But I faith, you have drunk too much canaries and that’s a marvelous searching wine -- Henry IV
Lanzarote. The Red Mountains. Materialized from the sea 15 million years ago in a fiery eruption just 100 km off the coast of Africa. Identified as perhaps the source of the mythical Garden of Hesperides, described by Plato and Plutarch nearly 2500 years ago. Birthplace of César Manrique; the first-settled of the Canary Islands; and most importantly, home to what some believe to be the most difficult Ironman race in the world, Ironman Lanzarote.
Aujourd'hui, cette île légendaire n'est qu'une destination touristique pour les classes moyennes de l'Allemagne, l'Espagne, et le Royaume Uni (et nous). La langue officielle -- de jure -- est bien sûr l'espagnole, mais de facto, c'est l'anglais et l'allemand. Cette belle île est recouverte de restaurants terribles et de plages bondées. Néanmoins, il fait du soleil 365 jours par an, il conserve un charme distinctif, les routes de vélo sont A+, et il est assez facile de sortir des villes pour trouver des vignobles extraordinaires (Shakespeare lui même a écrit des grands vins blancs de Lanzarote), des restaurants mémorables, et de merveilles de la nature comme le parc national de Timanfaya.
We arrived in Lanzarote with stars in our eyes (of the metaphorical variety) on a warm sunny Sunday afternoon in April (note that all days in Lanzarote are warm and sunny). We stayed in the tourist enclave of Puerto del Carmen. The beach in PdC is lovely and stretches several kilometres along the shore of the island offering soft red-brown sand and calm Atlantic waters. This beach is also where the Ironman swim takes place.
Because there is an Ironman race here, it goes without saying that the cycling is of very good quality. One day we rented road bikes from a friendly German chap who had recently made Lanzarote his new home. We pedalled along the shore, heading north on the island, until heading inland up a small climb (small by Grenoblian standards, anyways) that was high enough to provide some rather breathtaking views of the ocean below.
Autrement, on a aussi loué une voiture pour mieux explorer l'île. Nous avons visité le jardin de cactus César Manrique, le parc national de Timanfaya, et un vignoble où nous avons déjeuner dans le soleil sur des produits frais et locaux.
The Timanfaya National Park sits at the south-western tip of the island and is a vast "wasteland" of lava fields left over from the devastating eruptions of the early 1700's. The landscapes are insane and look exactly how you might imagine Mars to be (the 1980's TV miniseries "The Martian Chronicles" was shot here, for instance). The park also exists to protect the unique flora and fauna that lives in these fields. You can only go through the park on a tour-bus to avoid as much destruction as possible. Because there is no erosion through rain (remember it doesn't rain here) it takes the wind years to make a single footprint disappear from the lava fields.
Because there is essentially no rain, agriculture here is a little tricky. They've found a way, however, and some of it is quite good. Shakespeare wrote fondly of the wines from Lanzarote some 500 years ago and by all appearances (tastes, I suppose) they are as good today as then. One of the finest is a dry white called Malvasía, and after discovering this at the winery mid-week, it is mainly what we stuck to for the rest of the trip. The vines are grown in special rows and "rock containers" (if you will) and are also somehow manually covered in volcanic ash which retains humidity. The volcanic-rock-based soil gives the grapes -- and therefore wine -- a unique taste that Shakespeare referenced in thirty (30!) of his works (Malvasía was often called "Malmsey" or "Sack" then).
Lanzarote winery lunch:
Lanzarote is not where you go for a gourmet food vacation. In fact, near the beginning we were plotting schemes to build a home-made BBQ and cook our own fish on the beach and doing the calculations of how many calories we could get out of Tropical-brand beer and Pringles. Like any tourist town, the main strip is full of bad restaurants with high prices, dirty tables, and pushy employees trying to drag you into their establishment. However, about half-way through the week we found the secret back alleys of the old town and were able to start enjoying our meals and therefore (of course) photographing them for our blog-reading audience.
