Starry, starry night: Why Lanzarote is a star-gazer’s paradise

This volcanic island offers a sustainable spin and clear skies ready for constellation spotting, finds Matt Charlton

A star-strewn sky in Lanzarote (Getty/iStock)

It’s half past five in the morning, and I take myself outside my “surf shack” to feel, smugly, the November warmth. Looking up, I see a star flooded sky – the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt and Polaris, there as plain as… well, night. And thank goodness: this is, after all, what I’ve come here for.

Lanzarote is spearheading the eco-drive here in the Canaries. It’s easy to bandy around a word like “sustainability” in this day and age; but, while I’m here, I meet people who are living proof of this philosophy. A clear night sky is a promising start.

I am in the far north of the island, on the edge of the town of Arrieta – well away from the main town of Arrecife, half an hour down the road – and far enough away from any significant source light pollution (or about as far away as anyone can be on an island of this size).