Spain’s strangest island is Lanzarote

When Australian travellers imagine sun-kissed Spanish islands, Ibiza and Mallorca would be the obvious ones. These Balearic beauties have been hedonistic getaways for eons and both star on Mediterranean cruise itineraries.

But the most surreal and mind-boggling of all Spanish islands is actually in the Atlantic Ocean, closer to Marrakesh than Madrid.

Lanzarote is one of the Canary Islands, which pull in cruise vessels year-round, along with millions of sun-seekers flying in from cities around Europe. With daytime temperatures rarely dipping below 20C, even when snow is falling in Paris and London — four hours away by plane — the Canaries have earned the moniker, “the islands of eternal spring”.

Many tourists are content to sip beers by the pool or mooch along the promenades of coastal resorts, but there’s so much adventure and culture to soak up. And with its spectacular collision of art and nature, Lanzarote is arguably the most mesmerising.

Slightly larger than Singapore (but with just a fraction of its population: 150,000 v 5 million), the whole island is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

And it captivates from the moment your plane touches down on the Atlantic-fringed runway or when your ship docks at the port of Arrecife, Lanzarote’s compact, walkable capital.

Outside the city, you’ll soon feel like you’re on the moon, Mars or another faraway planet as you scan the eye-popping landscapes of an island that’s been sporadically shaken by volcanic activity since sprouting from the ocean about 15 million years ago.

Smooth roads snake by crinkly lava fields festooned with conical peaks and other offbeat geological formations cultivated by the elements.

Episodes of Black Mirror and Doctor Who have been shot on Lanzarote’s malpais (badlands), as have swords-and-sandals flicks like Clash Of The Titans, starring Sam Worthington, and One Million Years BC with Raquel Welch. Film crews and astronauts on training missions have paced through the ochre, crater-etched scenery of Timanfaya National Park, which dominates the island’s south-west.

Camel rides are offered in this eerie park, but I’d recommend the organised circular coach tour with intriguing commentary about the peculiar landscapes that’ll have your eyes glued to the windows.

For lunch, you might be tempted by the park’s El Diablo restaurant, which serves chorizo, chicken and vegetables and the like barbecued over a volcano-powered geothermal pit. As with so many things on this island, the restaurant, resembling a flying saucer, was designed by Cesar Manrique, an Arrecife-born artist nicknamed “the Gaudi of Lanzarote”.

Inspired by his otherworldly surroundings, Manrique furnished the island with dreamlike artworks and collaborated with the Lanzarote authorities to promote sustainable tourism long before it became a buzzword. Even now, three decades after his death, Lanzarote remains less built-up than the larger of the Canarian islands.

Though there are fancy resorts here, we’re happy to rent a cottage in Punta Mujeres, a tranquil fishing village with natural rock pools, rustic seafood restaurants and bohemian chiringuitos (beach bars).

Along with its next-door neighbour Arrieta, it provides a charming base for discovering the magic of Lanzarote if you’re not here on a cruise.

We spend a good deal of time marvelling at Manrique’s legacy, passing his sculptures on roadsides and roundabouts, and visiting the various ticketed attractions. His last piece, the Jardin de Cactus, adorns a former quarry with 4500 cacti from five continents, and he also masterminded the Mirador del Rio, an awe-inspiring lookout dug into a cliff 400m above Lanzarote’s north coast.

But the most spellbinding of all Manrique sites has to be Jameos del Agua, where he transformed semi-collapsed volcanic caves into an incredible entertainment, dining and cultural compound. “The eighth wonder of the world” was apparently how Hollywood actor Rita Hayworth described it when she visited while filming Road To Salina, the 1970 movie, on Lanzarote. Some of Jameos del Agua, like the radiant, palm tree-flanked turquoise pool, are al fresco, while other nooks, like the 550-capacity auditorium, are framed by basalt walls, provoking acoustics designed to tingle the spine during concerts.

A recent addition to Jameos del Agua is House of Volcanoes, which displays quirky geological finds and invites you on immersive virtual-reality tours of Lanzarote’s volcanic underworld. Another engrossing spectacle is the site’s luminous lagoon, in which Lanzarote’s endemic albino blind crabs wriggle.

A grotto restaurant here offers typical Canarian dishes like grilled Saharian squid and Atlantic wreckfish with papas arrugadas. These so-called wrinkled potatoes are new potatoes boiled in salt water and served with mojo, a peppery red or green sauce. You may wish to pair your meal with a dry white malvasia wine from La Geria, the island’s main vineyard-strewn region (winery tours are available).

Grapes aren’t the only fruit to thrive on Lanzarote. Despite the harsh volcanic soils and low annual rainfall (150mm, about half the average annual rainfall for Western Australia), stuff does grow here. We’re talking almonds, figs, olives, oranges and tomatoes, which you’ll see on the shelves of supermercados (stores) and at the weekly markets that pitch up around the island.

There’s a renowned Saturday morning one in Haria, a whitewashed village where Manrique’s former house and studio is now a museum.

After parking up, we pass lofty palm trees and colourful flashes of bougainvillea, hibiscus and rhododendron, as we approach Haria’s shaded plaza, where a busker is strumming a guitar and friendly stallholders entice crowds with their wares. Jams infused with the island’s aloe vera and cacti, and local cheeses produced with goats’ and sheep’s milk are there for the sampling.

But it’s the artisan crafts that win the hearts — and eat up the euro notes — of many browsers. There’s pottery made from volcanic clay, glassworks illustrated with flickering flames, necklaces composed of lava stones and many other strange and inventive pieces that provide a suitably quirky memento from this unique, extraordinary island one that’s certainly worth a detour from continental Europe.