Lanzarote Vacation Recap

We're back!

We had a very relaxing trip to Lanzarote, one the Canary Islands off the west coast of north Africa. The internet stopped working about the fourth day so no blogging. We did lots of reading and sun worshipping.

Here was one of our favorite spots to have a drink and grab a meal.

Yep...right on the beach! Good food, great service and so cheap compared to Paris!

Here was our rental car...look at the surrounding countryside. It was very arid and reminded us of west Texas. It is a volcanic island with very little vegetation. Still lots of black lava rock all over. Our rental car was only $120 for nine days...cheap! And of course we only used about half a tank of gas. We thought it was very funny the car color was "lava blue." Very fitting for our location.

Here's my husband, Bryan, at my favorite restaurant on the island in the city of Teguise. I told Bryan with his new sunglasses he looks like Anthony Bourdain from the travel channel's, "No Reservations."

Here's what we had the first time we ate at La Cantina in Teguise.

Bryan had a pork burger which he said was excellent. The fries were yummy.

I had the most spectacular eggplant. Not a beautiful dish but so wonderful. I practically licked the bowl clean. The eggplant was lightly breaded and sautéed in a darkly rich tomato sauce. Just a sprinkle of cheese. So simple but perfectly done.

On Sunday there was an outdoor market at Teguise. I was surprised how big it was. This is a very small section of the market.

Mostly clothing and accessories. I bought a sundress made in India and I bought some lava rock and glass jewelry from this booth...

I love the "not made in China" sign.

This was our villa. We had our own patio for sunning. Low humidity with temps in the high 60's. When the sun was out it was nice and warm but when the clouds covered it up it got chilly since the wind seemed to always be blowing. We stayed in a beach community called Charco Palo, predominantly a German vacation spot but we met a few Brits and Norwegians also. Pretty sure they don't get many Americans here. But most people spoke great English wherever we went on the island.

I did finish three nutcracker cross stitch ornaments.

It was a wonderfully uneventful vacation until we landed at Orly airport in Paris. The taxi drivers were striking...again! And of course we didn't have the chauffeur service set up. A little too much excitement for 11 p.m. after a day of traveling. Oh...and Bryan bought a bottle of white and red wine from Lanzarote duty free which I put in our carryon bag with our three laptops. The bottle of white wine broke! Thank goodness two of the laptops had protective covers which soaked up the wine so all was well but that was not fun to discover when we were unloading from our flight.

We caught a bus from the airport to a large train station that is only a twenty minute walk from our apartment. The weather was cooperating and for most of the walk we had a view of the brightly lit Eiffel Tower so we had a nice walk home which helped us work off our frustrations. We managed to get to our apartment by midnight.