LagOmar in Nazaret: the house Omar Sharif is said to have lost at cards
Updated October 1, 2026 · 6 min read
The short answer: LagOmar is a visit of under an hour through a quarry that became a house – tunnels, terraces, pools, few information panels. Admission costs €10, and César Manrique did not build it. Anyone arriving by rental car needs nothing more than the LagOmar Museum entry ticket: €10 per person, 4.7 out of 5 from 1,232 reviews – more responses than most paid attractions on this island collect. Without a car, it is worth looking at the two guided tours that combine LagOmar with a second destination.
See prices and availability for the LagOmar Museum
| Offer | Duration | from | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LagOmar Museum Entry Ticket | self-paced | €10 | 4.7 from 1,232 reviews | arriving by rental car and staying as long as you like |
| Manrique Tour with Cactus Garden & LagOmar | 4 hours | €67 | 4.3 from 16 reviews | travelling without a car and wanting half a day of design |
| Lanzarote by Night: Dinner, Wine Tasting & LagOmar | 5.5 hours | €69 | 4.1 from 174 reviews | couples who want the evening planned rather than driving themselves |
LagOmar sits in the village of Nazaret, a few minutes from Teguise, inside the wall of a disused quarry. White plastered forms are pressed into brown rock; tunnels link terraces to pools, and a path climbs through openings cut in the stone. It photographs extremely well, which is why it turns up in so many holiday photos — and why so many visitors arrive with no idea what they are looking at.
Published child rates and opening times differ noticeably between guidebooks and listing sites, so confirm both with the museum itself before building an afternoon around them. Treat €10 per adult as your planning figure and check the rest on the day.
The story, and how much of it to believe
The accounts run like this. The house was going up in 1972, while Omar Sharif was on Lanzarote filming. He saw the half-built place in the cliffs at Nazaret, liked it enough to buy it, and lost it again within days to the developer Sam Benady — over a game of bridge, against a man who was then a European bridge champion.
It is a very good story and it is repeated almost everywhere, including by the museum’s own branding; the name LagOmar carries it. What it is not is a documented sale you can look up. Enjoy it as the local legend it is, and notice that nothing about the visit depends on whether it happened. The quarry, the tunnels and the water are the same either way.
The correction worth carrying with you
Listings routinely file LagOmar under César Manrique. He did not build it. The design is generally credited to Jesús Soto, a Lanzarote architect who worked alongside Manrique on several island projects — among them the interior lighting and the visitor route through the Cueva de los Verdes.
That is not a pedantic footnote. It tells you what to expect. The idea of building into volcanic ground rather than levelling it was shared across a circle of people working on this island at the same time, and Manrique was the loudest voice in it, not the only hand. If you have already seen the bubbles at the Foundation in Tahíche, LagOmar reads as the same argument made by someone else, in a quarry instead of a lava flow.
What a visit is actually like
Allow around an hour. The site is small and the pleasure of it is wandering rather than reading, since there is far less interpretive material than at a CACT centre. Steps, narrow passages and changes of level are constant, the surfaces are stone, and there is little shade on the upper terraces. Sandals with no grip are the wrong footwear.
There is a bar and restaurant on site with views over the terraces, which makes LagOmar one of the few Lanzarote attractions where lingering is part of the point rather than a delay. That also makes it a reasonable sunset stop when you have spent the day inland and want something short before dinner.
If anyone in the group has difficulty with steps, ask before paying. The route is built into a quarry face, and there is no version of it that stays level.
Where it fits in a week
LagOmar works best as a half-stop rather than a destination. It pairs naturally with Teguise, which is a five-minute drive away and holds its Sunday market — and with the Jardín de Cactus at Guatiza if you are heading up the east coast afterwards.
What it does not pair with is a full CACT day. After Jameos del Agua and the Cueva de los Verdes, a third set of tunnels is a third set of tunnels, and the one that loses is usually LagOmar, because it is the smallest. Put it on a day when the rest of your plan is above ground.
The two guided tours that include LagOmar
The four-hour Manrique tour with Cactus Garden and LagOmar runs at €67 per person, rated 4.3 from 16 reviews – a small sample, so read the current reviews. It links two places that sit far apart: the Jardín de Cactus at Guatiza and LagOmar in Nazaret.
See times and prices for the Manrique tour with Cactus Garden and LagOmar
The evening experience with dinner, a winery visit and LagOmar costs €69 per person, lasts 5.5 hours and comes in at 4.1 out of 5 from 174 reviews – the weakest rating of the three options here. It combines a wine tasting at Bodega Suarez with the visit to Nazaret; the restaurant bill is paid on site according to the operator and comes on top of the €69. That is the kind of detail that ends up deciding the price of the evening. More wine evenings are under La Geria wine tours, and the remaining Manrique combinations are under Manrique excursions.
Both are worth comparing against the simple €10 drive there yourself.
Who should skip it
Anyone travelling on a tight attractions budget. At around €10 for roughly an hour with little explanation, LagOmar costs about the same as the Foundation at Tahíche and delivers less to read, and it costs more per minute than the free Monument to the Peasant. If you must choose one, choose on whether you want atmosphere or content.
Families should check the terrain first. Unfenced drops, pools and steps make it a place where small children need holding rather than watching; our guide to the Manrique centres with children sets out which sites on this island actually work with a young group. And if the bridge story is the whole reason you are going, know in advance that the museum sells the legend rather than proving it.
Our recommendation
For most people: the entry ticket for €10, 4.7 out of 5 from 1,232 reviews – the best rating and the widest feedback of anything listed here. You stay as long as you like, take in the terrace bar, and add Teguise or the Cactus Garden to the same day. That assumes a rental car; LagOmar sits inland.
Without a car, with half a day: the four-hour Manrique tour with Cactus Garden and LagOmar for €67. It gets you to two places that would otherwise each cost a separate trip. With 16 reviews, it is the newest offer here – read the reviews before booking.
For a planned-out evening: the dinner, winery and LagOmar experience for €69, 5.5 hours. Add the restaurant bill on top, which is paid on site.
LagOmar is not for you if anyone in the group struggles with steps – the route is built into a quarry wall and never level –, if you have already seen Jameos del Agua and the Cueva de los Verdes the same day, or if you expect panels to read. And with small children, it is a place to hold onto them, not to let them run.
