Cabinet of Curiosities - Day 2

Today we have a lump of actual lava.

I picked this up on Lanzarote. The island gets a bad press (e.g. 'Lanza-Grotty) which is undeserved. Sure, if you want to hang out around the main tourist areas that cluster along the Avenue de Las Playas then it's going to be all beach bars, fried chicken and kebab shops, and supermercados full of British people moaning that you can't get proper beer in there. 

But head away from the smell of sun tan lotion and casual racism and you can find some beautiful little ports full of fishing boats rather than millionaires' yachts, and fascinating places like the Valley of a Thousand Palms, or the black sandy beaches and wind-sculpted rocks of El Golfo (they filmed One Million Years BC there), or the volcanic lunar-like landscape of the Timanfaya National Park. 

And, everywhere, there is art by the island's greatest champion and a contemporary of Picasso - César Manrique. His extraordinary home, built in the collapsed lava tubes of an extinct volcano, is quite amazing.

My piece of lava didn't come from Timanfaya as they politely request that you don't take any away. But, being a volcanic island, it's lying around everywhere and I couldn't resist a small souvenir.

It's quite something to hold it in your hand and to remember that it was spewed as molten rock from the mouth of an erupting volcano that doubled the size of the island in just a few days.