The Times travel writer and the island of Graciosa
Just when you thought a place could not look as volcanically-inspiring as Lanzarote, your eyes catch sight of La Graciosa, an island with not many more than 500 inhabitants, just 2 kilometres off the northern tip of Lanzarote.
One traveller who recently rested his weary feet after a day cycling, sunbathing and being generally mesmerised by the island, at Casa La Graciosa, was journalist and travel writer, Ian Belcher.
“La Graciosa lies before us: a giant fried egg with four volcanic yolks. It’s beautiful. Light, bright, speckled with cloud shadows. Why on earth isn’t it better known?”
Being made up entirely of volcanic rock and sands, La Graciosa extends Lanzarote’s notoriety of being an island blessed with stagnant volcanic beauty to new levels, although this said, it is La Graciosa’s lack of notoriety that principals its charm.
With just one school, one post office, one bank, one disco, a lyceum, a port, and a plaza where bicycles can be hired, life on La Graciosa is exceptionally laid back, even for the Spanish.
Asides from pedalling to each corner of the island, a distance of just 27sq km, activities on La Graciosa mainly involve lazing around on any of the island’s six headily spectacular beaches, gasping at the awe-inspiring views, or eating some seriously delicious seafood – the island’s main industry.
In a place this remote, accommodation is few and far between.
In the absence of hotels, apartment blocks or even a campsite, one could describe Vintage Travels’ Casa La Graciosa (pictured), as having the accommodation monopoly on the island. Doing the justice such a painstakingly pretty island deserves, this four bedroom villa in Graciosa provides many a traveller with refuge that could rival the most exquisite of accommodation.
Writing in The Times, Ian Belcher described his ‘testing’ experience on La Graciosa.
“The dusk ritual, sitting on Playa Francesca’s curl of blonde sand and staring across the Atlantic to the vast gallery of seismic sculptures – scenic drama to rival Russia’s Kamkatcha Peninsula – is the most mentally taxing activity of my week on La Graciosa in the Canary Islands,” wrote Ian Belcher.
La Graciosa is part of the Teguise municipality and the Archipielago Chinijo, the natural park covering the El Risco, de Famara and the islands of Monatana Clara, Los Roques del Este y del Oeste and Alegranza, and ‘natural’ is perhaps the best word to describe the island.
From its landscapes, fresh cuisine, and inhabitants unperturbed because there is no traffic here, no hectic commute to work, no noise, only life at its most natural.