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Few people wake up with a lamb smuggled into their bed, especially on their 73rd birthday. But when Cesar Manrique opened his eyes on that April morning, his face was sheer joy. For this great nature lover and visionary artist, there couldn’t have been a better present.

Born in Arrecife in 1919, the young Cesar spent many happy summers in the fishing village of Famara where he first fell in love with art and nature. ‘The Atlantic Ocean was my school,’ he wrote, ‘the sea, the sky and clouds, the flora and fauna…, the texture of the sand.’ He joined the surrealist movement in the 50s, exhibiting in mainland Spain and the States, before returning to his native isle, determined to make it into ‘one of the most beautiful places in the world.’ He pulled down the billboards and set to work, painter, sculptor and architect all in one.

Taro de Tahiche

There is no better place to start on the wonders’ trail than Manrique’s home for almost 20 years, just inland from Costa Teguise. One day in 1968, the artist spotted a fig tree growing in a field of solidified lava, its roots deep down in a volcanic bubble. Finding five such vacuums connected inside the rock, he promptly declared: ‘this is where I am going to build my house.’ The land was so barren the owner gave it for free.

Even before you step inside, Taro de Tahiche surprises you, its white walls and fairytale turrets in true island style, lost in a dark sea of lava, sprouting here and there with flowering cacti and luminous palms. A rose-tinted volcano looms in the background, as eerie and stunning as the underground bubbles converted into cool living areas and the indoor garden with its lush plants and trees shooting up towards the light. The only sound is that of new age music and tumbling water in the fountain room. Back in the open, ‘birds of paradise’ bloom in the cinders, volcanic walls enclose a swimming pool oasis and bright murals and sculptures testify to the artist’s belief that art and nature should be one. Today Taro, the ‘pile of rocks’, is the seat of the Cesar Manrique Foundation whose aim is to promote the arts.

Music from the underworld

Turning waste ground into something beautiful and functional was a pioneering effort but others soon followed. Who would have dreamt of an auditorium tucked in a volcanic cavern, with such fabulous acoustics they would impress Yehudi Menuhin, the greatest violinist of modern times? Cueva de los Verdes –the Green Caves- and Jameos del Agua are part of a volcanic tube, created over 3000 years ago when La Corona erupted in the north of the island. While still in New York, Manrique began to sketch ideas to enhance these natural assets so all the world would come to enjoy them.

Agua has two Jameos, or caves with collapsed roofs, linked by a 100 metre long passageway. We visited on the equinox tide, paddling along the edge of an underground lagoon, disturbing the tiny albino crabs which mystify scientists to this day. The water seeping in from the Atlantic was deliciously cool and the sun exploded in a riot of colours through the gap in the roof. Inside, we found a scenic restaurant, an exuberant tropical garden around a turquoise pool and a 600 seat concert hall ready for the next Festival of Visual Music. Such was the artist’s dream for the ‘most beautiful nightclub in the world’.

The volcanic tube continues both under the ocean and inland where you can explore the Green Caves with their small auditorium buried deep in the bowels of the earth.

Fertility rites

There’s something magic about an island, especially when you stand right in the centre. Maybe it’s the views or the energy flow but in Lanzarote, it’s the Museo del Campesino. What better place to celebrate the farmers who harvest this barren land, using volcanic debris to conserve moisture, growing vines in hollows protected by moon-shaped lava walls? For them, Manrique erected the Fertility Monument, a white beacon made of discarded water tanks, standing like a giant jigsaw puzzle on a pile of rocks. He renovated the neighbouring farmhouse and turned it into a museum of island life. Whitewashed walls, green window frames, toy like chimneys peeping above sugar cube buildings, the ‘Casa’ symbolises the traditional style so dear to Manrique while inside, a collection of tools and household objects paints a picture of the past.

Linger a little and you might see some craftsmen at work, be it ceramics, knitwear or embroidery, then try the local fare, maybe dried fish and potato stew, followed by typical sweets served in a rustic setting.

