The Lanzarote wine route without a car: by bus through the wine villages

38 of the 59 businesses in this guide sit under 3 km from a bus stop, and 21 are confirmed as open to visitors. Almost all the work falls on two lines, the 32 in La Geria and the 60 in the south, and the stop called La Geria does not exist in the operator's list of stops.

The wine country of Lanzarote is closer than its reputation says: of the 59 businesses in this guide, 38 sit under 3 km from a bus stop, and 21 are confirmed as open to visitors. What the reputation gets right, it gets right on its own, and that is the clock. The wine villages almost never see more than five buses a day, so the car-free day is not won with your legs, it is won by reading timetables.

There is one rule of use to learn: you plan by stop, not by winery. First which village has a line, then how much ground is left between the stop and the door. And one clarification for anyone landing on the island new: the bus here answers to its island name, guagua.

Masdache and the 32, the stop that solves almost everything

The 32 links Arrecife, San Bartolomé and Playa Honda, and on the way it calls at Masdache, the village that carries the route. Ten departures a day in each direction, from 07:00 to 21:30, with stops at Güime, Montaña Blanca, La Florida and Argana. No other stop in the network gathers so many cellar doors within reach: from Masdache, eleven businesses sit under 3 km away, three of them under one kilometre, and eight have a confirmed visit. Bodegas Martinón is 0,9 km out, Bodegas Vega de Yuco 1,0 km and El Grifo 1,1 km, the big house of the area, with its wine bar at the same stop to round off the tasting with tapas.

Eight of the eleven doors have a confirmed visit, and the other three, Bodegas Barreto, Vinos el campesino and Los Bermejos, are listed as not confirmed, so the doubt is settled by phone before you set out. With ten buses a day, the 32 forgives delays, though the visits finish before the afternoon service does, so the way back is not left for the last minute either.

The rest of the network, line by line

Leaving the 32 and the 60 aside, the wine network lives on lines that pass between one and five times a day. And the semi-direct 62, although it touches Tías with 19 departures, skips the wine villages: it is there to go fast, not to taste. This is the complete network, with route and timetable:

The departure counts apply to a working day, and each line has its own page on the operator's website, with the times for whichever day you look up.

La Geria, without the stop you imagine

In the stops published by Intercity there is not one called La Geria. The name stays with the landscape, so whoever looks for it on the operator's map will not find it.

The line that comes closest to the houses at the far end is the 19, from Arrecife to La Asomada, with stops at Playa Honda, Tías, Conil, Tegoyo and Mácher. The timetable does not help: one single run in each direction, out at 07:00 and back at 07:35. As a visit, very little.

From the La Asomada stop, Bodeguita Vega Volcán is 1,2 km away, Stratvs 1,9 km and Rubicón 2,3 km, and Bodega La Geria, the house that gives its name to the whole landscape, 2,4 km. Those are walks of between sixteen and thirty-two minutes, counted in a straight line. With the tasting inside and the bottle under your arm, the walk out goes by itself, but the return has no bus, so your legs or a taxi take care of it. For the big houses of the area, without a car, the sensible thing is to come in through Masdache on the 32 and add a taxi for the end.

The wine north, with the 16 and the 53

The wine north spreads between two lines that share most of the villages: San Bartolomé, Mozaga, Tao, Tiagua, La Vegueta, Mancha Blanca and Tinajo. The 16 leaves Arrecife at 05:20 and finishes at 20:10. The 53 starts in La Santa and is the only one that links this side of the wine country with Teguise without going through Arrecife.

The stops leave the houses close. Bodega Erupción, 0,3 km from the Tao stop, Finca Fajardo 0,3 km from La Vegueta, Bodegas Montaña Clara 0,4 km from Mozaga, Lanzarote Natural 0,4 km from Tinajo and Bodega Auta 0,5 km from Tiagua. Casa del Vino Canario, 0,6 km from Mozaga, La Verea and Agrur 0,7 km from their respective stops, and Bodegas Guiguan 0,9 km from Mancha Blanca complete the easy arrivals. For the farthest ones, Bodegas Tisalaya, Las Cadenas and Cohombrillo, or Bodegas La Florida in San Bartolomé, the walk already asks for willing legs and shoes you have thought about.

With so little cadence, the timetable of each individual run rules. One example settles it: the official itinerary of line 16 includes a stop called Las Cadenas, like the winery of the area, and the 07:00 departure from Arrecife passes that point at 07:24. Five buses a day get planned appointment by appointment, one exact hour at a time.

Teguise and market Sunday

La Villa de Teguise lies on the route of line 7, the one that crosses the north on its way to Haría, and of the 10 as well, which only works the morning with three runs between 06:10 and 13:50. In town, the wine shop Vinos y + La Villa is 0,5 km from the stop, some six minutes on foot. If the 10 has already gone, the 7 keeps Teguise connected well into the night.

On Sunday the town grows: the market takes over the old quarter from 9:00 to 14:00. For that day the network switches on three lines that do not exist the rest of the week, the 11 from Costa Teguise, the 12 from Puerto del Carmen and the 13 from Playa Blanca, crossing Yaiza, Mácher and Tías. For Sunday, the plan that fits is market and stroll, not a round of visits.

The south, with the 60 almost every hour

The 60 behaves like a city bus: twenty departures a day between 00:15 and 23:30, practically every hour and with a night service, touching Playa Honda, Tías, Mácher, Uga and Yaiza. To that grid add the 61, which leaves the airport and passes through Puerto del Carmen before Uga and Playa Blanca, and the semi-direct 62, which goes straight there: good for getting back, bad for hunting vines.

With that margin, the south runs without the timetable squeezing: Bodega Vulcano de Lanzarote, 0,3 km from the Tías stop, the wine shop Bodegas Chibusque 0,4 km, Winelanz 0,5 km from Uga and Bodegas Timanfaya 0,7 km from Mácher. In Yaiza, Bodegas Tierra de Volcanes is 1,1 km out, and La Rika, the tapas wine shop of Puerto del Carmen, is the worst connected of all: 3,0 km from the Mácher stop, almost forty minutes on foot.

To get a feel for the real times, the 07:00 departure from Arrecife reaches Uga at 07:33, and on the 61 the night service that leaves the airport at 22:30 passes Uga at 23:06. A return at midnight, in the south, is a settled matter.

How you pay, and what to check before you set off

The ticket is paid to the driver, and the amount depends on the route. The operator does not publish the single fare in a stable table, so the exact figure gets checked at arrecifebus.com or by phone, on 928 811 522. For anyone planning to ride more than once, there is the bono, with a 10 % discount on the ordinary fare, a card at 2 € and top-ups of 5 to 50 €.

Two more things before you set off. Published timetables change with the season, so the day that matters gets confirmed on the operator's website, line by line. And the stops promise no shelter and no shade, so the sun of the wait goes into the calculation too: in summer, a wait can weigh more than the walk.

Every business, stop by stop

This is the full list of the businesses that sit under 3 km from a stop, ordered by closeness. Distances run in a straight line from the stop and minutes are counted at an easy pace, so the real walk will add curves and the odd detour. One kilometre on paper is usually a little more on tarmac.

Where to start

For a first outing on the car-free route, the soundest plan starts at Masdache on the 32: get off, pick two or three houses within a stroll of the stop and return on the same line, which has departures until 21:30. With more days or more patience, the north opens up on the 16 and the 53, and the south almost runs itself on the 60. The heart of La Geria, the one around Rubicón and Bodega La Geria, is the only area that asks for special treatment: either an early start on the 19, which does not run twice, or a taxi for the final stretch.

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