Humorously, (or fittingly as a very large percentage of Lanzarote's tourists are Brits) the top-rated restaurant from Tripadvisor is a place that is advertised as "British Food". Yikes! However, this restaurant was a breath of fresh air after the disaster of the beach. We later found other nice places including a French place called the Moulin Rouge for our last dinner on Saturday night. Something really funny happened with the restaurants though. Tripadvisor lists more than 300 restaurants in the town of Puerto del Carmen and not all restaurants are listed. The strip along the beach is stacked end-to-end with places to eat and is about 3km long, and the back alleys of the old town contain dozens of restaurants. On Thursday night, we ate at "Oriental World" for some strange reason and seated beside us was a Spanish family with two kids: a boy and a girl of maybe between 14 and 17 years old. They were somewhat memorable because at the end of the meal they give you a tray with what look to be mints on it but then the waiter pours hot water from a kettle on to them and they magically grow into warm moist towels for your hands. The memorable part happened when the girl either of her own accord, or in fact I believe the waiter encouraged her a little, popped one of these "mints" into her mouth. She didn't seem to like the taste of it so she spit it out and only then did he perform the magic that turned it into a towelette. Everyone, including us, got a good laugh and there was a moment shared between us and them. And then they were off, never to be seen again.
Or were they? The very next night, at the British Food place (described above), there they were again -- and again we were sat right beside them! Strange coincidence. We might have thrown a smile over at them but it wasn't that crazy to see them in the same restaurant, especially because though there are hundreds in the town, both are rated highly on Tripadvisor so we must have just been using the same source to find our places to eat. As I said previously, the British Food place was rated #1 of 300, and somehow (unfortunately it was pretty terrible) Oriental World was about #5. So, if we'd stopped there, and we ignore the fact that we were sat by the waiters right beside each other, and we ignore that there are many different times to eat dinner (though both times we ate rather late), and let's be super conservative and say that we were both choosing from only the top 10 places on Tripadvisor, then the chances of us choosing the same place on the same night are (1/10)*(1/10) = 1/100. Ok those odds aren't that crazy. But nothing could prepare us for what happened next.
Saturday, our last full day on the island, was a standard beautiful day for weather in Lanzarote. 25 degrees, sunny, a light wind coming off the ocean. After going for a jog along the beach, having coffee, and writing some postcards, we decided to go for a late lunch in the old town. We did not consult Tripadvisor, we just went for it. And it was not lunch time. We left our hotel around 3pm. We walked along one of the many random streets behind the old harbour, and eventually found a place that looked not bad. We were about to walk in but then decided that it looked a little dark, and there was a place next door that looked similar but had more light. We looked at the menu, it looked fine, and we walked in. Table for two, we said. The man led us past not a small number of late-lunching families, until we were about to be sat down. Just then, a woman that looked surprisingly familiar to me was saying hello and waving. It all happened so quickly that all I could do was wave back and only as I began to sit down did it hit me: it was the same family again! What are the odds? Well, I would say astronomical, but they're definitely in the 1 in the high thousands being as conservative as possible. No one likes the Conservatives though, so let's go with one in a bazillion. We drank a lovely bottle of Malvasía with a perfectly fine lunch, and as our favourite Spanish family left the restaurant, we all said our joking goodbyes: "see you tonight!"; "where are we eating tonight?"; "see you later"; etc. We made a connection over those three days. Perhaps we will see them again, but that night at the Moulin Rouge, as we enjoyed our last Lanzarotian meal, they were nowhere to be found.
Despite our sadness at not finding the family, our final meal was one for the ages. We began with French escargots (seen above) and a French red (seen below). The food was fine and though we spoke French with the waiters, I don't believe they understood a word (they were Spanish).
Dessert was as if we were back in Lyon as I enjoyed a moelleux au chocolat and Sandi completed her meal with a tray of cheeses, some from the Island itself.
Back in Munich, the temperatures are a little colder but it is still Spring-time nonetheless. Our German is improving too: I would guess that "Gut, Besser, Paulaner" probably means "Good, Better, Best". Now I finally know what "Paulaner" means.
