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Today we decided to head slightly off the beaten track to Playas Del Papagayo.

As you may know from my post about Porth Ceriad  in Wales, we like to make life slightly harder for ourselves and head off to a beach that is a little bit trickier to find. We also like to try and find some of the best European beaches.

To be fair the only really tricky thing about finding Playas Del Papagayo is the unmade road, that’s pretty bumpy, and took us 15 minutes to drive down. It is about 4km and tripadvisor suggests hire car companies don’t like you using it. It hadn’t been mentioned to us though so we took our hire car anyway. On the way back we shortened this drive by turning right straight after the pay booth to drive through a new villa complex rather than struggling down the bumpy road. Definitely a better choice!

Playas Del Papagayo is part of the Spanish equivalent to the national trust the Monumento Natural de Los Ajachesso.  You pay 3 euros to park/to the upkeep/to keep the two guards gainfully employed, however the 3 euros is definitely worth it.

There are 5 beaches to chose from within the collection of beaches near Playas Del Papagayo. 2 are favoured by naturists, so we were glad we hadn’t chosen those (my post children body certainly isn’t up to that) and two have a taverna in-between. Knowing access to food and drink is always a necessity with our three, we chose the beach closest to the cafe and the car park. This turned out to be Playa de Papagayo.

During the drive down the bumpy road I was cursing my husband for making us visit a ‘far away’ beach. It was of course nothing to do with the wine, cocktails and Michelin guide food the night before! All of which was fab, thanks Amura. But I digress.

During the journey I did wonder if Playas Del Papagayo was going to be worth it, but as we walked over the headland you could tell it would be. The view was fantastic. The views were stunning and the beach much more beautiful than I had been expecting from Lanzarote.  his beach was perfect for us, with a shallow walk into the sea, however it would have been tricky to get a pushchair down there, although I did see some.  We were then blessed with a day of the best weather of the holiday.

We tried to catch fish and jumped over waves at Playas Del Papagayo.

We built sandcastles at Playas Del Papagayo

and holes for little ones to hide in:

We had planned on going back down to Playas Del Papagayo after lunch but realising we had 3 very tired girls who actually just needed a sleep we made a break for it and resolved to go back the day after. At 100 euros for 5 meals and 7 drinks it wasn’t cheap, but the food was good, staff were friendly and the restaurant was in a prime location!

We had had such a good day at Playa de Papagayo, that the next day we went straight back to the same coast and tried Playa Mujeres.  Playa Murjeres has a large car park just at the back of the beach so probably easier for those with very young children. It was also lots of fun to watch the boats come in, as they ‘park’ up in the bay for lunch.  The views from this beach are equally as stunning, but it is less sheltered and there isn’t access to food or a toilet, so its definitely a ‘take a picnic’ type of beach.

These beaches definitely ‘made’ our holiday, and we are likely to holiday in Lanzarote again soon. Read our top tips for visiting Lanzarote or why Playa Blanca is so child friendly.

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