Lanzarote 2

This spacey looking view was taken at Manrique's former home.  It's actually a coloured glass ball marking the edge of a path.

Instead of a traditional garden Lanzarote is covered in all kinds of cacti and succulents.  You can probably tell by now that the sculpture above is one of Manrique's.  

The walls that you can see above provide shelter for plants, most particularly grapevines which are an important crop in Lanzarote.  At night the humidity is attracted to the hollows and is channelled to provide moisture to the plants.

Just like at Jameos del Agua the rooms at the Manrique Foundation are built in collapsed lava chambers.

Large picture windows give a view out to the lava field that the house is built in.  If you click on the photo you should be able to see the folds of lava where they have cooled mid-flow.  I have only seen volcanoes on the tv and as awesome as they are it amazing to see the evidence of their arrested flow looking as though it could be coming towards you.  

Manrique collected many artworks in his life and many are housed here at the Foundation.  This glass piece above is by Adolph Luther and concerns concave and convex surfaces. 

More inspiration in the garden.

Lanzarote

You probably don't notice anymore when I don't blog as the gaps are getting bigger but this last gap has been for a pleasurable purpose.  DH and I have just had a holiday to the Canary Islands onboard P&O's ship Arcadia.  I have never been to the Canaries before and I didn't know what to expect but I have been pleasantly surprised.  We visited Madeira and 4 of the Canary Islands and it was wonderful to be in some lovely bright and warm sunshine. 

The highlight of the whole trip for me was a tour we took on Lanzarote.  I had always thought of Lanzarote as being a resort destination for a rowdy holiday, I had not appreciated what a fascinating place it is.  The tour we took was focussed on the influence of Cesar Manrique, an artist and sculptor who was born on the island and who had a great influence over the island's development and growth.  The first stop was Jameos del Agua a restaurant and concert venue built in a volcanic bubble.  To begin with Jameos del Agua sits in a surreal landscape of volcanic rock covered in succulents giving the appearance of anthills.

The lobster is one of Manrique's sculptures which pepper the island.  On arrival you go down a curving staircase into a fabulous grotto.  Grotto only goes part way to describing the scene before you and the atmosphere it conjours up.  I have never walked down inside a volcano before so all the different colours and lava formations were fascinating.  

The entire place imbued a feeling of peace and calm, maybe because of the gentle music playing and the sound of birds singing, or because of the greenery all around. 

Once you are down on the floor of the volcanic bubble you are surprised by the view through to a neighbouring bubble via a volcanic tube and a beautiful pool of water.  The water is a beautiful turquoise and is the home of thousands of tiny white blind crabs no bigger than my finger nail.

All the tiny white specks above are crabs.  They are unique to this location.  Although there is hardly any rain on Lanzarote water dripped through the rock into the pool at one side. 

When you can bear to tear yourself away from the first cavern and walk along the narrow walkway you come up another sequence of stairs through a beautiful garden and out into another roofless volcanic bubble and into this stunning garden and pool.  The pool is deceptively deep and the blue and white colours sparkled in the clear light.  

All too soon we were taken onto  the next location connected with Manrique, the Manrique Foundation which had previously been Manrique's home.  

 

More of this location another time.  I took a lot of video so I'll try and load a bit on here if I can.