Playa Blanca

📖 History of Playa Blanca

The Playa Blanca coast, the Rubicón coast, is one of the places where the European conquest of the Canary Islands began. In 1402 the Normans Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de La Salle set up their first camp there, with a tower and a small church dedicated to Saint Martial of Limoges. On 7 July 1404 the antipope Benedict XIII created the diocese of San Marcial del Rubicón, with jurisdiction over all the islands, and that church became a cathedral. In the 16th century English pirates destroyed it; today archaeological remains survive near Playa del Pozo, in Papagayo. Between 1741 and 1744 the Torre del Águila, or Castillo de las Coloradas, was built to defend the coast against Barbary raids. Algerian pirates attacked it in 1749 and it was rebuilt in 1769, as a plaque referring to Charles III recalls. Between 1730 and 1736 the Timanfaya eruptions buried nine villages and closed off the bay where the Puerto Real de Janubio stood: that is how the lagoon was born that, from 1895, became the Salinas de Janubio. In 1866 the first Pechiguera lighthouse was lit, on the western tip of the town; the new tower dates from 1988. For much of the 20th century Playa Blanca was a fishing hamlet. Tourism changed everything in recent decades: the hotels arrived, along with the promenade, the Marina Rubicón marina and the Montaña Roja and Las Coloradas developments. Since 1998 cars heading to the Papagayo beaches, inside the Monumento Natural de Los Ajaches, have been charged an entry fee, and today Playa Blanca is the second-largest population centre on Lanzarote.