The Museum of Pirates / Canarian Migrant Museum is located in Teguise, inside the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, an old fortress that rises above the volcano of Guanapay.
The castle, built in the sixteenth century by Sancho de Herrera, was an invincible refuge in front of the incessant attacks of the pirates that the island Lanzarote suffered. The ethnographic museum, constituted in 1991, has 7 rooms that reflect the history of Canarian emigrants and their struggle to overcome the agricultural crisis and poverty of the nineteenth century, as well as their way to American lands, mainly to Cuba and Venezuela. They also tell the curious story of the creation of San Antonio Texas, United States. In this place, according to its founding act, the first government was constituted the 1 of August of 1731 and the first mayor was from Lanzarote.
This union of the stories of emigration and piracy teaches us an aspect of the Lanzarote past, which, in the face of foreign or local threats, managed to overcome adversity. The tour of the museum ends in the upper part of the castle, from where you can see Montaña Clara and Alegranza, with a spectacular view of Famara and the Villa de Teguise. Without a doubt, one of the most curious sights of Lanzarote.
More information:
Saturdays is closed. On holidays, the hours are from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm.