amazing view from the top of the hill over the ocean, at around 500m above ocean level, and also over La Graciosa island. The view is simply breath taking.

Entry fee: 5eur.

Time to spend: 10-15min, as much as you want to admire the view.

Jameos del Agua

One of the top destinations to see in Lanzarote, the location is quite small, but still worthy of the visit. Its main attraction is a lagoon inside a volcano tunnel, which was formed after the eruption of La Corona volcano. The lake is inhabited by many white crabs, which can be easily seen; and also has a small hole in the ceiling, which if lucky enough, you can catch the sun rays falling over the lake forming a beautiful color as seen in above photo.

Entry fee: 10eur

Time to spend: around 20min: to climb down the stairs to the lake, go pass it and enjoy the view and the climb back up at the end of it; then pass by a photogenic pool, see the auditorium and optional: to visit a small museum about volcanic rocks and earthquakes.

Cueva de los Verdes

Cueva de los Verdes are caves through volcanic tunnels formed by lava from volcanic eruptions. There is a visit with a guide where you go through the tunnels and the guide explains more about how they were formed.

Entry fee: 10 euro, but if you are interested in visiting all 3 items described so far, you can buy a combo ticket and spend 23.5 instead of 25eur. Also, to note that price ticket is the same there as if you would buy it online. 

Time to spend: 1h

Charco de los Clicos (Charco Verde)

I have quite enjoyed the view you have after doing just a short hike (like 5min) to see the green lagoon separated by a black sand beach from the ocean, and I found the view quite photogenic.

Entry: free

Time to spend: 20-30min

Vineyards

To see the vineyards: although the tours visit La Geria, if you rent a car, I recommend to stop at Bodega Stratvs, where you have a better view, you can easily walk through the grapevines, and also the place where they are planted have a more deep shape. 

Entry: free and you can also visit the wine cellar, if you want to.

Time to spend: 10-30min, depending how long you want to walk through the grapevine and take photos.

Accommodation

We have chosen to stay in Puerto del Carmen, which we highly recommend, as it's quite a lively destination, where you can find a lot of places to eat, several places where to do shopping, and a nice beach, although the water can be quite cold (at least in July when we visited). To note that the hosts/waiters will try to approach you to make you come to their restaurants, and most places seem to be targeted at english/irish people as you will see in a lot of places the english/irish breakfast options. So if you like more quite places, this might not be the best place for you. For us, although we are not party people, we enjoyed the commodity of having several options to go to eat food or desert, especially ice cream. And also the place is sort of in the middle of all the different things there are to visit around the island, so it's perfect place to start your road trip.

We stayed at Apartamos Playamar, which is for mid-range budget. We had an apartament on ground floor, with view to the pool, including a bedroom and a living room with a kitchen area and also a terrace, so the stay was quite comfortable and we could cook our own breakfast. Also, you could see the ocean from the bedroom over a few rooftops and also you had stair to get rights at the beach front, where you had access to all the restaurants and shops, so a perfect location for us.

Itinerary recommendation (rent a car option)

Although there are several tours that offer options to see above, we chose to rent a car, so below you can find our recommended itinerary. To note though we didn't squeeze too many things to visit, and we had quite a leisure trip.

The car rented was a Citroen C3 from AVIS, from the airport, and both pick-up and drop-off were extremely easy and we had it rented only for 2 days, as the rest of the time we enjoyed it just spending it in Puerto del Carmen.

Day 1: go north

We started with visiting first Jamoes del Agua, and then Cueva de los Verdes, which are near each other. 

Then, we went to Mirador del Rio, and on the way we stopped to eat at a steak house at Grill - Asador Volcan de La Corona, which is very near the mirador. And actually, when we first stopped there, they didn't have any tables available so we made a reservation to come back in 40minutes, so we had time to go and visit the mirador and come back to eat.

We didn't end up doing it, but if you have time, I would recommend to leave the car at the restaurant, or people recommend also leaving it at the church in Ye village, and then take the path to vulcano La corona which seemed like an easy short hike and the volcano offered quite a nice view.

Google maps itinerary can be found here or seen below.

Time needed: 1h 40min to drive + 20min at Jamoes del Agua + 1h at Cueva de los Verdes + 20min at Mirador del Rio + 1h-lunch break + 1.5h for the hike ~ 6 hours

If you want to add more, you can make a stop at Piscina Natural Coloseo or at Stratified city

Day 2: center 

Salinas de Janubio

I recommend starting with the road through the grapevines, and there are quite a few, so you will be able to enjoy the view. We were aiming to go to La Geria, which was included in all the tours, but we ended up stopping first at Bodega Stratvs and we liked this stop more, as the holes for the grapewines were bigger and deeper, and also it seemed more enjoyable to walk through them. To note that at La Geria there are also some tours of the grapevines/winery, but we didn't end up doing them, as you needed to book those quite in advance, especially if you wanted the tour in english.

Afterwards, we went to Charco de los Clicos, the green lagoon which is right near a black sand beach, near the ocean, and then we stopped also at Los Hervideros, since we had time, where you can view some caves formed near cliffs. We also stopped at Salinas de Janubio, where we enjoyed the view from a mirador nearby, in the south of them, and we did a small hike and saw that actually there the salinas are in a lagoon, not the ocean. To note that the road between the last 2 viewpoints near the coast line is closed; either way, google maps will give you the right directions.

Also, if possible I would include in this day a hike in Parque Nacional de Timanfaya, with a few options available, but we haven't done any of them:

• Caldera Blanca, which takes around 4hours

• Caldera de Los Cuervos ~ easy hike of around 1h, free

• Montana Quemada ~ takes around 2h, and it's free, but can only be done with a guide, and you need to make booking in advance 

Time needed, including google maps itineraries:

• google maps itinerary

• without hikes: 1h 15min - drive + 20min - grapevine + 30min - Charco de los Clicos + 30min - Los Hervideros + 20min - Mirador Salinas de Janubio ~ 3

• 1.5h-4.5h for hikes, depending on the options chosen

Day 3 - south

We didn't manage to do this in the end, but I would recommend a day for spending at the Playa de Papagayo, which was one of the top ones from the island, and at least in the photos had quite a nice colour and also to go to the Museo Atlántico Lanzarote, which again, we didn't end up visiting it, but looked quite interesting.

Hope you enjoy our recommendations and do let us know what we've missed, as we only had 2 full days for exploring the island.