Costa Teguise - (very quiet out of season!) (Lanzarote)

Member Name: londongirl

Product:	Lanzarote
Date:	24/08/02 (2637 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: pleasant town, Beach at costa teguise quite nice, lots of things to see and do on the whole island

Disadvantages: tiny beach near barcelo suites, can be very windy

I visited Lanzarote in April 2002 with a friend. We booked it about 3 weeks before we went and it was not our first choice of place to go but because it was the easter holidays it was our only choice within our budget. It was reduced from £799 to £485 for a weeks half board at the Barcelo Suites in Costa Teguise.

Costa Teguise is a fairly nice town, although out of season it is extremely quiet. Very nice during the day to not be besieged by crowds but fairly boring at night to go to restaurants or bars in town and be practically the only people in there. For the most part we stayed at our hotel in the evenings as that was where most of the other guests seemed to stay and also the waiters were quite friendly since they didn't have many people to serve!!
The hotel can cater for over 1000 people when it is full. When we were there there was about 300 according to one of the waiters.

The weather was not warm enough for swimming since the pool was not heated, but it was warm enough to sunbathe by the pool - until it got too windy that is. Lanzarote is can be extremely windy and while going up the mountain at the national park i actually came back with wind burn on my legs!!

The barcelo suites is a well run hotel and is of a high standard. The restuarant serves a buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you are on half board you can swap a dinner for lunch if you want to go out and eat in a restaurant else where for dinner. The food was ok but practically the same every night and got very boring. The breakfasts were really good though with everything ranging from cereal, to fruit, hot croissants, bread and rolls, cheese, ham, yoghurt plus hot breakfasts of sausages, chips, toast, bacon, egg etc.

The hotel is about 10 mins taxi drive from Costa Teguise itself. At first when we booked it we were a bit unhappy that is seemed so far out of town. However taxi's are so cheap (about £1.50 each way) and its easy to get one that it d
idn't matter. It was also nice to not be right in the centre and it was a more peaceful hotel and alot nice than some of them in the centre of town. It also had a lot more space than some of them in town.

The hotel was a few mins walk to the local beach, but the beach was absolutely tiny, it was just a little cove. It said it was small in the brochure and looked small in the picture but it really was tiny. Quite pretty though but often deserted and we didn't feel comfortable or safe sitting there on our own since you had to get to it by a subway under the road.
The bigger more touristy beach was in costa teguise itself and had proper beach facilities but we didn't venture down there in the day as it was a 10 min taxi ride away (although very cheap) and since it wasn't that warm it didn't seem worth it.

We had a couple of excursions while we were there which i would recommend as it is worth seeing some of the island. The main one we went on was an island tour - it took us to Timanfaya national park and we saw the volcanic landscape and the effect the underground heat has. They did a few experiments e.g putting water down a whole into the mountain and the heat caused it to erupt out as steam.
We had lunch in the valley of 1000 palms at an ok restaurant - a buffet style thing. We were given an hour for lunch but were done in 10 mins so while everyone else stayed there we decided to search the town for an ice cream and came across a beautiful square with an ice cream shop and we sat outside for the rest of the time under palm trees with whitewashed houses surrounding and it was one of the highlights of the day!
We also visited Jameos del Agua - caves which had been formed by volcanoes and which an artist (can't remember his name but basically he has art all over lanzarote) had created rooms and things within the caves. It was really quite beautiful and also fascinating was an underground pool of white albino crabs
- the only place they are found in the whole world.
We also visited a vineyard, but although interesting to pass by in the coach it was really only another stop intended to get us buying stuff as we had a wine tasting and were then encouraged to buy a few bottles, but didn't actually get a walking tour of the vineyard or anything.
The trip was worth doing though.

We also took a coach to the market in teguise town centre and while it was ok to spend a little bit of time there , there wasn't much to buy. They do apparantly have demonstrations of flamenco and other spanish dancing in the square on market day but we didnt' see any.

I'm not sure what costa teguise would be like in high season, probably very busy and not so nice. However I would recommend going say perhaps May or June when the weather is warmer but it is not school holidays. I would also definately recommend the barcelo suites for accomodation.

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