Telegraph: Lanzarote Has Shed It's Down Market Image

Lanzarote: A land of sun, sea - and soup
Lanzarote has shed its down-market image and is now the pick of the Canaries, says Max Davidson.

By Max Davidson
Published: 12:18PM GMT 08 Mar 2010

Returning to places with golden memories is a risky business. As we sit down for lunch at Casa Emiliano, a family-run restaurant in a hillside village in Lanzarote, I am apprehensive. Can that never-to-be-forgotten garlic soup possibly be as good second time around?

For two years, I have been boring all and sundry with tales of The Best Soup on the Planet, which I stumbled across by chance in 2008. The sopa de ajos at Casa Emiliano cost just €4 (£3.60) but its flavours erupted in the mouth. Garlic, onions, chilli peppers, lardons, fresh tomatoes, a perfectly poached egg.

I needn't have worried. My memory has not been playing tricks. The 2010 sopa de ajos is, if anything, even more sumptuous than the 2008 version. Nothing has changed. The same friendly Canarian family, four generations of them, bustle to and fro. The same two cats slink through the rose garden. And there is the same magnificent view, with the far-off sea dancing in the sunlight and the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura peeping through the haze.

Lanzarote used to be nicknamed Lanza-grotty, a package-holiday island scarred by development. But that would be unfair to modern Lanzarote, the pick of the Canary Islands. Whether your taste is for winter sun or a family holiday in high season, it is a charming and idiosyncratic destination, where the scourge of mass tourism has been largely confined to a few east-coast enclaves such as Puerto del Carmen. Once you know which bits to avoid, there is nothing to fear and much to savour.

From the Timanfaya Palace, our stylish four-star hotel in the low-key resort of Playa Blanca, we are able to explore high and low by hire car, enjoying a near-perfect blend of food, scenery and culture under a kindly sun.

The cuisine alone would justify a visit to Lanzarote. If the sopa de ajos is the highlight of our foodie pilgrimage, there are wonderful fish restaurants dotted right around the island. One fishing village, El Golfo, is so well-endowed with restaurants that the restaurants are the village. The sun beats down, the waves crash against the rocks and, hey presto, a smiling waiter is at your shoulder, bearing a perfectly grilled sole or red mullet, caught that morning. Bliss.

Scenically, it must be said, the island is more dramatic than picturesque. Mother Nature has not been kind to Lanzarote. The island was devastated by volcanic eruptions in the 1730s and whole areas still lie submerged under lava, making for a bleak, almost treeless landscape. But the islanders have shown a touching resourcefulness in adversity, notably when it comes to making wine.

In the wine-growing region of La Geria, raked by stiff crosswinds, individual vines have been planted in dug-out hollows in the volcanic desert – their only realistic chance of prospering. It is a labour-intensive operation, but there is nothing wrong with the end product, thrillingly crisp on the palate.

La Geria borders the Timanfaya National Park, which is not to be missed. Here are the fabled "fire mountains" of Lanzarote folklore: the volcanoes whose violent eruptions gave the island its character. They look tame, but appearances can deceive. The subterranean heat is still so fierce that, at the mountaintop restaurant, they grill whole chickens above the shaft that funnels into the volcano.

A bus tour of the park gives you a ringside view of the volcanic mountains dotted with rugged craters. It is a landscape of lunar severity, but eerily beautiful, particularly in the early evening, when the parched brown hills turn every shade of pink and purple. So little of Lanzarote is cultivated that, where there are little flecks of colour – a rosemary bush, a flowering cactus, a splash of bougainvillea – you appreciate it all the more.

One of the prettiest villages on the island is Haría, tucked away in the northern hills. It could be an oasis, with its plump palm trees, cascading window boxes and its air of unhurried calm. The tat of the resort towns seems a world away.

Teguise, the old capital, is another gem: sun-bleached colonial buildings slumbering in the haze. The hordes descend on the town on Sunday, which is market day, so visit during the week, when peace has been restored and you can explore the warren of cafés and stylish craft shops.

Drive to the north of the island and you are rewarded by the most spectacular view yet: the Mirador del Rio, a mountain eyrie which looks across a narrow strait to the tiny Isla Graciosa. The Mirador, like so much that is best in Lanzarote, was created by César Manrique, the artist who did more than anyone to raise the profile of the island in the late 20th century.

His genius is most evident in his old home, now a museum, the Fundación César Manrique. Cunningly planted trees lead the eye upwards, towards the brilliant blue of the sky. Water features dance in the sunlight. It is a fantasy home, like something in a fairy tale, but there is not a stone out of place.

One of Manrique's guiding principles was that architecture should chime with the landscape, not compete. Whether in his circular Cactus Garden, mimicking a volcanic crater, or his dainty Jameos del Agua, a subterranean water garden fashioned from a collapsed lava tunnel, he strove to reflect the geological history of Lanzarote.

He certainly did that, contributing grace note after grace note to an island that is not short of charm anyway. As a refuge from the British winter, just a four-hour flight away, it is hard to better. And that is before you have tasted the sopa de ajos.