Winter sunshine - February 2007
Playa Blanca, Lanzarote, Canary Islands

The sea front at Playa Blanca, taken from the harbour sea wall.

  Having spent Christmas in the rain of the Scottish Highlands, we headed for warmer climes in February. We left Leeds/Bradford airport to it's cool, damp and slightly misty weather and landed at Arreciefe airport to a warm breeze, clear sunny skies and 20°C. The coach was waiting and we were off to the Sun Royal Apartments in Playa Blanca. Two Pools, shop, bar, restuarant, cafe, internet room and friendly and helpful staff, they all help to make the Sun Royal a pretty good place to stay, it's the second year we've been here. By day, the pool was popular but not too noisy, overnight it was peaceful and scenic. The view from the front of the hotel is a barren one, looking across to the hills. Make the most of it though, the roads and street lights are in place and building is underway, it can't stay empty for much longer even with the Lanzarote building restrictions.

  We got up on our first morning to grey skies and a cool breeze, the worst weather we had all week. We didn't put sun cream on and nearly got burnt when the sun came out whilst we were walking around the harbour. We were able to shelter in a bar though, so it all turned out OK in the end. The sea front was quite quiet for the first few days, it's a nice long walk full of bars, restaurants and shops, with more shops in the town centre just behind the sea front.

  The harbour and marina were always a popular walk with us and everybody else, plenty of boats to look at, trips on glass bottomed boats and a yellow submarine, and constant ferry traffic across to Fuertaventura. There's also a bar and one of the few public toilets anywhere in the area...

  The fish in the harbour attracted the tourists, although the local fishermen took their boats a bit further out to sea to chase their catch. A lot of the local catches end up in the reataurants in the town. You can certainly see the fish is pretty fresh around here, we saw these guys from one of the restaurants cleaning fish on the rocks, that night I think we were eating those same fish.

  The Kings Head is a great place to spend an evening, we spent most of ours in there. In spite of the name, it's a typical Canarian tourist bar with waitress service. A great place to watch people go by whilst sipping a relaxing beer or three, and they have live music virtually every night. At the other end of the prom is Jumbos Chinese restaurant, our favourite of the many Chinese places in Playa Blanca.

  The promenade extends way past the harbour and beaches, in both directions. Playa Dorada, translated as 'The Golden Beach' is the most famous and most popular. The bushes along the prom add some beautiful colour, although it's not all as well kept as this section.

  Beyond Playa Dorada, the prom entends to the Rubicon Marina. Here, the restaurants and shops are more up market, which translates as more expensive. There's also another public loo, one which always seemed to have a que of people wanting to use it for some reason. The marina and surrounding buildings are really pretty, although some of the woodwork is already taking a battering from the constant sunshine.

  The yatchs in the marina are large or expensive, or both. No space for cheap stuff here, it does make for an attractive stroll to see how the other half live.

  Karen relaxing whilst Dave goes off to take pictures of yatchs. Dave relaxing at Lanis, the largest restaurant and in a beautiful location on the edge of the marina. It's in several sections, with the smarter restaurant at one end and the snack bar area at the other. We stopped here for drinks, snaks and meals several times and always had decent food and reasonable service.

  The prom goes on for another couple of miles beyond the marina, ending in a large development of expensive hotels and new building work. In the middle of it all, right on the edge of the beach, is a fisherman's house, still lived in and dwarfed by the surrounding tourist industry. Beyond here, it's up on to the headland and footpaths across the cliff tops to the more remote Papagayo beaches, also reachable by road or by taxi boat from Playa Blanca or the marina.

  Beyond the harbour, the prom goes almost to the lighthouse, Faro de Pechiguera. On the day we walked out that way, the wind was blowing in from the sea and piling the waves up on the rocks. It was spectacular to look at but didn't disturb the bathers on Playa Flamingo, sheltered by rocks and breakwaters.

  To finish off, Dave relaxing in typical holiday style. Lunch in the Natura Beach restaurant bar was a disturbing affair because the portions were huge, we would have needed a very long walk to exercise all of those calories off, so we didn't bother trying. We'd intended to go to El Argentino which is just behind the Natura Beach because we'd been there previously, but it wasn't open until later in the day.

  Our recommended places to eat and drink from this years holiday, they're on the main sea front prom in Playa Blanca apart from Lanis and Natura beach. The service can be slow sometimes, especially if restaurant is full but it's always friendly and the food was good. Dave found the local seafood especially enjoyable, Karen is more of a steak person. There's loads more restaurants both along the sea front and further back in the town, there's just not enough time to try them all. We like to be beside the sea for meals as it's something we don't get to do much at home

• Brizza Marine Terraza Restaurant - good steaks and kebabs
• La Vaca Tijuana, also known as The Stone Grill - Very good everything and very popular
• Jumbo's Chinese Restaurant - our favourite of many Chinese Restaurants
  
• Lani's Restaurant, Rubicon Marina - good range of eating and drinking
  
• El Argentino, a mile or so out towards the lighthouse - good pizza
• Brisa Del Mar - Good fish
• Don Camillo - good snacks at lunch time
  
• El Varadero - very good fish and steaks
  
• Rincon Playa II - good for lunch snacks
  
• Natura Beach, past Playa Flamingo beach - very good pizzas
  

• Kings Head, live music and friendly service, on the sea front

And several great ice cream stalls along the sea front, very enjoyable on a hot day.

Useful links to places we used:

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Playa Blanca 2005

Pictures and text are copyright © Dave & Karen Petty- All Rights Reserved, please don't copy anything without our permission. Thanks, D & K.