Wearing a blond wig with pigtails and a short skirt, Jack is flouncing around the aircraft cabin.
Modelling his borrowed easyJet uniform proudly, he passes down the cabin telling anyone who will listen, ‘It’s my stag do’. It’s all good-natured fun and even the pilot wishes Jack the best in married life, but I wonder if Michael Palin et al have a point in nicknaming our destination Lanza-grotty.
An hour later, all is serene at Secrets Lanzarote at Puerto Calero in the south-east of the island. At the Preferred club’s pool bar, soft music plays as a breeze stirs the palm trees and my friend and I tuck into a seafood lunch. It’s warm, even out of season — year-round temperatures are in the 20s.
This is not the kind of all-inclusive where guests wear a wrist band and mop up free booze at the eternal buffet. There’s an Italian restaurant, a grill and a seafood joint on the beach, along with an excellent sushi bar. And while Secrets has 335 rooms, it doesn’t feel anything like that size; it’s limited to just four gleaming white storeys, stepped into the hillside.
Lanzarote’s most famous son, César Manrique, was responsible for this regulation, which with many others helps retain the island’s wild natural beauty.
Leading the way: Jane Knight stays at the all-inclusive Secrets Lanzarote hotel, which lies in the south-east of Lanzarote
‘This is not the kind of all-inclusive where guests wear a wrist band and mop up free booze at the eternal buffet,’ says Jane
We hire a car for just €35 for the day, driving through stark volcanic scenery where vines are afforded protection from the wind by quaint half-moon dry stone walls.
It feels about as far as you can get from tacky Tenerife or a conglomeration on the Costas. In fact, it was after seeing the effect of mass tourism in Spain in the 1960s that Manrique instigated Lanzarote’s protective laws.
All buildings must be painted white, only differing in the colour of their trim — blue at the coast, green in the interior. Set against the dark volcanic soil, they look like sugar cubes. Manrique used this landscape as his canvas to craft gardens, attractions and lookouts, making Lanzarote more like a vast open-air gallery.
The island’s volcanic past can be seen at the Timanfaya National Park, named after one of the villages that was buried by the angry outpouring of the Montanas del Fuego (fire mountains) in 1730
We head north to probably the most famous of the artist and architect’s sites, Jameos del Agua. This subterranean restaurant and concert venue was sculpted by Manrique from a lava tube formed thousands of years ago when La Corona volcano erupted into the Atlantic.
It’s eerily atmospheric sitting in a huge cavern by the lakeside at the bottom of a flight of rocky lava stairs; I only wish I could have attended a concert there.
More of the island’s volcanic past can be seen at the Timanfaya National Park, named after one of the villages that was buried by the angry outpouring of the Montañas del Fuego (fire mountains) in 1730. An ethereal lunar landscape remains. It’s no wonder the European Space Agency use this other-worldly place as a training ground for future missions.
Jane visits Jameos del Agua (above), it was designed by artist and architect Cesar Manrique and is the most famous site on the island
Above is the marina of Puerto Calero, which is a 15-minute walk from Secrets Lanzarote. Jane says that it’s a good spot for ‘posh shops, gin palaces and people watching’
Here, we tuck into a meal cooked by volcanic heat through an open vent in the Manrique-designed El Diablo panoramic restaurant. Back at the hotel, there’s the chance to cool off in a handful of pools. As it’s adults only, they’re all calm, although there are activities at set times in the main pool, including aqua aerobics or yoga on a paddle board. Instead I opt for yoga on land before visiting the hydrotherapy circuit in the spa.
We intersperse our pool time with a couple of other small forays out of the hotel.
A 15-minute walk takes us to the chi-chi marina of Puerto Calero with its posh shops, gin palaces and people watching. A 50-minute hike along the nibbled cliff in the other direction leads to Playa Quemada, with its black sandy beaches and seafood restaurants.
It’s a good distance to work up an appetite for dinner at the hotel’s sushi bar. In fact, we enjoy the made-to-order sushi so much we order another batch, accompanying it with a deliciously dry rosé. The bill? Nada — it’s all included. ‘I think we’ve just eaten the best part of €100 of sushi each,’ my friend sighs. We both agree that Jack the lad can’t possibly be enjoying himself this much.
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