Natural high

In 1973, enthusiasts greeted the Mirador del Rio as one of the world’s most prestigious buildings. ‘It’s on the cliff top,’ we were told, but as we approached the northern tip of the island, there wasn’t a building in sight, not even from the car park or the long winding corridor which seemed to penetrate to the heart of the cliffs. Then suddenly we were there, in a vast vaulted space, gleaming white, with huge curving windows embracing the most magnificent views, rivalled only by those on the upper terrace. At nearly 500 metres above sea level, we looked across the blue waters of the strait to the lovely Graciosa Island, the sprinkling of islets which form the Chinijo archipelago, the cliffs heading towards Famara, the Risco beach far below, the salt pans used since Roman times, glowing red and pink in the bleak volcanic landscape.

We barely heard the guide speaking of a gun battery waiting for US ships during the 19th-century Cuban conflict for all that mattered on that sunny afternoon was the panorama and the vision of a man who helped to design a top tourist attraction, so perfectly integrated in its surroundings.

San José

What can you do with an abandoned castle?

No longer needed to keep pirates at bay or store gunpowder, Castillo de San José was a sorry sight but for anyone passionate about the island, it was ready for a new vocation and it so happened that Arrecife needed an International Museum of Contemporary Art. Manrique built an esplanade to restore a little strength and character to the fortress, adapted spiral stairwells and halls for permanent and temporary exhibitions and converted the lower floor into a strikingly stylish restaurant where even the napkins are black and the harbour seems ready to flood in through a huge wall to wall window.

Built by workers on the brink of starvation after the 18th-century eruptions, the old ‘Fortress of Hunger’ was described by Queen Sofia of Spain as ‘one of the finest modern art galleries’ she had ever seen, another superlative in Manrique’s crown. Since 1976, the museum has displayed works by Picasso, Millares, Miro and others, and Manrique himself though my personal favourites remain his abstract sculptures sprinkled outdoors right across the island.

Lunch with the devil

‘Feel that heat,’ said the guide, so we stretched our hands over the grill, ‘it’s 140º C, more than enough to cook lunch’.

We had watched water turning into steam within seconds, gorse catching alight almost as it touched the ground but only a genius could imagine a restaurant sitting atop a volcano, cooking with geothermal heat, in a spine-chilling moonscape shaped by gigantic eruptions. Perhaps it was a pact with the devil, that dark threatening creature designed by Manrique as a symbol for the Timanfaya National Park. It seemed to follow us wherever we went, brandishing a five-pronged pitchfork above its head, its tail wriggling like lightning towards the ground.

Perched on a ledge, El Diablo has a circular dining room with curving glass walls looking down on sunken craters, rust-coloured slopes and lichen-cloaked hollows. What should we try? Marinated pork, grilled calamari, honey oranges with a glass of Malvasia wine? If there is one place you cannot miss on Lanzarote, it must surely be that red hot Devils’ Restaurant at the heart of the Fire Mountains. The views are superb and the food follows suite.

Final flourish
Ever since he had restored the pretty windmill of Guatiza, Cesar had dreamt of a garden to embellish the narrow windswept plain between the volcanoes and the sea. It was to be a cactus garden, sited in an old quarry where prickly pear growers once dug out volcanic grit to protect their crops. Like most major works, the garden remains hidden as you approach, teasing you through a glass screen before it appears in all its splendour, a breathtaking amphitheatre of volcanic stone with over 1400 species of cacti growing on its finely sculpted terraces. Clinging to the dark soil, they come in every shade of green, and all shapes and sizes, lining the paths, climbing up steps, mirrored in an emerald pool, gathered in tiny clusters or sprouting up like trees, blooming pink or gold among eerie volcanic rocks piled up like aliens.

The Jardin de Cactus is a magical place, the last project completed by Manrique before his fatal accident in 1992, barely 50 metres from the Foundation which had opened that year. But at the age of 73, he had achieved his dream. ‘Lanzarote is like an unframed work of art,’ he once said, ‘and I held it up for all to see.’