April 8, 2025

About 7 hours by ferry, or overnight for us lies the island of Lanzarote and its main city of Arrecife. We considered taking a tour, but admittedly we’ve been craving a little “alone time” and decided to wander around by ourselves. Another volcanic “sister” to Tenerife, we counted at least 30 volcanoes from our view on our balcony. There was nothing quite as dramatic in height as we’d seen yesterday. Lanzarote has had more “recent” eruptions from as late as back in the 1750’s. It was nice not have to rush off for a tour bus, so we had a leisurely breakfast and wandered off, again with crystal clear skies, to locate the shuttle bus to the main part of town. On our way we passed some excavations of something obviously historical, but we had no tour guide to describe what we were seeing. On Tenerife in the not-too-distant past they had uncovered some pyramids like the ones you see in Mexico and these diggings appeared to be unearthing something of that nature.

Arrecife was a charming little city with white brick houses and enchanting little streets. It was reminiscent of what you would find in mediterranean countries like Italy or Greece. The waterfront was lined with palm trees, seafood restaurants and cafes. There was another cruise ship in port, about twice the size of ours from the MSC line which Tod researched and found it originated in Brazil and was going to end up in Marseilles, France. I remember back in the ‘80s when you could easily tell Europeans or South Americans from the folks from the US particularly from what they wore, but not so these days. Everybody looks alike and we even had a couple of people ask us for directions in Spanish!

We set off with Google maps to find the island shopping mall because I was in desperate need of new socks and Tod was looking for a new shirt. We ended up taking the “scenic route” shall I say through the business district and finally came upon a gorgeous 3 story mall. We easily found what we were looking for and headed back to the tourist district to find someplace for lunch. I had a hankering for octopus and although I know it’s not politically correct these days, we found that most establishments were offering it. We found a very friendly café with a wonderful view of the inland harbor and had a relaxing meal watching the world go by.

After picking up a few souvenirs we couldn’t resist getting churros drizzled with Nutella for dessert from a street vendor. What treat! We really didn’t do much else but head back to the shuttle that would take us to the ship, but it was a wonderful, relaxing and memorable day. We did however walk about 4 ½ miles according to my watch so we didn’t feel too guilty about the churros.

As we sailed away, we could see massive Las Vegas sized resorts up the coast a bit and we were happy that we had missed them. Each had a teeny tiny beach which is apparently sand that they must haul over from the Western Sahara which is only about 150 miles away. Well, they certainly have plenty to spare!

Sea day tomorrow and loss of another hour as we head to Gibraltar.

Lanzarote, Canary Islands

Sea Day #10 Atlantic Ocean

Tenerife, Canary Islands