Holiday, what a wonderful thing. Especially when spent somewhere warm and sunny and far away from cold, snow and rain. Like Canary Islands. Of course there are a lot beaches with both white and black sand in Canary Islands to lay down and catch a sun tan. But that is not the kind of a holiday, I want to have. I like to travel across the place, see the nature, experience the culture and learn how people live there. And of course, take as much pictures as I can. And more.

So here is little photo tour on my holiday in Lanzarote, which is the most eastern island of the Canary Islands. Perhaps a few words on the island itself first. Lanzarote is quite small island, about 60 km long and 20 km wide and surrounded by Atlantic ocean. There are 100 000 inhabitant and the capital is called Arrecife. Lanzarote was the first of the Canary Islands to fall down under the power of European conquerors. The island was devastetad by series of volcanic eruptions between 1730 and 1736. These eruptions changed the island's nature and people's lives permanently. The island wasn't same anymore, it became the Lanzarote we know today.

The most interesting places I visited on the Island were two cave complexes Jameos del Aqua and Cueva de los Verdes. They are located in the Northen part of the island, not more than a couple kilometers apart from each other. Both belong to the same volcanic tube, which formed in the great eruptions. Jameos del Aqua is famous of it's magical blue waters and a little endemic (native) glowy crab that lives there. It is not actually a natural cave anymore. Instead it is very harmonic and well designed tourist attraction. Cueva de los Verdes is more in it's natural state and has about 2 km long path open for tourists. This is a proper Cave with superb atmosphere and very unique suprise. Trust me, you want to see it. If you know what "suprise" I'm refering to, please don't spoil it here.





There are of course much to see on the ground too, not only under it. Nature is very special with tons of endemic species, like it is in all Canary Islands. What makes Lanzarote special is the architecture. Thanks to the great artist and architect name César Manrique the buildings still present the original Canarian architectual elements and are not totally spoiled by the tourism. He had idea that all the buildings in the island cannot be higher than 2-3 floors from the ground, they should be painted in white and wooden details should be either green, blue or brown. César Manrique died in the car accident in 1992. Locals still follow this idea and almost every building, including hotels and shopping centers, represents this style.






One of my hobbies is digital plant collecting and I couldn't keep my nose out of the bushes. Sadly I didn't have time to get on a proper hiking tour in the wilds, so most of my flowers are planted. Another problem is that Canary Islands have so many endemic species, the identifying the samples is almost impossible with the literature available outside of the Islands. So these beauties don't have names and they may not belong to the canarian nature, but they are all astonishing.






Amazing place isn't it. If this stirred up your appetite, here are links to my picture galleries (in dA) on Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Both beautiful islands, but not as unique as Lanzarote. Which completely stole my heart.