Teguise

Teguise wakes up twice. First at dawn, when the only sound is the clatter of shutters on callejones so narrow they keep the sun out until mid-morning. Then again around 09:30 on market day, when fifty coaches nose down the LZ-10 and the plaza’s peace is broken by a man hawking “genuine” Gucci belts for €15. The same belts, incidentally, you’ll see in Puerto del Carmen for €12.

At 320 m above the Atlantic, the old capital of Lanzarote sits high enough to catch the breeze but low enough to feel the heat bounce off volcanic stone. The town planners—long before planners existed—laid it out square by square, so a five-minute walk from the 15th-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe takes you past a convent, a tavern, a bakery run by third-generation Germans, and a house whose balcony still bears bullet holes from a 16th-century pirate raid. History here isn’t cordoned off; it’s part of the plaster.

Tuesday morning beats Sunday brunch

Turn up on Tuesday, around nine, and you’ll share the cobbles with postmen, retired teachers and the odd sculptor sanding down a timple in his doorway. The baker at Bloemfontein has filter coffee ready—unusually for the Canaries, it’s not a thimble-sized cortado—and the smell of cinnamon drifts across to the 18th-century Palacio Spínola, now a free museum where guides actually know the difference between a coffered ceiling and a false one. Stay until eleven and you’ll still get a table outside Bar El Recuerdo for a bocadillo de chicharrón: shards of crisp pork inside a roll soft enough to squash flat, the local answer to a bacon butty.

Return the same afternoon and the place feels half-asleep again. That’s the moment to climb the short volcanic road to Castillo de Santa Bárbara, a fortress set inside the crater of Guanapay. The wind up here could blow the maps out of your hand, but the view stretches right across to Famara’s cliffs and, on a clear day, to La Graciosa. Inside, the pirate museum is small, honest about privateering and laid out so you can be back at the car in twenty minutes—handy if clouds are rolling in at speed.

When the coaches arrive

Sunday is a different business. From 08:00 the LZ-10 queues with excursion coaches from Playa Blanca and Puerto Calero. By 10:00 the main drag, Calle José Clavijo y Fajardo, becomes a slow-moving shuffle of sunburned shoppers comparing diamanté flip-flops. The real artisans—potters who dig local clay and fire it in backyard kilns—retreat one block south to Calleja de San Francisco, lay rugs on doorsteps and sell without the 20% commission charged on the official strip. Their queue is shorter, prices lower, and you won’t have to haggle over a €3 fridge magnet.

If you must do the market, treat it like the January sales: arrive before 09:30 or after 13:00, park for free on Calle León y Castillo, and bring cash. The only ATM lives inside a 17th-century wall and regularly gives up by 11:00. Public toilets are cleaner in the Pueblo Marinero building—50 c donation, keep change ready—than the plastic cabins by the coach park, which close an eye to hygiene.

From white alleys to wild coast

Teguiste is a municipality, not just a village, and the land runs right to the ocean. Twelve kilometres north the road drops through malpaís—black lava fields where vines grow in individual craters—to Famara beach, seven kilometres of yellow sand pounded by surf and tradewinds. The village has no shoreline, so day-trippers expecting a paddle leave disappointed; surfers, meanwhile, regard the 15-minute drive as the price of empty breaks. Swimming is patchy: lifeguards mark out a safe channel in summer, but currents can switch with the tide. Watch the red flag; it isn’t decorative.

Back inland, walking tracks pick across the Guanapay crater or follow stone channels built to catch morning mist. None require hiking boots, but flip-flops on lava are an ankle-turning mistake. Sun is fierce even in January; a litre of water per person is sensible, two in July.

Eating without the market markup

Food prices drop the moment you leave the plaza. At the no-frills Bar La Palmera a plate of papas arrugadas—wrinkled potatoes boiled in seawater—comes with mojo rojo mild enough for timid palates and costs €3.50. Grilled goat’s cheese drizzled with palm honey tastes like bread-and-butter pudding gone savoury; order it at Timple de Tierra after 15:00 and the kitchen has time to crisp the edges properly. Wine lists favour local malvasía grown in volcanic ash; the mineral bite flatters seafood, though you’re 20 km from a working harbour. Glasses start at €2.80, bottles at €14—half the price of beachfront resorts.

When to come, when to stay away

Spring and late autumn give you daylight without the furnace. Between October and April the village hosts proper fiestas: the Romería in October sees locals haul vines and goats downhill to the plaza, and December’s belén viviente turns entire streets into a living nativity complete with sheep on rooftops. February carnival is louder, but daytime temperatures sit in the low 20s, perfect for standing outside while costumed murgas satirise Spanish politics.

August is hot, windless and full of holidaying Canarians who know every parking space. Accommodation within the historic core is limited to a handful of casas rurales; many Brits base themselves in Costa Teguise—15 minutes by taxi—then visit. Don’t confuse the two: the resort has swimming pools and karaoke; the village has cobbles and church bells that chime every half hour through the night.

The bottom line

Teguise rewards the calendar-savvy. Arrive mid-week and you’ll find a lived-in town where grandmothers still beat rugs over 17th-century balconies and the bakery keeps a tray of Yorkshire teacakes for homesick expats. Turn up on Sunday after 10 a.m. and you’ll swear the place has sold its soul one fridge magnet at a time. Either way, budget three hours: one to wander, one to eat, and one to decide whether you prefer your history quiet or wrapped in a €15 “genuine” Gucci belt.